My First Bikepacking Trip Ever! | 175 km from Riga to Lithuania in 24 Hours 🚴‍♂️🇱🇻➡️🇱🇹

I challenged myself to cycle as far as I could in one day – from midnight to midnight – on my first-ever bikepacking adventure!
Starting in Riga (Latvia), with no real plan or destination, I just got on my bike and rode to see where I’d end up. By the end of the day, I had crossed into Lithuania and finished over 175 km later, a bit past the city of Šiauliai.

What made it even more special – this was my first-ever bikepacking trip. I had never cycled this far before, so everything felt new.

It turned out to be a long, exhausting, but unforgettable ride – through scary night roads, sunrise over the fields, small villages, and endless countryside.

If you love adventure challenges, solo travel, or the idea of spontaneous journeys – this one’s for you!

More of my adventures:
🌊 3-day sea kayaking trip in the Finnish Archipelago Sea here:

▶️ 4 Days on the Via Transilvanica (solo hiking across Transylvania):

FOLLOW ME ON SOCIALS –
✅Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/daring_to_be_free/

#Bikepacking #CyclingChallenge #SoloAdventure #RigaToLithuania #LatviaToLithuania #BikeTouring #24HourChallenge #CyclingAdventure #TravelVlog #BicycleTouring #FirstBikepackingTrip #AdventureVlog #CyclingLatvia #CyclingLithuania #ExploreByBike #MidnightToMidnight #SoloTravel #EnduranceChallenge #CyclingEurope #twowheelsadventure

