Kim, you are very bad!
Except, perhaps, handbags.
Bikepackers, or at least bikepacking.com, have fully embraced panniers. Along with frame bags, nodding tail packs, bar rolls, basket bags, Carradice-style transverse saddlebags... bikepackers just love bags! Except, perhaps, handbags.
I found the focus of the article a bit confused. He has at least described using a recumbent and the comfort compared to an upright. But expecting a challenging rough stuff experience in the Netherlands seems a bit unrealistic. And yes, the flatlands might seem tame in those terms. Unless you get a headwind... However there are more scenic routes eg the dunes along the coast, areas like the Hoge Veluwe national park. Maybe just a different set of expectations.
Or am I living in the wrong world?
Incidentally isn't a bar roll something usually consumed in a hostelry and accompanied by a foaming beverage? Or am I living in the wrong world?
A sunday colour supplement article about bright young things seen from a recumbent. I did read it right to the end, much as I would a colour supplement article and finished no wiser about where he had been or what he had actually done. As a way of seducing me to trying a similar activity it fell flat. Not that I am not regularly tempted by the idea to pull out the old Dino, stick the tent on its rack and pedal off into the wild blue yonder (and never follow through with the temptation, sedentary slob that I am) but there really is nothing here to even boost that ambition.Incidentally isn't a bar roll something usually consumed in a hostelry and accompanied by a foaming beverage? Or am I living in the wrong world?
But expecting a challenging rough stuff experience
Quote from: Socks on 29 September, 2023, 03:44:56 pm But expecting a challenging rough stuff experienceBike packing has long since ceased being used to only describe rough stuff off road. It’s used a lot now for trips which are basically indistinguishable from an on road tour.
My chum Gunnar has been doing workpacking this year, which consists of working from home, where home = cargo bike + tent.
The writer was complaining about lack of dirt trails and wild spaces though, not roads.
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2023, 03:13:06 pmThe writer was complaining about lack of dirt trails and wild spaces though, not roads.Clearly didn't try hard enough...J
Quote from: Lightning Phil on 30 September, 2023, 09:23:22 amQuote from: Socks on 29 September, 2023, 03:44:56 pm But expecting a challenging rough stuff experienceBike packing has long since ceased being used to only describe rough stuff off road. It’s used a lot now for trips which are basically indistinguishable from an on road tour.The writer was complaining about lack of dirt trails and wild spaces though, not roads.
I just had a look, there are actually two routes in the Netherlands on bikepacking website. Obviously you could make others. But the longest is only 211km and judging by the photos is mostly farmland: https://bikepacking.com/locations/netherlands/I get the impression he really wants the kind of bikepacking where you don't see signs of human habitation for several days.
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2023, 03:13:06 pmQuote from: Lightning Phil on 30 September, 2023, 09:23:22 amQuote from: Socks on 29 September, 2023, 03:44:56 pm But expecting a challenging rough stuff experienceBike packing has long since ceased being used to only describe rough stuff off road. It’s used a lot now for trips which are basically indistinguishable from an on road tour.The writer was complaining about lack of dirt trails and wild spaces though, not roads.Was he? The article was such a random collection of thoughts it was hard to get a sense of what exactly he was trying to convey.
There is no wild camping in the Netherlands. None at all. The Netherlands has the 22nd highest population density in the world, and behind Monaco, the highest in Europe. And just 1% of the Dutch surface area is considered “wild nature.” There are no long, peaceful rides through the countryside without the whirring of electric motors, the smell of pancakes, the dings of bells, and the fervent moving to the side as groups of cyclists come rushing the other way. There is no camping outside of campgrounds, and in these campgrounds, there is no peaceful morning coffee overlooking sunrise on the mountains ahead. The sunrise is always behind a tree or a building. The babies always cry and the neighbors always snore. The bathrooms are always clean and the tent is always wet. The Netherlands is heaven for cyclists, but it’s a certain hell for bikepackers.
I learned that nothing is really that dorky and embarrassing if it grants you access to something otherwise inaccessible. And self-powered movement had become inaccessible after the surgery. I had missed the world around me, and this had closed that gap. I also thought of the Netherlands. Of this heaven and hell, of this promised land that falls a bit too short for me. And I guess I had accepted it by the time I returned to my shortly adopted home in Amsterdam. No place is perfect. There is no San Diego with Dutch health care and Dutch bike lanes. There probably never will be. Life is accepting disappointment. And bikepacking is an exercise in life.