Diaries of an Aspiring Ultra-Distance Cyclist: Bikepacking Sleep Systems

I thought I’d share some thoughts on different bikepacking sleep systems & shelters for different types of events. I’ll start this post with the age-old classic caveat of ‘it depends’. There is no right & wrong answer!

2023 hasn’t been about racing, or really much in way of touring for that matter! But of the few bikepacking adventures I have done, it got me convinced that I want to get back to ultra-distance racing next year. Slow touring has its place & has offered a different perspective this year, but the reality is, my thoughts are more focussed on racing at the moment.

Since I started riding multiday back in 2019, I’ve done quite a few different types of trips; from one-night local overnighters to trans-alpine tours, 3-5day bikepacking trips to ultra-distance racing. So quite a broad spectrum of events – and what I’ve found is there isn’t really a one-size fits all solution when it comes to choosing a bikepacking sleep systems.

Definition

Ill start by defining what a bikepacking sleep systems is to me. It needs to satisfy three criteria; shelter, comfort & warmth. If those 3 are not satisfied, it isn’t worth trying to get any sleep, as it simply wont be restorative enough to justify the stopped time – I’ve got my ‘racing head’ on here!

Where you’re riding will define the temperature & weather, in turn, warmth & shelter requirements. Your goal, trip duration & ultimately, tolerance to discomfort, will likely define what you need to satisfy the comfort criteria. If its a 48hr race, chances are you’ll be sleeping for a couple of hours at most, therefore a full tent, sleeping bag & mat aren’t going to be on kit list. A thin lightweight mat, insulated jacket & insulated survival blanket will probably satisfy those 3 criteria – at the bare minimum end of the spectrum. Whereas if you’re touring somewhere remote for 48days, the chances are you’ll experience cold, wet or windy weather at some point, therefore a solid tent shelter, warm sleeping bag & comfortable sleeping mat are going to be on your kit list – at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Bikepacking has become a bit of a fashion show, with a lot of manufacturers making stuff & riders doing stuff ‘for the gram’. I fell for this marketing BS when I was new to it, thinking I need all the right bikepacking bags etc. The reality is, they weren’t the solution I needed for the type of trip I was doing. For a 2-week road tour across the alps, I’d have been much better of with panniers. Sure, they don’t look as cool, but they’re much more practical for road use.

Stuffing excessive amounts of kit away in a saddle bag, bar bag, frame bag, accessory pack – then wrestling them onto the bike & then strapping extra stuff to the outside. It wasn’t practical or efficient. Admittedly, I didn’t have very light weight or minimal stuff back then, nor did I really know what I was doing. But the crux here is that a couple of panniers attached to the bike with an open top roll closure would’ve been way easier each day. Conversely, the above pictures are from recent events & races, which have been shorter in duration, meaning I could get away with less ‘stuff’ & have one bag dedicated to specific ‘category’ of stuff, so no rummaging through a 25l pannier to find what I need.

So just to reiterate – it depends on the type of trip & the goal associated!

Long Distance Touring

This the 2 week+ style trip, where you’re carrying the kitchen sink. You’re on the road for a long period of time, therefore kit choices need to consider sustainability i.e. able to get sufficient sleep to repeat riding again each day. Over a longer duration you’re going to experience all sorts of weather & probably be camping most nights, therefore a decent tent is the obvious option. As well as a tent, I’d also have a sleeping bag, sleeping mat & jetboil type stove as part of the kit, as well as few extra clothes to get changed into after a day’s riding. It can quickly become a lot of stuff to carry! But obviously depends on how self-sufficient you want to be or how remote you’ll be going.

The type of trips that fall into this category for me would be the Trans-Alpine journey back in 2019. Truth be told, I’d like to do another 2week+ trip!