It’s just unbelievable. People go bike packing. Join me. Spend your mornings like this, not in a warm bed. So, tonight is the night. I have a question for you. How many kilometers do you think I can bike on a bicycle in one day? Do you know? I also don’t know, but I want to figure it out. So tonight it’s almost midnight and I have 24 hours. So the plan is for me to just start bike uh biking cycling uh at midnight which is in 5 minutes. I have to hurry. Uh so start cycling from my apartment from Ria and just keep cycling. Keep cycling as long as my legs will keep moving or whatever. I have no plan. I have no idea where I will end up in couple of hours in this day. Will I come back home today or will I stay for the sleep somewhere else in another city in another country? I have no idea. This is super scary by the way, but also exciting. So, I have no plan. But actually, I’m surprised I managed to even to sleep for one and a half hour. I was surprised. I thought it will be impossible for me to fall asleep before such a crazy adventure. But energy is a choice. So, let’s do it. Let’s hit the road. Good luck to me. Let’s just hope that this bike doesn’t break. I will not be able to fix it. So, actually, oh my god, can you see me? So, I’m I’m I’m ready to go, but I’m half an hour late. It’s already 25 minutes past midnight, but it’s okay. It’s all part of the process. It’s actually quite cold. No, it’s like you can see the steam. [Music] It’s always funny to cycle or run at night in the old town when all the people are drunk. They’re going home from partying all night and I’m just on my way to new adventures. It’s actually it’s not rain, it’s fog flying right on me. I’m trying. So there is Ria. Say goodbye to Ria and there is the unknown and darkness. I try not to look into the darkness, not to be scared completely. This is not a nice road at all. So there is some work in the road and only one lane is open for both directions. I mean, right now it’s night, so not many cars, but I don’t like it. Oh my god. I’m friends with the monsters inside of my head. So, I was driving for an hour only, but it’s time to have breakfast because I didn’t have my breakfast at home. So, yeah. I mean, I’m a little bit disappointed. I was driving an hour and I just made it outside of Ria. It was very slow in Ria. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s the Monday morning. It’s freezing cold. Like even though I put a lot of clothes on me, it’s freezing cold. But it’s good that in last minute I decided to take my running gloves or gloves, whatever how you call them. So, I’ll have to put them now because it’s cold. So, this is pretty much how my road will look like for the next 40 kilometers at least. And I mean the sun, I will still not see the sun sun for the next couple of hours. It’s a big road actually and it’s dark and it’s scary. Sometimes I hear some weird noises from the forest. Oh my god. So, a short stop to put on the gloves. Gloves. Uh, but there are stars right above me. It’s It’s scary, but still magical. Look. Do you see the stars? No. Probably don’t see the stars. [Applause] This fog is so beautiful. Oh, this is just unreal. So, it’s a little bit sad that it’s uh still very dark because I can’t see where I’m cycling, what is around me because I think the views should be very beautiful here. So, I was cycling about 3 hours. did my did 42 kilometers exactly the marathon. I made it to Yelava. Hi Clint, it’s sad that you are sleeping. Anyways, I already had my first near crying experience. Near crying Poland. I was already very tired when I was um near Yala and I was super cold. My toes were frozen because it’s cold and it’s also fog. So, I guess it’s also humid and that’s why it’s even colder for my toes. I tried to move them inside of my shoes. So, I stopped at the gas station to get warmer. But now, I went out of this guest gas gas station and it’s super cold again. And the sun this because the sun even didn’t come yet. So, it’s too early to cry. Look at our beautiful Yalawa Castle. Even a better viewpoint. I mean, I will not get far today if I will stop every fifth meter to make some pictures. It’s getting brighter. There is no darkness anymore. We did it, guys. Oh, all I want is just hot tea right now. But no, we keep cycling for a long time right now with no stops. Oh, let’s see the sign. So, the Lethanian city Shaolai is only 81 kilometer from here. So, it means that Lethanian border is even closer. So, we have some bad news. As you can see, you finally can see my face because the flashlight that is on my helmet stopped working. Finally, I can see the beauty around me. Finally, it’s not just the darkness, scary darkness, but actually beautiful nature of Latvia and soon of Lithuania. I stopped for a quick snack. Beautiful field, beautiful plants, everything beautiful. And there is the sunrise. [Applause] [Applause] It’s a perfect spot spot for the Monday breakfast, right? is just getting more beautiful and more beautiful with every second. If only you could see this sunrise. It’s something unreal. I’m sure I’m right now the happiest person in this world. So, actually the reason why I’m going on such interesting adventures because I’m searching for this 100% happiness. I feel so happy. I feel so free. I feel so strong and powerful. And this is like you can’t get this feeling in a daily life. You should really at first like overcome some challenges. And for me this was this morning with this dark first hours. It was hard. It was scary. And now this reward, the sunrise, I feel so happy. I am on my highest highs right now. Tada. So, the moment I’ve been waiting for. After approximately 5 and a half hours of uh cycling, 78 kilometers, I am in Lithuania and it’s it’s not even 9:00 in the morning. It’s like 8:45 in the morning and I’m in another country with my brother’s old bike. I can’t. Am I sleeping or what? So, finally the sun is shining. It’s getting hot. So, I um yeah, took off the jacket. It’ll be quite a hot day, I guess. But it’s nice because I have because my legs actually are wet because of all this fog and cold morning. So hopefully they will dry right now. And now it will be a little bit easier. Uh probably notice that I’m struggling to say nice sentences and to find words because I’m tired. I can’t. It’s getting tough. I mean it’s it’s 10:00 in the morning. So, I mean, I’ve been riding my bike for 10 hours. Well, I mean, with with small stops, but like I wasn’t resting uh like quite much to be honest. I want to cry. I can’t. My energy is like there’s no energy left. It’s getting tough. But, you know, this trip wasn’t supposed to be for resting. This trip was supposed to, you know, check my limits and to check to see what I’m capable of. So, I will keep going no matter what. So, I entered some small city Yish Yonkio. So, I think I don’t know. I can’t decide. Should I go buy some snacks in Iky or or should I eat some my snacks? I don’t understand. Should I just lay there in the on those benches or should I go to the gas station because I need to charge my phone? I don’t know people. So, I forgot it’s actually the 1st of September. That’s why all the students are so beautiful and black and white clothes. Everyone is like walking with the flowers. So, I was really trying to push myself to sit and rest like maybe to close my eyes for a second, but I can’t. I mean, I have always this feeling that I have to go. I have to rush. I have I don’t have enough time. I should go but like I don’t have specific goal. I have not nowhere to rush but I can’t make myself just to sit and rest. So I think I will go and keep riding forward to the next city. So we’re back on track. I ate a lot of sugar and sugar kicked in. As you can see it’s getting hot. I’m getting sun tent or actually sun burnt. It’s crazy. In the morning it was so cold. I I was dying from the cold but now it’s too hot. So where is Shalay? Shalay goes to the left. So that’s where we go. Almost fell. with the spoiling me with the summer. I am melting and burning here. Endless fields, endless clouds. Beautiful. And I just reached 100 kilometers. 