Tips for bike packing in autumn: Stepping outside your comfort zone

You’ve got to want it. That’s the most important thing of all for a bike-packing trip in autumn. If you’re mentally prepared for the fact that it gets dark much earlier now, that damp air creeps under your shirt and that temperatures can drop to freezing at night, you’ll appreciate the positive aspects of an overnight ride all the more:

• No overcrowded trails – you’ll have the hiking routes and camping spots all to yourself right now.
• The starry sky is exceptionally clear
• The weather is more stable
• There are no more mosquitoes
• The birds sleep in in the mornings and don’t start chirping at 4 o’clock
• A long, leisurely ride in autumn helps you stay fit throughout the winter

However, in autumn, there are a few things you should take with you on your trip to protect against the damp, cold and darkness – things you can safely leave at home in summer.

Damp: avoid it as much as possible

Damp and wet conditions cool the body down the quickest. That’s why you should plan your trip for a period of stable, fine weather wherever possible. You’ll still have to contend with damp, though, because the mist that now rises so photogenically from fields, meadows and bodies of water also creeps into bags, tents and clothes. Unfortunately, the sun isn’t strong enough now to dry everything out quickly again with its first rays in the morning.

Tips for dealing with damp and moisture:

• Tent or Bivouac Don’t set up camp in hollowed-out patches of meadow (= fog pockets!), but rather on a dry hill, ideally even in a forest where you’re sheltered from the wind. Be sure to check the trees beforehand for autumn ‘windfall’. Chestnuts, acorns and pine cones falling from a height of five to ten metres can really hurt – and, above all, they’ll keep startling you out of your sleep!
• Try not to sweat if possible! A damp cycling jersey draws unnecessary heat away from the body, even during short breaks. So it’s best to cycle at a relaxed pace during the ride and follow the tried-and-tested ‘layering’ principle. For the base layer, it’s best to choose a merino shirt (and socks too), as this keeps you warm even when damp. The downside is that merino doesn’t dry as quickly as other technical fabrics. But staying warm is more important on a two-day trip.
• Double-walled tent: The aim is to minimise condensation inside the tent. With a simple tarpaulin, condensation quickly pools on the tent floor or drips from the ceiling and seeps into your sleeping bag. Frequent ventilation helps with this, but adding another tent wall is even better. This also provides better protection against the wind and the cold.
• Pack batteries and power banks in waterproof packaging: Damp and cold also drain the batteries of mobile phones and GPS devices more quickly. If you want to know where to go the next morning, make sure you wrap everything up well – ideally inside your warm sleeping bag.

Cold weather: Nights close to freezing point

Even though it’s still a pleasant 20 to 25 degrees in the sun during the day, it quickly turns chilly in the evening – and, combined with damp mist, it can get bone-chillingly cold. Freezing temperatures cannot be ruled out in the early hours of the morning. So be sure to rethink your sleeping kit. The sleeping mat and sleeping bag that worked in the summer will certainly no longer be enough now. It’s particularly important to protect yourself from the cold coming up from the ground, as even a good sleeping bag can’t keep you warm against that.

Equipment and tips for cold nights down to zero degrees:

• Sleeping mat with an R-value of ≥ 3 (and also place a thermal blanket, pine branches or leaves under the sleeping mat)
• Sleeping bag with comfort rating up to 0 degrees. Please note: Although down is lighter, it doesn’t keep you as warm if the feathers get damp!
• Do not sleep under bridges: A chilly wind is always blowing through here.
• thermos flask: You don’t really fancy drinking cold water when it’s cold outside. You can make tea with hot water, and you can take the pot into your sleeping bag to use as a hot water bottle.
• Catering: The body burns significantly more calories in the cold. Soups are a good choice. They keep you warm and also help to meet your fluid needs. Products that become hard or chewy in cool temperatures are not a good choice. Examples include muesli bars and energy bars.
• Gas cooker: In summer, you really only need it to make coffee. In autumn, however, it’s essential, because a hot evening meal helps keep you warm. But be careful: the boiling point of standard gas (often a mixture of butane and propane) reaches its limit below about 5 degrees. It doesn’t vapourise quickly enough and the pressure in the cartridge drops. In other words, there’s only a faint flame – or none at all. In that case, you can still try pre-warming it, for example in your sleeping bag, or you can opt straight away for a special Winter gas mixture (e.g. from Primus)

Light: We need to get things done more quickly in the evenings now

From October onwards, it doesn’t just get chilly in our part of the world – it gets dark quickly too. By 6 pm the sun has set and there isn’t much time left to pitch your tent in the twilight. And unless you’re planning to camp under a street lamp, you’ll very quickly find it almost impossible to see anything properly. A head torch is therefore an absolute must-have.

Tips for when it gets dark early:

So the most important piece of kit is a good Head torch. It shouldn’t be so bright that it scares the animals in the woods, but it should be bright enough for those overnight moments:

• Finding things in your bags: Make sure you pack logically at home so you don’t have to spend ages searching for things when you’re out and about. Trying to find black socks in a black inner pocket with cold fingers, for example, can be really annoying...
• If you need to go to the loo in the middle of the night
• When the sun sets at 6 pm, the night is already quite long. Sleep is out of the question for the time being. Cooking helps pass the time a bit; playing on your mobile depends on the battery level, but a good (not too heavy) book is a really good idea.