5 BIKEPACKING EVENTS FOR BEGINNERS 2024 ( in Europe)

In this video I run through my top 5 Bikepacking events for beginners.

Full event information is available here:

Granguanche – https://granguanche.com
Outerdetours – http://outerdetours.com
Desertus Bikus – https://desertusbikus.com
El Piri – https://www.lesperitdelbikepacking.org/el-piri-entry
Pan Celtic Race – https://pancelticrace.com
Bikingman Series – https://bikingman.com

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Tailfin Bikepacking equipment – https://www.tailfin.cc/?v=79cba1185463
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Hey hello welcome back to my channel if you’ve been watching the last month or so you’d see that I’ve been previewing some 2024 events uh and I’ve had a lot of comments saying um you know is there any events for beginners like firsttime bik Packers those of you who maybe

Aren’t so experienced uh because obviously going into something like the Transcontinental race or t divide as a first timer is quite Ting so what I’ve done is I’ve put together my list of five um B packing events for beginners um these are all based in Europe because

Uh that’s I’m more familiar with I’m sure there are some excellent events in like USA the rest of the world um but yeah this is based in Europe um mainly because I’ve ridden a lot of them uh and I’m familiar with the terrain uh and the

Level um so I wouldn’t want to kind of um recommend anything that I’ve I’ve I’m not familiar with um so without further Ado here are my five top bite packing events for beginners in Europe so we’re going to start um well I’ve kind of cheated a little bit if I’m honest uh

It’s it’s five events but some of them are a bit of a series the first one is the gangan in the Canary Islands obviously um technically they’re Spain um but uh it’s a it’s a chain of islands volcanic islands off the coast of Africa so they run three events the

Grui trail the gravel and the road now I’ve done the trail myself and then um they they all follow a roughly similar route so the road obviously is on road bikes um so this is an accident are excellent events for beginners because you’re it’s not necessarily uh super

Competitive but you’re always racing the fairies so as you can see there’s five islands and you have to get to each one and you find yourself pushing and racing the ferry each time um so all the events start in lanzerotti uh cross then you get the ferry to forto

Ventura um then it’s gr Canaria tener reef and then the trail um the road and the gravel events all finish on three separ SE Islands um so the road one is laa uh and yeah so basically you’re chasing yourself all the time you’re getting up to high altitude like 2,300

Meters up on El on um uh turn Reef um so you’re going to get really good experience of like deserts open Landscapes Gran Canaria and ten particularly hilly Gran canara very steep Island um and again you’re hitting 2,000 meters tener if you’re going me sustained you know above 2,000 M for a

While so if you’ve not experienced altitude and things like that before if you’re thinking of doing something like T divide or any of these events then it’s a really good uh way to kind of experience a lot of conditions um so the gravel route as you can see it’s as a

Name suggests it is gravel um but it finishes on herero which is another one of the small lines at the end there uh and as it says here it’s mixed terrain route that goes F by fast gravel roads secondary pave roads and avoids Rocky single tracks or Sandy sections so

Basically you’re on a gravel bike with 40 mil tires and then this is the one I did this is the um the trail version so basically you’ll just take on the rockier trails you’re probably better off on a mountain bike or you can do it

Although you can do it on a gra bike and you finish on laama which is it’s a beautiful island massive climbs um and actually to be honest the the rest of the route is very similar to the gravel um so yeah if you’ve done a lot of road

And you want to go into gravel Ultra then maybe gravel is a really good kind of like you can dip your toe in you’re never too far away from um you know kind of civilization these are these are very like populous islands with lots of Tourism and infrastructure so you can

Always get out of trouble not too easily um and then the other thing as well um if you’re maybe you’ve never done bite packing before in your life maybe you don’t want to jump into an ultra they also do the outer detours tours so you can essentially ride these routes um but

With full support and stay hotels every night so it’s a good chance to to basically uh you know maybe do your first longer Rides Again experience altitude and stuff um and with a guide and it’s a Shameless plug I’m afraid but I’m I’m actually guiding um the the road

One in on the 10th of March um 2024 um so yeah check that out if if that’s a kind of thing um that you’re interested in it might be a really good stepping stone they also do a gravel version too which again if you you’ve never done gravel before and you want to

Learn a bit more uh you can uh go in there with some experience guides and and find out a bit more and learn a bit more so that’s a gr guachi and out detours I’ll put all the links and everything below um and again just check out this website it’s beautiful Mato who

Runs it it’s excellent photographer there’s loads of really great information even if you don’t want to do the event it’s worth checking out that this website because there’s just so much I mean the Root’s great even if you wanted to do it off your own back there’s so much really useful

Information about everything the fairies places to stay things to do things to see um so yeah it’s it’s an excellent resource regardless of whether you want to do the event or not the second event I’ve picked uh is I’ve not actually done this one but I’m very familiar with with the area and