100 km. I have chosen a little bit longer route but like on the countryside because also here is like less cars less dangerous and also I wanted to fill that Lithuanian countryside the fields with the vegetables. There was just a huge field with the beetroots. Hello there and hello there. I love this road. Finally, I can go on a big speed because it’s just me here. Big speed. The wind is blowing right into my face. Oh, so good. That’s the happiness. The pure happiness, my friends. That’s all you need. Happiness is simple. Very simple. is the time of my life with my bike. 15 kilometers and I have no idea how more is waiting for me kilometers ahead. tough. What can I say? It’s tough. But nobody said it was easy. So, let’s keep riding and I think I will have a short stop maybe in couple of kilometers and hope hopefully I will get my energy back after some sugar. Another dose of sugar. And I made it to the famous hill of crosses near Shaolai. I mean, it’s like everyone from Latia has been here during the school school excursions. So, it’s kind of childhood memories, but I remember it it has a huge mountain, but it is quite a small hill actually. Why Shaolai is so hilly? Why? I just have a couple of kilometers till Shaolai, but it’s just hills. Nonstop hills. And I made it to Shaolai. So I’m in Shaolai. So right now it’s 6 o’clock. So I have already reached 138 kilometers but it’s still 6:00 and I just had like 2hour break um which is quite a lot. I went to eat some burger with potatoes, some carbs because I still have five. I can’t hold six six hours left today. And you know number 200 doesn’t seem doesn’t look that unreachable now. So I think I will go for 200 kil kilometers. So I know the route I asked uh people around. So I would just go and keep cycling. and I’m burning a lot of calories and I need carbs, I need sugar. So today I’m eating a lot of sweets and I don’t hate myself for that because I have to. So it is crazy. In the morning, you remember I was cycling and I had super magical sunrise on the left side from me on my side. And now, how many hours later? More than Yeah. 12 hours later. More than 12 hours later, I’m still cycling. I’m still cycling. And now I have beautiful sunset on the right side of me. So actually when I was in Shaolai, I had an idea in mind that it would be cool to actually cycle 200 kilometers and actually I was going for it. I was really trying my best and um like and I had quite a good speed pace but then I realized that like if I really I’m going to do this like the last 10 km will be just pain because I would have to cycle like 60 kilometers with no stops because I had only like couple of hours left and I really wanted to hit those 200 km but then I’m like understood that Why? Why? This number doesn’t matter anything. It doesn’t mean anything. You should just calm down and enjoy this life. And that’s what I’m doing. I will not hit 200 kilometers. I will hit maybe 170. But I’m standing enjoying the sunset trying to understand what was this day. I don’t know what was this. What did I just did to myself? Someone answer to this question, please. I don’t know this answers anymore. You know what is funny? The fog is back. The fog, my enemy. I don’t want to be cold again. But at least now only a couple of kilometers are left, so it’s not that bad. probably needed some character building things again. So quite tired. I don’t know how many kilometers left. Two maybe two three kilometers. Tired. I feel like I can feel how my eyes are closing. Oh yeah, it’s all good. It’s just that probably my brains fell asleep and my fingers instead of pressing brakes, they were pressing like speed, you know how I was pressing pressing, but I wasn’t uh slowing down. I was like, what’s going on? And I wasn’t pressing the right thing. I think someone needs to go to sleep. But I still have couple of kilometers. I don’t know if I will make it. Of course, I will make it. But I don’t know. So, 22 hours, 175 kilometers, and I’m eating cold pizza, uh, hot drink, and I’m trying my best not to fall asleep while eating that pizza. I’m super hungry today. I’m not stop like hungry every second. I wanted to go out to celebrate to have a drink or a cake, but who am I kidding? Labas, good morning. It’s Tuesday. Like to be honest, I was I thought that I will just sleep for a long time and I was afraid that actually I will miss my uh alarm clock because I didn’t sleep much the previous night. But I woke up at 6:00 just by myself and I realized well it’s time to go and explore Shaai because I bought myself train ticket back to Ria. It’s at 9 in the morning. So at night in the morning have to go to the train station. But now I have hour or two to explore the city. Let’s do it. And I’m crying but only because of another sunrise. So I’ll just go read some Kafka to get my ambitions a little bit down. Actually, I regret that I bought train ticket back to Rian today in the morning. I feel like I could just keep cycling, cycling, and cycling. But not today. But very soon, people, it will happen. Yeah, this is So that’s it. I’m back home. I’m back where it all started. I don’t want to go inside. I don’t want this trip to end. But like it’s crazy to think that right now it’s 12:00 uh Tuesday and it’s crazy to think that it all started just yesterday at midnight. Like 36 hours ago. only 36 hours ago and I managed to make this huge bike one day bike trip and get back by train to my apartment. It’s crazy. Yeah. But I’m so happy like everything went smoothly like my bike it didn’t break. Also what is funny like during this trip I experienced all the different kinds of pain like physical at first uh my knees actually started to hurt they started hurting on the already like 30 kilometer and I thought like well that the end because they hurted quite quite heavily and there’s nothing much you can do about pain in your knees and it’s it’s a very bad pain but it disappeared after some time and then this place hurted a lot. It still a bit hurts like this uh on the back where the back connects with the head. Um, but yeah, I think it’s because I don’t have this professional road bike or you can like sit like this, but I sit all the time like this and this I tried like when I had like straight road to put my head down, not to look straight but down to relax this place. So, it helped a little bit but yeah, it still hurts. And then my wrists started hurting a lot because yeah I start I tried to change the how I how I was holding the bike but still they hurt. So yeah all the different kind of pain but it wasn’t that bad. That’s it. That’s the end of my trip. I don’t know like it doesn’t feel like it was just 24 hours. I feel like I lived through four different seasons, through 24 different lives. I had ups and downs and something in the middle. So people, I want you to understand that adventures are very easy. You don’t need to go somewhere far to get those emotions, adrenaline, and uh memories. So just grab your bike or running shoes or hiking shoes. Go alone or take your friends. Just go outside, explore your own city, explore your own countries, your neighbor countries and just go there for a couple of hours and you will see adventures are easy and happiness is even easier. It’s loud. And actually, let me know in the comments what kind of next challenge should I do. It doesn’t have to be related with the bike. I can do everything, anything. So, because I need new ideas. So, I’ll be waiting for your comments. And see you see you in my next adventures. Goodbye, my friends. I’m hitting the road. And then I’m coming back to grab my phone.