For a touring style trip, I’d prioritise comfort over absolute weight. I find camping is part of the adventure, I like the self-sufficiency side of it. So personally, I’d be looking at a tent & using campsite amenity as often as they’re available. The tent criteria for me;

• Reasonably lightweight, without compromising strength. You’ve got to carry it, but, the priority is that it needs to withstand the elements (wind & rain here in the UK!). There’s nothing worse than a bad night’s sleep in bad weather.
• Double walled, i.e. separate inner/outer to help with condensation & keep bugs etc out.
• Freestanding, i.e. you can pitch it anywhere. This generally means more poles, but in turn that will make it stronger & more stable in the wind. Smaller, 1-berth, single pole, ultra-lightweight tents have their place – but it isn’t on this kind of tour.
• Adequate head room & spacious. This tent is going to be your home for the duration. You’ll be cooking, changing & spending evenings in it. Therefore, I’d want to be able to sit upright in it, not feel like a coffin & have a porch for storing kit/cooking etc.

The tent that does this for me is a Hilleberg Allak 2. I have previously tried both an MSR Hubba NX 1 & MSR Elixir II – I did get on with the Elixir II for car camping in New Zealand & Croatia, but I didn’t get on with the Elixir 1 for riding across the Alps.

The only downside to carrying the kitchen sink, is the added weight & volume of space it takes up. Whilst weight is a problem that just requires extra pedalling effort to overcome, volume of space is limited. A soft pillow & duvet isn’t heavy, but it’d take up 4 panniers worth of space!

Long distance touring = absolute comfort & protection.

Fast Touring & Off-Road Bikepacking

I’d describe this kind of trip as things that take 3-6 days. You’re going quicker than touring, but not quite racing. You’ll have time in the evenings to find a nice camp spot, but its still reasonably early mornings & big distances each day. The types of trips that fall into this category for me would be the Cairngorms Loop, Badger Divide & Veneto Trail. For these shorter trips, you can ditch a lot of that stuff – again, depending on your comfort tolerance. These faster tours have never really been more than 50km from a town, therefore I can resupply with good food more often than not, rather than have to carry a stove & dehydrated meal.

These kinds of trips are a balancing act. You don’t want to be too heavy, but you don’t want to sacrifice too much comfort. This is where I think the smaller, 1 berth, ultra-lightweight tents come into their own. I did previously think the solution here was a hooped bivvy, but take a look at the pack size difference between an Outdoor Research Helium bivvy & a Terra Nova Laser Compact 1; it makes more sense to take the tent for the extra comfort & privacy!

• Pros of a bivvy bag is arguably the ‘ease of use’ factor, i.e. you can roll it out almost anywhere & be inside of it in 2 minutes.
• The cons of a bivvy far outweigh the pros in my opinion; they aren’t breathable or well ventilated, so everything ends up wet with condensation & you’re exposed to the elements/ bugs etc. More often than not I’ve just used mine as a groundsheet & slept on top of it. If it’s that torrential, it’s likely you won’t be sleeping outside – instead looking to find more solid shelter/accommodation.

On these kinds of trips, when choosing my bikepacking sleep systems, I still want all the same tent criteria, just a scaled down version of it. the compromise I had to make was freestanding – most ultra-light tents are just 1 pole & therefore not freestanding to save weight & reduce pack size. Fair enough.

My bikepacking sleep systems for these trips; Terra Nova Laser Compact 1, Exped SynMat HL LW, Thermarest Vesper 32. I’d also take a full down jacket i.e., Montane Featherlite for evening comfort (& pillow use!).

For the weight & bulk of them, I struggle to choose a bivvy over a tent for a trip in this category. Obviously, price is a consideration here. So far, I’ve listed a Hilleberg Allak (rrp £1000+) & Terra Nova Laser Compact 1 (rrp £620) as my tents of choice.

Faster touring = still comfortable, but compromise to create less weight & pack size.

Ultra-Distance Racing

Now we get to the other end of the spectrum. I’m still going through the learning curve & acceptance period that is ‘ultra-distance racing is not bikepacking, its absolute bike racing’. Whereas anything that fits either touring category would indicate sleep durations of 8 hours a night, racing does not. Its really a question of how little sleep can you keep moving forward with, in turn, what’s the bare minimum kit that’ll help you achieve that.

This is where experience is vital. Everybody is different. Some racers are notorious for their ability to race with little sleep, meaning their kit choice reflects this. But be in no doubt, that is a skill which has taken years to train & perfect. Going to work at a sit-down desk job on 2 hours sleep is not the same as racing a bike for 20+hours on 2 hours sleep.

