Unsupported touring gear advice

Unicycles and Equipment
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I hope I have put this under the right category!!

I’m planning on touring across parts of Europe this year (namely Germany), and I’m looking for advice (particularly from you rare folks who have toured unsupported). I have never bikepacked and completed my first uni-packing trip last week.

Despite having never bikepacked, I have been an outdoor educator for a number of years and have a good background knowledge on quality gear, perhaps that is adding to my confusion to some degree :sob:

Let’s get the basics out in the open:

The uni: KH36” - the one with the disc brake

The setup: Cary Gray bags on the custom mudguard with clips. These hang from a Nimbus Shadow Bar setup.

Shelter: I have been using a small tarp from Decathlon

Sleeping pad and bag: Klymit Static V (1.9 R-value) & OnePlanet -3°C bag (down)

For a look at how this works, I’ll attach a video below…

My conundrum(s):

  1. I have a tent, a Mont Moondance 2. It’s awesome and has great warranty and repairability. Unfortunately it is frankly too heavy, and the poles too long to justify the space in my setup. I have looked at BigAgnes tents and they look great, but I wonder if I would be better off looking at getting a bivvy + tarp setup instead. What have you folks used that suits 3-season adventuring? What is the weight of your setup?
  2. Are the Nimbus Shadow bars likely to hold-up long-term with all the added weight/strain? How have you folks built/fabricated your bars? I saw Ed Pratt had a family member fabricate his, but I never saw the details of the exact construction, which I’m interested in.
  3. For the Europeans: Will a -3°C sleeping bag, well-insulated mat, and a tarp suffice up between July - October, across say, Germany, Netherlands, and Denmark? I will get myself a warm liner too, but I worry that wind chill might necessitate an actual tent (or the bivvy + tarp as mentioned earlier). I know this is a big area of land, but I just want an idea as to whether I’m in tbe ball-park or grossly underpreparing myself.

By golly, that’s a lot from me. If you have any thoughts regarding any of these points, I’d love your input. Please also reach out if it seems from my video (or general lack of experience) that I may be overlooking something important.

Video as promised

(though I know lots of you have already seen it, and thanks for all your support by the way!):

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Without suggesting equipment changes, the lesson I learned the hard way was to centralize my heavy things closer to the frame. It reduces the horizontal sway a lot.

A hydration backpack or fanny pack with your during the day items is also nice with a waterbladder so you can go longer between stops

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I’m planning on bringing a Camelback into my gear-fold for water. Nalgenes are an awkward size in the touring bags!!

Can I ask about your handlebar setup? Are they the nimbus shadow or are they custom fabricated?

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Have you ever been under your canopy set up when it rained?

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Yes, have done many times as a guide. Though it isn’t my favourite situation, it’s certainly manageable for a couple consecutive nights. Heavy rain has given me grief once or twice :sweat_smile:

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July-august-september : no problem. October : chill can definitely arrive, and nights could get uncomfortable.

I don’t have that much experience, but I will tell you what worked and didn’t work for me during my two trips.

First of all, both my trips :

  • From Östhammar to Stockholm back and forth - in May 2022. 340 km in 5 days, plus 3 rest days in Stockholm. I used my touring unicycle (you can check My custom travel frame for more informations about it). On the way there, I did my first 100 miles, and a 25 km day. On the way back, it was 27 - 40 - 80 km.
  • From Minneapolis to Chicago - August 2025. 816 kms in 7 days. I used the same setup, but with a schlumpf hub.

For both trips, I slept in a hammock with a tarp (decathlon stuff first time, ticket to the moon the second time If you happened to be interested, I have a 10% affiliate reduction code - AURELIENPAULMIE). Its main advantage is that it is easy to install, and doesn’t have contact with the ground → no problem with rocks and roots. But hammocks don’t isolate as well, especially under you (I am currently thinking about getting a moon quilt from TTTM once again, affiliate link. It can also get quite uncomfortable for the back, due to the hammock curvature. Overall, it worked out great, but night were really uncomfortable due to the cold.

On the US trip, I also slept several times at people’s houses (warmshowers and persons recommendation).

For food, I ate a lot in restaurants, fast foods and service stations. I only had food for one day on me, in order to save weight and room in my bags.

I used a camel-back for hydration, which was really nice while riding. I had basically only that on my back (as well as some tools).

For cooking, I used a jetboil stove. It is extremely efficient and compact, and sufficient for one person.

I used a L airlite towel for showers. It was not the most efficient, but sufficient and very compact.

Overall, the schlumpf hub was a really good addition to my setup and getting a lighter, compacter hammock allowed me to save space and taking more stuff (clothings, food related stuff). I used ultra light and compact stuff for basically everything, but it is fairly expensive.

If you have any question, feel free to ask.

