A formula for the best bikepacking
experience does not exist. But to
stack the odds in your favour you
should always try and seek out the
limit of your current sphere. As Bill
Merchant, an IditaSport veteran,
adroitly observed, ‘we go into the
Alaskan backcountry to find cracks in
ourselves. We go back a year later to
see if we have done anything about
them.’ Moving to where the cracks are
When our schedules become hectic,
travel is often the first casualty
enables the greatest learning to take
place. I’ve found that these cracks
start appearing at, or just beyond,
the border of my current world.
Ecologists know this phenomenon as
the edge effect; it is at the boundary
of two habitats where the greatest
diversity can be found. This is where
the noteworthy stuff happens. This is
where stories are born.
The unknown is always scary,
but would you want to know your
fate? Chances are we would do very
little if we knew the consequences in
advance. With naivety as your ally,
make your move and you will find life
will move too. Things will happen to
help you out, that otherwise would not
have happened. Most of the horrors I
have portended have come true on the
trial, but things have also happened to
help to me out of those same holes.
Don’t be over concerned with them.
Don’t plan for them. I was once told
that we tend to carry our insecurities,
have a close look at