I'm in very early stages of planning a 900 mile bikepack tour of Patagonia for 2027, but I'm capitalizing on sales between now-and-then to stock up on gear I need and have time to test it.
While in Patagonia, I'm planning to do a few day long hikes that'll total about ~12 miles (~20km) each. My plan, at the moment, is to get something compressible that I can put in a 35L dry bag I'll strap to my rear rack with low-access items, like my tent and so forth.
For those who've done something similar, is this a good approach? If so, what are some day packs you'd recommend?
I've been looking at the Matador Beast28, but there's so much out there and I'm fairly new to bikepacking (plenty of hiking/backpacking experience, though).
This pack will also likely double as my carry-on for electronics, diabetes stuff (which makes everything more difficult), and anything else I can keep out of the bike box to keep it under 50lbs.
Any question, just ask! I'll do my best to answer them.
by kenrola89
1 Comment
Depending on where the hikes are you could rent one as well instead of riding with one the entire time. If anything you might start to overpack it and carry more stuff on your back while riding.
Like if you’re just doing O-trek which it doesn’t sound like you are, you could rent a backpack for the week.
I’ve done a couple of 15-20km day hikes down there with nothing more than a fist-sized compressible bag for snacks and water. The super popular day hikes at El Chalten can be casually trail run. I hiked O-trek with a 10L in 3 days carrying my own setup since reservations were full. Obviously if you need the carry-on space for your medical stuff, ignore all this. Most of the **common** hard hikes are on the harder level of easy, where the difficulty is the random 100kph winds.