I allowed myself to include the affiliate link to ticket to the moon. It gives you 10% reduction, and I also get some commission. I used it before getting affiliate, and would absolutely recommend their stuff. If anybody has any problem with that, please tell me and/or contact an administrator.

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Love this overview!! It’s 1am here so I’ll look over your links in time, but I appreciate all your thought and input :heart::folded_hands:

A hammock sounds like a great idea, but I have never comfortably slept in one overnight (I love to nap in them though!). I think for this reason I will stick with something I can use with my current sleeping pad and sleeping bag.

Do you know if WarmShowers is still used/popular in Europe? I have never used it before and it sounds great, but I only know of people who used it years ago in Australia.

I would love to one day justify the cost of a schlumpf hub, but for now, I want to keep my setup as basic as I can, and within a reasonable cost (I have already spent so much haha). Your tours sound incredible, and at such an incredible pace, too!!

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Also, how many litres capacity do you ride with? I’m thinking of 2 water bottles + 3L camelbak (5L total)

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I travel with 2,5 L of water (2 liters in the backpack, 0,5 liters in a bottle). I was out of water once (in the USA, after 80 km, including 30-40 km without any city, with 91% humidity and 30°C), I could refill shortly after and finish the 137 km day without issues.
Going with too much water is most likely not a good idea. In Europe, water is drinkable basically everywhere, and it is easy to fill bottles and bladders in any shop (and, at least in France, in cemeteries).

During my USA trip, I refilled my camelback with water in every service station, and my bottle with coke or mountain dew (loads of sugar, caffeine and some taste).

Warmshowers is used quite a lot. My parents used to receive people pretty often until a few years ago. It is quite easy to see if people are available though (after paying the 20 or so € inscription fee).

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Oh wow okay! I’m used to hiking as a guide with sometimes 12L of water, so I already thought I had trimmed it down :rofl:

I forget how close towns are in Europe, perhaps. For reference, I am living in a town where the nearest supermarket is over 300km away (about a 5hr drive). I guess I am just working with the possibility I’d be going up to 100-150km between towns which I realise now is certainly overkill (my planning is still very much in the early stages, clearly :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:).

I will be trimming down on water capacity as a first step, then

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Where in the world are you ? Also, I guess you will travel after the unicons, Am I right ?

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I’m from Melbourne, but at the moment, I’m living in a rural community in the Northern Territory in Australia.

Yes, I plan to possibly ride to Unicon from Vienna and then on to maybe Denmark from there.

If anyone sees this, I am hereby holding an open invite for anyone to join me

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I would love to, but sadly won’t be able to (not enough holidays sadly), and I should be going and leaving with my family by car.

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My set up was not the same as yours so I just had a Flanz tiny bar, a backpack, and would put water bottle mounts on the frame to take that weight off my back. It was intended for trips where I could resupply along the way over 1-3 days.

I liked using a backpack (osprey ones specifically) becuase they support the weight well and I didn’t need to worry about horizontal sway.

I’ll be testing it for my first multi day unipacking trip later this year but I would use it for longer trips if I could. The centralized weight makes riding a bit easier but gives UPDs more force.

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If you haven’t seen it already, here is Becky’s video on the equipment she used to do the European Divide Trail. Her 29er setup has maybe less capacity than your 36er with Cary Gray bags so you might be able to carry more stuff, but you can see what she had for a long European tour. She is on this forum if you have any questions.

Also Edd’s Unicycle Life Podcast, Series 2 features Becky (episode 1) and Ed Pratt (episode 2) and as far as I recall there is some discussion on Unipacking versus Unitouring – it is a while since I listened to these but I think Becky’s trips up to that point had been unipacking (rucksack etc) whereas Ed obviously had the same unitouring setup as you have. They are definitely worth a listen (as are all Edd’s podcasts) I’ve linked them on Apple Podcasts but they are available elsewhere too.

Bella Malloy’s Seek Travel Ride Podcast also has an episode with Becky (ep 44 linked below) about her European Divide tour. If you are into adventure touring Seek Travel Ride is worth a listen for inspiration, albeit normally on two wheels.

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I should also have mentioned Ed Pratt’s tour across Latvia with a different setup from his World Tour. If you haven’t seen it already this might have some more useful advice for European touring and the equipment he used in this case.

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So I have a Helium Bivy by Outdoor Research, it’s under 500g and paired with a tarp it is my only shelter I use. I’m 180cm and fairly lean, with a 3” pad I find I have just enough room to change.

It has a bug net and doesn’t have major condensation issues if you allow it to vent. It packs down to the size of a 750mm wallet bottle without the pole.

I have tried using it with a sleeping bag but my sleep setup is usually a breathable mylar bag with down pants and jacket paired with Merino base layers. I find this setup gives me an extra layer of water protection. I also will put all of my clothes and everything I need in the bivy with me in dry bags just in case any water gets in. I find having the pad be elevated means I’m not worried about getting what myself if any rain or anything does get in or if there’s a lot of condensation.

