You fly over the gravel on your e-bike, surrounded by a mountain backdrop, beautiful forests and not a soul except your better half or your closest friends. At lunchtime, the Radler you brought with you calls, followed by a cooling off in the mountain lake while your e-bike refuels with the rays of sunshine. After refreshment, you continue to the night camp at the natural campsite surrounded by beautiful nature and a peace that can only be found in such places. The fact that there is no power outlet here doesn't bother you in the slightest thanks to your mobile power station. Now all you have to do is end the evening by the campfire and enjoy the freedom - after all, a new adventure awaits you the next day.
This unique experience can be described with the word bikepacking. It comes from backpacking, only that you attach all your luggage to your bike. With the e-bike you have completely different options; you can ride longer distances without the tour becoming stressful or even ride a challenging climb that you would normally just push. Combined with solar energy, you are always supplied with energy and prepared for any tour you can dream of.
If you want to spend your next vacation in beautiful forests, lake districts or the mountains, we would like to give you all the information you need in this article to immerse yourself in nature and escape the stress of everyday life.
The basic idea of e-bikepacking or backpacking is to only take the bare essentials with you, what you need for life, and otherwise enjoy the freedom. Depending on the tour, this can still be a lot, but you will see that you can actually get by with so little.
Let's start with the sleeping options . You can either sleep in a hotel or camp, in both cases you can fully enjoy your cycling holiday.
If you go camping, you will of course need the complete sleeping set consisting of:
When choosing your accommodation, you must keep the space in mind, as, as mentioned, everything will be stored on your e-bike.
Next, we want to go into more detail about how you can feed yourself. It is recommended to follow the premise again: as light and minimalist as possible. The 5-star meal can then be enjoyed again in the stress of everyday life 😉
We won't say anything about food, except that you should plan realistically and not save too much space here.
As for preparation in your field kitchen, we recommend:
Now that you know how to get supplies and where to sleep, we want to talk about the power supply for your e-bike so that you can enjoy your bike trip and not pedal around with an empty battery.
If you are staying in a hotel and do not want to drive long distances during the day, you can simply recharge overnight in most hotels.
If, however, you are drawn to the peace and quiet of nature or have set yourself challenging daily routes, you are dependent on the power from your solar panel, which supplies you with energy while you ride. As enthusiastic bike packers, we have developed our product for this purpose, so that we can discover the lakes, find the valleys and see the mountain scenery that would otherwise remain hidden from us.
If you also want to charge your cell phone, tablet or GPS device, or if your e-bike is not compatible, you can also use our power station, which can supply you with energy using USB ports and a power socket. Alternatively, you can also take a normal power bank with you for your mobile devices if you don't want to be off the grid for too long. When charging with solar energy, it is of course important that you plan according to the weather forecast, but if it does rain, you still have the option of charging with our charger using a normal mains socket or a car socket, which gives you peace of mind through maximum flexibility. Since nobody likes to ride in bad weather, we assume that this should be a given 😉
When we are in bad weather, it is best to focus on other unwanted events: breakdowns and the appropriate remedies.
To be prepared for all eventualities, you should definitely have the following spare parts and tools with you:
This will allow you to get your e-bike back in shape without any problems, but you should also be able to do this for yourself and tour participants, so now we come to first aid and your toiletry bag :
You choose your clothing depending on the weather and the season, with the idea that, especially in nature, functionality is more important than style and you can get by with a lot less if you don't change your outfit every day.
Since the whole thing now has to be stowed away, we will finally look at the transport options
There are various solutions here. If you want to tackle your adventure self-sufficiently in conjunction with your own solar power plant, we recommend, depending on the scope of the tour:
This means you are well equipped for any route you want to take on. We have already listed the most beautiful bikepacking routes in another blog post if you need inspiration for your first bike trip.
Even though that was quite a lot of input, we want to get back to the philosophy of bikepacking, which is such a welcome change from today's life: enjoying nature in a minimalist way. So don't worry too much, use the list as an example, adapt it to your needs and just start with a one-day tour. You will see how much inner peace you return to your everyday life with and what feelings of happiness this independence in the most beautiful nature triggers.
With this in mind, we wish you all the best on your journey and elsewhere!
To a good future,
Your Solarride team
Niklas and Simeon
