Planning a bikepacking trip, or any form of independent travel, can be a daunting task. It is often enough to kill the passion for tackling that great adventure of a lifetime that you’ve always wanted to do, but it doesn’t need to be that way.
Thankfully, these days, there is plenty of information and help available to make the process a whole lot easier. There are some truly epic off-road journeys plotted out there, rides that could potentially change your life and introduce you to different ‘worlds’ and cultures that you never knew existed.
It’s hard to know where to start when detailing these great adventures, as they do exist everywhere – if you look in the right places; though, these are seven of the very best out there.
Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit is known as one of the most spectacular high mountain multi-day treks on earth. Over the years, tourism and road building have made the route ever more accessible, including to adventurous mountain (and even gravel) bikers.
Most riders start from the town of Besisahar, and follow jeep tracks, technical singletrack, encounter long steep climbs, and hike-a-bikes all through. Riders stay in tea houses along the route, and then cross the snow-covered Thorong La Pass at 5,416 meters tall, before descending to Jomsom in Lower Mustang and continuing the circuit.
Although Cory Wallace has set sub-24-hour FKTs (Fastest Known Times) on the 215km route, this is a really tough ride, and acclimatisation is needed along the way, making it a week or more for fit and mountain-competent riders. The route can be ridden solo, though joining one of the many organised trips (or hiring a guide) is advisable for most, as it’s no place for the inexperienced or unprepared.
Spring and autumn are the best times to attempt the route – and do check out the latest permit/TIMS regulations before setting out for Nepal.
GranGuanche Trail, Canary Islands, Spain
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Stretching around 800km/500 miles on mixed gravel, trails, and roads, from Lanzarote to Palma in the Canary Islands is the GranGuanche Trail. This is a self-supported bikepacking adventure along the route of the legendary Audax of the same name, which Justinas Leveika finished off in three days and six hours last year.
From the windswept lava fields of Lanzarote, the route crosses deserts and mountains as it traverses Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Tenerife to reach La Palma, all linked together by ferries.
This is a tough and spectacular ride, which is also easily accessible from the UK, thanks to the budget airlines.
European Divide Trail
If you have some serious time on your hands and are looking for a long-distance, continent-spanning off-road bikepacking adventure, then the 7,600km European Divide could be for you.
Starting from the far north of Norway, the route passes through nine countries before ending in Southern Portugal.
The going is mostly rideable, with around 65% being off-road, though you’ll have around 80,000 metres of climbing thrown into the mix too.
For most riders, this is a three-to-four-month epic, although Angus Young cracked the FKT for the route in just 32 days. Naturally, this could also be attempted in different sectors at different times, too.
Colorado Trail, USA
At almost 540 miles in length and traversing the high altitude and exceptionally rugged Colorado Rockies, the Colorado Trail is renowned as one of the toughest and most popular bikepacking trails in the USA.
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From Littleton (Denver), the route crosses the mountain state on its way to Durango, a legendary place in mountain biking terms. This is a mountain bike route of the wildest of the west order. There’s around 3,000 metres a day of elevation to crack, lots of high-altitude bike carrying, steep and technical singletrack, huge descents, and jaw-dropping mountain scenery all through.
Due to snow cover, it’s only really rideable between July and September, and this route demands a good level of fitness, mountain awareness, and preparation. Fit riders take around 10-12 days to finish the route, though Lachlan Morton set a non-FKT time of three days, 10 hours here a few years ago.
The Pamir Highway, Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan
They call the Pamir Highway the roof of the world, and few bikepackers who’ve ridden it wouldn’t argue against that, albeit a broken and patchy old roof. Running from Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, for around 1,250km to Osh in Kyrgyzstan, the route takes in around 30,000 meters of climbing – at high altitude, with passes topping 4,500 metres.
The terrain is harsh, rough, on a mix of broken road and gravel, and you can bet your flat tyre that you will experience the extremes of Mother Nature’s weather wrath. This is a seriously remote place, with wide-open, bare-naked mountain vistas surrounding you, and few resources along the way, so be prepared to be self-sufficient much of the time.
There are numerous variations of this classic journey, with many taking the lower altitude Wakhan Corridor route, and others going even more extreme in their route planning. However you approach this, be well prepared, including mentally; this is a true rugged adventure in every possible sense.
As for timescales? That’s a tough one; expect to spend at least two weeks here, but do allow leeway to double that, as conditions, expectations, and incidents can flip plans sideways.
Alps Divide, France, Italy and Switzerland
If you like climbing, and lots of it, the 1000km Alps Divide Trail from Menton, on the Côte d’Azur, to Thonon-les-Bains (Lake Geneva) is sure to both challenge and please you.
Weaving through the western Alps, passing through France, Switzerland and Italy, on an off-road heavy mix of mountain trails, with some road too, the going is relentless – with over 32,000 metres of climbing along the way. The air gets thin, and the vistas are eye-popping for much of the way, as you take the off-road approach to many of the classic alpine climbs and regions.
Although the trail FKT is four and a half days, most riders sleigh this monster in just over a week, but a couple of days of leeway is always worth building into any plans here.
Baja Divide, Mexico
Stretching 1,700 miles from San Diego in California (USA) and weaving its gravel-sandy way south through the coastal Baja California (Mexico) to reach La Paz at the end of the Baja peninsula, the Baja Divide off-road bikepacking route has become one of the most popular in the Americas in the past few years.
Most ride the route over 40-42 days during European wintertime (the route FKT is just over 10 days), primarily wild camping along the way. This could make for an ideal winter-long bikepacking adventure.
