Motivation & Setup
I’ve owned a beautiful gravel and touringbike since the beginning of 2026; the Canyon Grizl 7. Since then I have ridden thousands of kilometers on it, but never more than 100km and never longer than a single day, although I had bought it with the intention of doing a multi-day tour at some point.
Since then I have consumed a lot of bikepacking content, especially on YouTube, and have researched and planned a lot. One video series I watched was Our European Bike Tour by Vincent Lederer. It motivated me so much that I had to thank the creator personally via email :)
In early August I finally pulled the trigger! In a single week I went to Decathlon four times to gather everything I needed. My most important piece of equipment I bought there was the Simond MT900 two-person tent. Besides that I purchased tools, camping equipment such as a travel towel, a headlamp, a foldable backpack, a powerbank and so much more stuff. I already had a sleeping bag and an air mattress at home. The bike bags I ordered online from a German bicycle discounter website. I chose the Topeak bags which fit everything neatly.
I planned the route on Komoot with a lot of extras like exit-points, possibilities to shorten the route (which I actually did on day two), and a list of campsites I could call.
At home, I built the tent in my room once to convince myself that I would be able to do that outdoors. It took a bit but once I had figured it out, I was amazed at how thought out the construction was! I laid out all of my equipment on the floor and then I stuffed everything in their bags, which took quite some time and a whole lot of reorganizing. Eventually, everything was done and I did a ~1km test with the fully loaded bike. It handled way better than I expected it to and once it got up to speed, it stayed there!
Wednesday, the 12th of August 2026
And off I went! Early in the morning I finalized the last things and then I started rolling. It was an awesome moment for me, as it meant the start of three days on my own. I left Berlin in the south-west where I then passed the airport, which meant that I was constantly putting my neck in weird positions to gaze at the approaching planes (I love aviation!). As soon as I left, I called the campsite and asked if they had one place for a tiny tent left, which they had!
The bike handled super well and I quickly racked up the kilometers. I did my first break at the small “Krummer See” where I read on my e-reader, snacked a bit, and enjoyed the view over the calm water. It was amazing how quickly I was able to leave the busy city-life behind me and escape into nature. Eventually, I continued my endeavor in the scorching heat (I used lots of sunscreen). I passed one tiny villager after another, until I passed “Halbe” where I stopped at a small Café for a piece of apple crumble cake and a refreshing glass of water. The next village I passed was the last opportunity to visit a supermarket, so I went there and got myself some chocolate and a very basic breakfast for the next day; just some sweet bread. I put everything into the foldable backpack and rode the last ~20km to my campsite.
The last few kilometers were a bit difficult as I had to ride on quite challenging terrain: on extremely loose sand in the middle of the forest. Something many Berliners will know when bike-touring in Brandenburg as it is quite typical and especially hard to keep balance on with a fully loaded bike. (in all fairness: there were also some amazing asphalted bike routes) Thankfully it eventually ended and I arrived at my campsite at the “Briesener See” after 99,4km in the saddle!
I quickly pitched my tent and locked my bike to a tree. It was a pretty busy campsite. I jumped into the beautiful lake, then I took a shower and relaxed a bit in my tent. At the small snack bar I got myself a Currywurst with some fries. The 12. of August 2026 was the day we had a solar eclipse over Germany. Around 20:00, lots of people gathered at the beach to watch the moon slowly cover up the sun. Fortunately someone lent me their eclipse-glasses and someone even arrived with a welding mask!
Before bed, I read a bit more until I fell asleep after my first day of bikepacking :)
Thursday, the 13th of August 2026
I woke up very early on the second day of my bikepacking tour. It was still very cold and I had to wait a bit in my sleeping bag until I went outside. I did not sleep very well. For breakfast, I had the cold bread I purchased yesterday. At the reception I paid 21€ before I stowed everything away and attached the bags to my bike. Because I felt very tired after the cold night, I had to shorten the route to 55,8km. Pretty early into the tour I got absolutely komooted by having to ride multiple kilometers in loose sand. As I couldn’t advance with my bike anymore I had to push it, which took a lot of time. Thankfully, I only had pretty much perfect roads going forward, although with a lot of elevation for someone from Berlin.
