My thoughts on bikepacking with Fjällräven / Specialized gear
“I feel the need, the need for speed.” - Maverick (Top Gun)
I’m sure you can remember getting your first bike growing up, you biked everywhere, putting playing cards on the back wheel so people would hear you coming down the street, this was of course just a small feature on a bike that was literally covered in bells, whistles and stickers. The first time you biked to school alone feeling like you got the world on a string. Or when you learned how to bike with no hands even though you weren't supposed to. During the school period the bike was THE way of transportation if you lived in the city.
In a flash, bikes turned into scooters and mopeds, the distances grew and the time to get there was shorter. Reputation and status became a thing, even if I didn’t really understand it. One thing was clear, it was cooler to have a scooter than to have a bike. I still biked every once in a while, then it was the bus and then came the drivers license along with the feeling of total freedom from having my first car. The bike era was no more. It stayed dead for many years, there wasn’t a need for the bike that the car couldn’t have solved. I remember getting a foldable bike, keeping it in bike stand by the apartment that I recently got. It pretty much just stood there and rusted away. I sold it and the years went by once again. I can’t remember exactly how, but I know that my dear friend and colleague Arber was involved, he had just gotten a road bike and was trying to get me into getting one as well. I wasn’t impressed, but our studio was in perfect bike distance and paying for parking with the car wasn’t that fun. So I got myself a single speed road bike from State Bicycle Co.
By this time I was already making videos and loving nature and the outdoors. I thought I found the perfect way of enjoying nature, just like we’ve done for thousands of years, exploring with nothing but the things we could carry with us on our backs. little did I know that it was about to change, it was all due to my love for nature and filming. I had the awesome opportunity to go to Scotland and the Fjällräven Classic UK to film and take part myself. I finished a bit ahead of time just to be able to go back and film on the trail while there was still hikers there, and that’s when it happened.
A guy from the crew had a gravel bike with some of the new bags from the Fjällräven/Specialized collab. I was able to borrow his bike to back track to one of the last checkpoints. Now before we go any further it’s important that you understand how much I love hiking and everything I get out of it. I built my YouTube channel based on hiking and it has lead me to countless wonderful places and memories all over the world.
But my friend.. when I got on that bike and pretty much flew over the trail I knew I found something very special. If you only take one thing from this post take this: The speed combined with the amazing scenery minus the load of your back is what sets bikepacking apart.
All of a sudden everywhere is nearby and far away is not.
A lot of my subscribers had already asked me if I could make a review on the products but I wasn’t sure until I tried it. As soon as I got back I called Arber and started planning a new adventure, this time on wheels.
Tons of time and meetings later we are on our way to the Nishiki factory in Gothenburg to pick up bikes from Nishiki and Principa, Nishiki handmakes their bikes there, we also got a lot of tips and information from the very experienced crew on site. They helped us set the bikes up and adjust them to our needs. Said and done we now got our adventure planned out we got the bikes we wanted but what about the gear?
We were both very excited to say the least, the waiting felt like an eternity. We did have to postpone our initial set off date by a couple of days since the final pieces had’t arrive yet. We also had to prepare both the bikes and ourselves a bit. We finally got everything and now it was just a matter of getting it all fixed on the bikes, easier sad than done but we made it. Remember this is my first contact with this way of moving about in nature, with that said I do like the “mechanic” part of it and I like fine-tuning things on my bike, it brings me back to what we used to do as kids but now its bags and cool caves instead of bells and stickers.
Being new and learning something for the first time again when your’e a bit older hits different, you enjoy the whole process a lot more and you understand and accept that you are new but also curious and eager to learn more. After a couple of test runs and last minute fixes we were at the crossroads, do we leave tonight or wait for tomorrow?
Like true adventurers we chose to ride of into the sunset, we took the train to Ystad, and of we went into the warm summer night. Already on our first night we got a really big surprise, since we move a lot faster compared to hiking, make close to no noise except when we’re screaming to each other, we saw TONS of animals, either we got lucky or that way of traveling makes it so much easier to catch a glimpse, we saw several packs of deer and wild boars, close enough for comfort. It felt like the beginning of The Lion King movie. Through the excitement of seeing animals like that and being out on an adventure again we still made a lot of progress. We decided to stay our first night by Snogeholmssjön, perfect place to spend the night in a tent. luckily for us we brought a tarp with us to be used like a bike garage and get ready area in the morning, that was a great success since the Swedish summer includes a lot of sporadic rain.
besides bringing a tarp there was a couple of other things we decided to do, number one being only bring snacks and water. That’s right, no food and no stove, we decided that we would be able to stop and try the local food everywhere we went, that was another great idea! The real reason for us was that our camera gear took up a lot of room so this just made it so much easier, less was more.
Second, we had the luxury of using the Sleep Poncho, don’t worry there will be a review about it, it’s perfect to use when you arrive at night or early in the morning, in other words you put it on when you arrive and take it of when you leave, in the mean time you just adjust it from poncho to sleeping bag.
As you can tell from the image above we hade quite a few things with us. With that said, you could still cut it down a lot more, obviously you’d be tightening up the comfort a bit. If your’e not an aspiring YouTuber you might even be able to ditch the cool caves (sidebags) and become even more aerodynamic with just things being fitted on the frame and not on the sides. Just like hiking and adventures you can tweak it into whatever suits you.
It was really on the second day that we realized how smart the little pockets, handlebar bags and seatbag harness is and how much you can fit in them. Most of the things if not all of them have a multipurpose function, a lot of the bags can be used as stand alone bags for example. that goes for the handlebar bag and the yellow cave lid pack.
To conclude, bikepacking opens up a new way for us to explore nature around us near and far. If you haven’t tried it before, bring your backpack, put it on your bike and go explore the great nearby for a day or two. Moving in this speed, feeling the wind in your face and at the same time rolling through nature watching it all from the comfort of your saddle is something I wish everyone had a chance to experience. To see the full bikepacking adventure head over to my channel where you find reviews and more videos on Fjällräven and the gear we used!