Last year, on the Hope 1000 & Trans Pyrenees, my bikepacking sleep systems included a hooped bivvy, sleeping mat & sleeping bag. Looking back now, it was overkill. If you’re racing to win, you aren’t going to be sleeping 6,7 hours a night. You need to the bare minimum to stay warm & dry.

Your sleep system needs to be out in seconds & similarly, away in seconds. Minimising stopped time is the key to successful ultra-distance racing – admittedly, this is the bit I struggle with. Riding fast is never my problem; my ride times on APN21, Hope1000 & TPRNo2 were similar to that of the podium level riders – only they could do it with significantly less stopped time.  

I don’t have any practical experience to add to this section, only what I’ve learned & what I’m aspiring to. But now that I’ve identified my problem, I can start to look at ways to solve it. For example, this is a sleep system is going to experiment with;

• Ferrino Rider Pro insulated bivvy – basically a reusable survival/space blanket!
• Klymit Inertia X-Frame mat – enough to be comfortable & off solid ground
• Sleeping bag – depends on how cold, but ideally just an insulated jacket will suffice.
• Leg/arm warmers, gloves, buff would transform a summer shorts/jersey into a 3-season layering system, suitable for those cold nights, without too much extra pack size/weight.

All of this would easily pack into a small saddle pack leaving the frame pck for the usual ‘day ride’ essentials. Beyond that, some electricals & hygiene/safety stuff, I don’t see much need for anything else. As someone who loves their sleep, its much easier to write this than it is to actually do!

Racing = absolute weight/pack size.

Local Overnighters

You’ve probably inferred from this article so far that I hate bivvy bags. Short answer; yes, I do – for the types of trip I’ve discussed.

That said, there is a reason I haven’t sold my hooped bivvy. I like the experience it offers; simplicity. I absolutely get the appeal of sleeping under a starry sky with fresh air on your face. Its so liberating. Bivvy’s absolutely have their place when it’s a quick, impulsive ‘it’s a nice night, lets go sleep out’ type trip. These kinds of trips prioritise the experience over quality of sleep. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired the next day or stuff is a bit wet – you’re going home, back to your own comfy bed, where you can hang stuff up to dry out rather than climb back into wet sleeping kit for consecutive nights.

In terms of racing & multiday touring, where sleep needs to be as restorative as possible, irrespective of location & conditions, a bivvy isn’t the solution.

Credit Card Touring

This style of trip isn’t something I have a great deal of experience with. In the western world, it’s a hellishly expensive way of travelling – especially when the bicycle is meant to mean freedom! I’ve always been of the opinion that part of bikepacking is the ‘sleep outside’ aspect – especially when you invest a lot of time & money into choosing the right bikepacking sleep systems, you want to get money’s worth out of it! Or maybe that’s just because I’ve lived in Yorkshire too long.

That said, ultra-distance racing has changed my perspective on this. I talked about restorative sleep & quite simply, the most restorative sleep is achieved in a bed. Out of the rain, out of the cold & away from any potential interruptions. As well as recharging yourself, physically & mentally, you can get clean in a shower & get some proper food, you can also recharge all electronics; quite an under estimated part of touring & ultra-distance racing. if you can do all that in a few hours, it solves a multitude of problems that you therefore don’t have to worry about the next day.

It also means all the questions about seep system are solved! Which tent, where to camp, what about the weather etc. are all solved!

Conclusion

I write this as someone impartial, not affiliated to or sponsored by anyone. It’s the information that would’ve helped me back in 2019, therefore I hope it helps someone else make a better-informed choice as they venture into world of bikepacking & touring.

I don’t like these articles that give a one-size fits all answer when it comes to choosing bikepacking sleep systems. Firstly, you need to understand the type of trip & your goal associated, once you’ve identified that, your criteria should speak for itself – then you find something that meets those criteria. Its like someone saying a Lamborghini is the best car in the world – it probably is. But if you’re a family with 4 kids, who needs to do the food shop on the way home & live where the roads surfaces aren’t great, that its not the most practical car for you!