The second day was very calm and relaxing for me. I lowered my pace a bit and took a lot of breaks plus a very long one on top of a hill. What stood out on this day was the sheer amount of water I passed. Once I even crossed the Spree river in Beeskow, the river I know from Berlin and where I have rowed a lot on. Arguably, I “enjoyed” the second day a bit more as some of the nervousness of the first day was gone and the physical stress was not as present.
On the second day I also discovered how music motivated me to keep on going. I put the volume of my phone on max and put it into the frame bag, which was almost adequate. Once, I rolled down a very steep hill where I reached my vmax of 43,5km/h of this day while blasting music. I looked down on the road for an aero position, when my Garmin warned me “pothole” ahead. I looked forward and saw some pretty rough cobblestone. Fortunately I was able to brake in time. A few meters later I passed a very beautiful water mill with a café that looked like straight from a fairy tale. I still regret that I did not stop there.
From then on, I had some beautiful bike paths, such as in this image. This is my definition of perfect bicycle infrastructure. These paths stretched for kilometers on end through the plains and forests of the Spreewald, most of the time next to rural roads on which cars rarely passed.
I arrived very early at my second and last campside. It was looking way rougher and less touristy than the first one. I arrived there simultaneously with another family and we got our campsides right next to the “event location” of the campsite where a lot of regulars were grilling and blasting remixes of German songs. This campsite only cost ~10€ iirc. What I did yesterday was promptly repeated: I swam a few minutes inside the “Großer Müllroser See”, took a shower and then relaxed in my tent. Because I arrived so early, I had to kill a lot of time. With my ereader I walked around the lake a bit until I found a very nice public beach with yet another snack bar and lots of people gathered there. For dinner I had even more fries. I ate them while reading my book. Then I stayed a bit longer to watch the truly beautiful sunset!
In the evening, the power-logistics started to become complicated. I had one 10.000mAh powerbank and a very slow (I really don’t know why I chose this one…) 10W power supply. So in the middle of the night I had the ingenious idea to attach the powerbank to an outlet on the roof of one of the wooden party tents I had to sleep next to. The next morning I woke up with a full powerbank!
Friday, the 14. of August 2026
The last day started, yet again, with me waking up freezing. This time, I got up pretty early, packed my things, and started rolling at 8:30. The air was still very cool which felt very calming on my skin. I imagine that I was very well rested after the easy second day, as I was going very quickly. But this may have also been due to the fact that Berlin expected temperatures of up to 39°C this day, which was not something I wanted to be in. So I powered through the entire day with only a few, very short breaks. This also meant that I took no pictures of the incredible nature I passed through. This last day probably had the best bicycle infrastructure of the entire tour with a seemingly never-ending asphalted bike path through the forest next to the Spree-Oder canal, which I definitely want to revisit some day. There was one slight issue I encountered though: there was a major road construction in Grünheide which meant I had to take an inefficient detour which also frustrated me a bit… I entered Berlin very early at 12:00 in the east of the city. It was very interesting (and brutal) that I still had to ride for another 30km to get back home through the city! I finally got home at ~13:40 after a total of 101km in 4:35h.
Regrets, Lessons & What’s Next
It was an incredible adventure over 256,2km for me. For some, it might seem like not that big of a deal, but for me it’s just the beginning of lots of adventures to come. I learned a lot about myself and the equipment I used.
A few things I learned and would do differently next time:
- My diet was very bad, especially the breakfast. The next time I go bikepacking I will have to try to make myself at least a proper breakfast.
- The 10W power supply. Why I took this one - from all the ones I own - is still beyond me. My 65W power supply would have made everything a whole lot easier.
- Not stopping at the fairy-tale café.
- Not having a small bluetooth speaker for my music for the long stretches of loneliness. Even though I enjoyed the silence, I could have used some Enjoy the Silence.
- I neglected to pack proper clothes for when I wasn’t on the bike.
- A much better sleeping bag!! The one I found at home had a limit temperature of around 10°C.
And lastly: Going alone. I deliberately planned this adventure as a solo-tour because I had to figure out for myself if I actually enjoyed the discomfort of bikepacking or if I just liked watching YouTube videos of people going through it. Turns out, I actually loved it and felt alive! Next time, I want to share that fascination with someone else and go on adventures together :)
I’m quite sad that it’s already over and that the harsh northern German winter is coming up. I absolutely cannot wait for spring 2027 when I’ll do another - hopefully longer and not alone - bikepacking tour.