I’m planning to buy my first bike dedicated to bikepacking. I’m torn between two approaches. Either I go for a steel hardtail like the Stanton Sherpa, where I’ll never have to worry about mounting points or the frame’s resilience, or I get a light XC carbon hardtail that’s built to be fast and efficient.
I actually want to travel rather than race, so comfort also matters a lot to me.
What do y’all think? Here’s a video that supports the claim in the headline:
https://youtu.be/TwQK4YQqADU?si=95sqxMcZb-7nAFS6
Cheers
by Ok-Dress2292
1 Comment
I went for years using a steel gravel bike with lots of mounting points and was very happy. I only moved to a drop bar mtb because I wanted to get into more remote and technical routes where the bigger tires might be more comfortable and I could carry more weight. I still went with a steel frame with lots of mounting options. I don’t think I’d ever go carbon, but that’s just a personal preference.
I don’t think there is a “best” bike for bikepacking as terrain and personal needs vary so wildly. There is only a best bike for what you intend to do. Southern Ontario bikepacking is a lot of wide open gravel roads and smooth rail trail, whereas northern Ontario could be a lot more technical terrain and fewer long stretches of road. On a smooth trail, I move about 7km/h faster on my gravel bike than my mtb for the same effort. That’s a lot of distance over a 12 hour day, so I’d be kind of foolish to take the mtb on, say, a 1000km trip in southern Ontario unless I had unlimited time.