Why I failed at bikepacking
For years now I’ve been dreaming of bikepacking across the USA and in the summer of last year, I finally made that journey. I had just broken up with my long term girlfriend and so I saw this as the perfect chance to make the trip and go on a hell of an adventure.
My plan was to ride west from Washington D.C. all the way to Los Angeles. Over 3000 miles on a bicycle. This coming from someone who had only ridden about 100 miles on a bike in the past year. I look back now and realise that was a hell of an ask, although strangely the lack of riding and the lack of fitness wasn’t the reason I failed.
Me setting off on day 1 from the Washington Monument
I spent hours watching YouTube videos, reading blogs about all the necessary equipment I’d need, finetuning my bikepacking set up so I got there and had everything I could possibly need. When I arrived in Washington the first thing I done was put my bike back together after flying it across with me. Within an hour I was all set up and ready to go, I felt fully prepared. I had a few days to explore the area before I actually set out on the riding so I enjoyed this relaxing period before the real work would start.
Before I knew it, it was time to start riding. I’d barely ridden on roads in England before, so the thought of having to ride on these vast American roads filled me with apprehension. But you know what, it’s like anything in life, the thought of things is often so much worse than the actual thing. 6 hours later and I had completed my first days riding in the 34 degree heat. I was exhausted but felt really proud of myself having gotten that first daunting ride out of DC under my belt.
I learnt pretty quickly into the trip that camping wasn’t going to be something I’d enjoy, I quickly fell into the path of staying on motels every evening. I didn’t mind this though, getting to the motels after every night gave me a chance to relax and refresh myself before starting out again the next day.
But here comes the issue and I think the main reason I failed at bikepacking. I found it so lonely doing it on my own. I was riding through Virginia for a couple of weeks and you soon realise that spending that much time by yourself can get incredibly lonely. Whether my recent break up comes into this and compounded the isolation I felt, it could definitely have contributed. But if anything goes wrong, or you’re having a hard day, you’re the only one there who can get you through it. There’s nobody else there to spur you on when things get tough. This was the hardest part for me. It allowed me to learn an awful lot about myself and how I work though, because I know now that for me to succeed at something challenging, I need to share in that journey with somebody else. If I’m having a shit day I need that person next to me to drag me through it, and I want to be the kind of person to help others when they’re struggling as well. In my opinion, what this trip has taught me is that community and human connections are what allow us to achieve incredible things, and without that we can be our own worst enemies at times. When things go wrong, that little voice in the back of my mind gets louder and louder until I eventually want to give up. I need that person/group around me where I know we’re all in it together.
So after 2 weeks into the riding, that was that. I gave up. Just writing and reading that sentence back to myself feels incredibly shit, but ultimately that's the reality of it. I continued to travel for another few weeks by myself, catching greyhound buses and planes to check out some different areas of the US which was awesome in it’s own way. So although I failed at the bikepacking element of the trip, I still went and flew to the United States and spent a couple of months travelling around by myself organising everything. If you had told 16 year old me that I would be capable of doing something like that I wouldn’t have believed you. So although in some aspects I failed what I initially set out to do, I 100% learned such a lot about myself and wouldn’t change the experience for anything.
The way my mind works now is trying to view that every failure is being one step closer to success because you learn something from every failure. Before I would’ve thought that “Oh well, I gave it a go and it didn’t work out, I guess I’m not capable of riding across the US”. Whereas now I can see the reasons as to why I’ve failed and I know what I need to change in order to complete it. So this isn’t the end of my bikepacking journey, one day I will ride coast to coast across the United States. I just need to find some likeminded people to do it with me.