I’ve heard great stuff is desertous bikers now this is is described as a rally raid um so please excuse my terribly slow internet um So based in Spain and it takes you through basically the the desert landscape of so there are set parkour and these are all primarily Offroad through some

Of the desert Landscapes of Spain so you’re looking at around 1,350 km cycling which isn’t massive um it’s enough to get you kind of um you know out there and do some long days but you got seven days to do it so it’s it’s pretty manageable um and then 13 half

Th000 mters of climbing um if we head down the bottom here you can see a a rough map so as you can see the gray spots are the checkpoints um this year it starts in the north of France um well just over the Border finishes in

Portugal um so yeah you can see that the route is is is is fairly obvious um this is It’s a good option I think if you doing your first um like self uh self self-planned route Spain is really easy to get around loads of good roads nice

And safe um loads of good resupply so again there there’s loads of um like opportunity to to learn on on the road here um and again plenty of infrastructure in Spain so if you do get stuck or caught out it’s easy to get home so again check out that website

Desert as bikers I’ll put that down the bottom my third one is uh this is one I actually made a complete video on so I’m not going to go into too much uh detail because I’ve I’ve done a whole video on this it’s a new one from James Hayden

Elpi um so this will be the first edition in 2024 starting and finishing in Jona so again really easy to get to uh um and get back again if you’ve never done that much gravel or not had much experience of like the high mountains then I would suggest this will be an

Excellent um first event to test yourself out on um so the route uh James has actually given me a preview um this isn’t final um but you can see 500 Miles um and you’ve got a a chunk of climbing you’re getting over 2,000 MERS here um and James has tailored this for um

Gravel bikes for beginners you know there’s some some Wilderness sections in there um but there should be plenty of resupply if you’re if you’re well organized so again if you’ve done some events and you want to try getting a bit more wild you want to try doing some

More remote sections I would suggest that this might be a very good option to um to sort of learn learn and push yourself a bit more um on a in a sort of off-road scenario um so yeah that’s El Perry again I’ll put everything down below my fourth event is the Peng Celtic

Race now I would suggest that if you’re looking at doing your first sort of full length ultra um you know 2,000 plus kilometers the pan Celtic race is a really good place to start uh now for 2024 it starts on the aisle of man and finishes in in vaness in the Scottish

Highlands but the beauty of the pantic race is it’s is really tailored for Mass participation um it’s not super elitist in terms of you know people trying to race and win it’s a really nice Community there people are going to help you out you’re not going to be told off

Riding next to someone um you know if you’re not if you want to build your confidence I’d say this is a really great event to to like learn um the you know the the longer form of of ultra racing it’s a preset route so you don’t

Have to worry about that um and it’ll be hard enough to test you but there’s always going to be you know it’s not going to be so hard it totally breaks you um the other thing is as well there’s a long route and a short route

So if you commit to the long route and then you feel like halfway around maybe maybe it’s a bit too much for you you can always drop down and do the short route as well and you know no one’s going to think any worse of you um so

There’s always that option there um I think it is um sold out for now but there is a waiting list at the moment um so there’s I mean people always end up dropping out so I’d say there’s a fair chance you get in if you’re on that

Waiting list so um if you go on to panel.com again I’ll put the the link below and and yeah check that one out um and the final one again I’ve cheated a little bit um so this is is more of a series this is the Man series and I’ve

Done a few of these over the years and they’re primarily based in France but they’ve got a few sort of further field again primarily road with some gravel sections um and yeah basically they’re shorter events so two to three days normally between 1K 500k it’s not going

To be too long um and again a really good way to kind of just test yourself a little bit um so you could travel abroad you know there’s there’s Taiwan Sri Lanka is a new one for 2024 Brazil and then the rest are all based in and around France so Corsica particularly

Hilly I’ve I’ve done that one um and then spread around the mountains in various areas of France plenty of dates available as well so you can pick and choose um you know it’s a good way just to dip your toe in and just see if you

Can ride 500k or 1,000k um you know and again there’s that infrastructure around there that support a good community so it’s a good one just to to kick off your kind of I guess Ultra racing career or bike packing career um yeah and see how

We go uh so yeah that’s pretty much it that’s my five bik packing races uh that ideal for beginners uh all based in Europe um thanks for watching I’ve got loads more live race coverage coming in 2024 I’ll be covering tour divide silkroad Mountain race Highland Trail

Helenic mountain race to name about a few plus coverage of my own races starting with the Atlas mountain race at the beginning of February so yeah keep an eye out for that thanks for watching and um yeah give us a like and a subscribe if you haven’t done so already

So you don’t miss that and see you all in the next one thanks for watching