I’ve tried many of these types of shelters and this is by far my favorite one. I have used it for week-long camping trips at the start of the season in Banff Canada. It’s miserable to be under in a rainstorm, but I never had any issues with safety or water getting in in heavy rainfall.

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Maybe @Becky98 can even chime in here …

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Great project!

I am not a very experienced unicyclist, but I did two 3-days trips in Italy in July 2023 and a 4-days trip from Brno (Czech Republic) to Bratislava (Slovakia) through Austria in June last year. For both trips, I used my 29" RGB with a setup similar to Becky’s (see links and photo above). This meant that I had to be much more selective about the gear I carried than you would have to be in 36” with a touring bags. For a few-day trip, it worked well, but for a longer tour (more than a week or so), I would have to make some changes. In particular, I have a tent that I love (a Salewa Litetrek 2), but to save space and weight, I used the tarp + bivvy bag option. This worked well, even in a rainstorm in Italy, but I could never get a deep and restorative sleep/was always on high alert. I also had problems with mosquitoes in Italy, so I bought a mosquito head-net for my trip last year. However, it turned out that I didn’t need it this time. I’m not sure how comfortable it would have been though.

Some European knowledge sharing:
* it is a bit off topic but I think it is the kind of information I would be happy to get if I was planning a trip to Australia… hope it will be useful.

First of all, central and western Europe is highly densely populated (esp. if compared to Australia), so on local roads, it is rare to do more than 20km without the option to go through a village…

Food and water: On the contrary to your habits, or even when hiking or paddling where you are usually avoiding the villages, you don’t need to carry much food and water (nor waste). As Aurélien also wrote, you can easily buy food day after day (except maybe on Sunday/Holidays, but some service stations, bars, and restaurants will still be open). In both trips, I also had 2L of water capacity, but I was rarely carrying that much, except in the evening/after the last water-stop.

Google Maps is a practical way to check the opening hours of grocery stores, as it is at least country, but often region, dependent… I actually use Google for everything (food, public transport, points of interest,…) except the map! For water points, I was mostly relying on OpenStreetMap, and it worked surprisingly well! I have OSMand on my phone to have proper offline maps, and one of the map profiles was always showing the water and grocery market POIs…

Regarding planning, I mostly used Opencyclemap , Brouter.de , and just reading the map as it comes. Last year, I followed a bit the EV13 which made navigation much simpler. The EuroVelo website (https://en.eurovelo.com/) has country specific pages that can be informative even if not following any EV. Komoot and Strava are also very popular and can be used for inspiration (or tracking).

Overnight: Sadly, it is forbidden to wild camp and even bivouac (wild camping only from dusk till dawn) in Germany (and also in Austria I think)… So the closest way to do that is to ask a farmer/villager to spend the night on their land. There is even a website to find people that accept travellers to stop in their garden:

The hosts are mainly in Germany, but there are also a few in neighbouring countries. Another option is private/for-a-fee camping (campingplätze), or finding one of the free municipal campsites that still exist (usually under the name Stellplatz). Be warned, the latter can also be designated places that are only suitable for vans.

Denmark is much better in this regards, even if it is not quite on a par with its northern neighbours and their allemannsretten tradition (~ free right to roam). Apparently, there are lots of dedicated bivouac areas especially in the public forest.

In general, I would recommend looking at the regulations for each country and asking the locals about the laws (and customs) when you arrive. Asking Warmshowers hosts is surely a good way.

Alternatives to Warmshower:

- https://www.bewelcome.org/ (never used, but recommended in a cycling group chat I am part of)

- Couchsurfing

- If you are ready to learn Esperanto: https://www.pasportaservo.org/

In moments of despair or sudden urge for a warm bed, booking.com often does the job: the map option is quite practical to optimise the price/km to pedal ratio.

Climate: In northern Europe, the best months are generally June and July, it can start to be quite autumnal in September. So, if you can, I would rather advise to go north by train after the Unicon and then pedal down back to Central Europe. Temperature wise, your set-up seems reasonable, I would be more worried by the rain and wind combo in end of September/October, especially when on the coast: Denmark, northern Germany, the Netherlands, … I usually use www.timeanddate.com for a quick survey of the monthly averaged temperatures and precipitation. Example with Kiel (a city in northern Germany, close to the dannish border): Climate & Weather Averages in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

I probably should stop before getting completely off topic… I’ll try to come to the UNICON this year, would be nice to finally meet some other uni-packer/tourer IRL!

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This thread has been very helpful, but your detailed response has been particularly insightful!

I knew European towns were closer than I’m used to, but I still don’t think I’m ready for that level of convenience :sweat_smile:

I have rejigged my setup to only 1 water bottle, as I now have a hydration belt that holds 2 litres.

Thank you for your insight!