Bikepacking Tips: Static vs Fluid Packing
- nocellajoe
- Nov 24
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 29
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Packing up your gear on your bike for a bikepacking trip is on of the biggest challenges of your trip. Gaining a strategy, through multiple trips, puts you on the path to making things go more smoothly.
I have led over 175 trips, so I have a way of "doing things" that works for me in terms of packing. Putting things in bags on your bike is the first step. Understanding how your gear needs to be accessed during the ride and at camp will help immensely. Bikepacking is all about "a thousand little pieces", and this strategy will help ease stress levels around these pieces.
Bikepacking: "Static" Packing
When I think of "Static Packing", I think of the items that are placed in my bag at the beginning of the day's journey, and will be retrieved at camp. These items are:
Tent
Sleep System
Cooking Kit
Electronics/Charging Kit
Clothes/Camp Shoes*
Fire Building Kit
Personal Hygiene Kit
Camp Tools
*not all clothes, however.
With these items, I tend to pack them first or at the bottom of my bags. It's not that I absolutely wont need them during the ride, but I most likely wont. There HAVE been times where I needed to do some emergency device charging during the day, or needed to gulp down some pain meds...so I just plan accordingly.
Bikepacking: "Fluid" Packing
The idea behind "Fluid Packing" is that these are items that will be going in and out of your bags during the day, and thusly need to be accessible.
First Aid Kit: Need very fast access.
Bike Tools: Need fast access.
Snacks: The easier it is to grab snacks, the more you'll snack during the ride. I find that people normally don't eat/drink as much as they should during the day
Rain Jacket: Being able to quickly grab your rain gear has obvious advantages.
Weather related clothing changes. We've all been there, having the temperature fluctuate wildly form the start temperature. Planning on this gear change and where to put/get items is important as clothes take up a lot of volume and weight.
Acquired food In this instance, I either use a packable/collapsible backpack that expands to 20L of storage, or I strap these items down to my rear rack with a cargo net. Either way, the idea here is that we are (hopefully) only a few miles from camp where the food will be eaten.
Wet clothes that need to dry out. Often in clothes get wet the day before, they don't dry overnight, necessitating airing out the next day on the bike. You need to be careful doing this, as I've seen loose clothes fall and get tangled in the rear wheel/cassette/derailleur, destroying both.
Items that need to get out of the rain For me, this is my camera and phone. I have specific drybags set aside and accessible for this situation. I have ruined a few cameras over the years that were not weatherproof.
I tend to pack these items close to where I can get then, with First Aid Kit and Bike Tools being the #1 priority in terms of access. I think that when I skid to a stop in a medical emergency, I need to be able to grab my first aid kit with my eyes closed.
So, this is just a methodology I use so that I am unpacking everything on the side of the road when I need to grab my rain jacket. being able to work within a system of your choosing (as opposed to just chucking items in you bag in no order) can make for a more enjoyable experience.
Note: For better or worse, I do not use AI to create my posts. This is all me, with my misspelling, poor grammar and tangential thoughts. I didn't get into this line of work to hand over my thoughts, expertise and experience to AI to spit out blog posts.
One of my favorite items is a Fjalraven hip pack that opens into a backpack. It’s a great size for picking up extra food. Packing cubes and some stuff sacks keep clothes organized so you don’t have to dig around trying to find extra clothing. My raingear includes a rain jacket & skirt, rain mittens as well as Possum fur gloves. It all fits in the tiny stuff sack that came with the rain jacket.