Which are the best foldable solar panels for bicycle touring? In the XXI century, let whoever can do without technology during a bicycle trip throw the first stone!
Nowadays, for better or for worse, technology surrounds us and we can hardly do without it, even in bicycle touring. In order to be able to travel in wildlands far from civilization for some days, it is necessary to find an alternative to electricity, to recharge our devices such as smartphones, GPSs, tablets, PCs... One of those alternatives is power banks or, better, foldable solar panels for bicycle touring: let's see how they work and most importantly how many alternatives we have on the market, in order to choose wisely depending on our needs.
Buying a touring bicycle is always challenging, especially because we usually travel one or twice a year and it's not easy to face a purchase - besides, heavy - for an item that will mostly live in our basement. Luckily during these last years, the concept itself of bicycle tour has been changing, and along with it, the bikes evolved as well, becoming everyday things.
This allows us to make a more thoughtful choice, and maybe pledge a higher budget for this mixed-use means of transportation. This year too I decided to do a short (and surely not exhaustive) research, trying to understand which are the most popular travel bicycles and which are used with more satisfaction by bike travelers. See below the 12 best adventure and touring bicycles of 2020.
We cannot hide behind our finger... in XXI century technology surrounds us and even us, bicycle travelers, have to deal with it. Even the most extreme and savage bicycle traveler has the need to be connected, everywhere and always. Other than the ethical question I'm not going to analyze here, this need is also practical: which are the alternatives to the electricity that can be used when this isn't available? In this article, we list some of the most common alternatives, like the dynamo hub connected to the lights system or, thanks to specific chargers, to your electronic devices, in order to charge them.
There are travelers who love cycling on asphalt and others who love dirt and mud or others who prefer gravel climbs... every travel by bicycle is different, and to deal with it it's necessary to choose the most adequate tires for our adventure... but how can one solve the travel tires eternal problem? In this article, I'll try and help you with this hard choice and I'll suggest some of which, in my opinion, are the 10 best bicycle touring tires of 2020.
One of the components capable of making the difference when riding for many hours is the touring bike saddle: choosing the right one can change your comfort during long excursions or short trips. These last years I've seen a lot of people with many types of touring bicycle seats, and I had the possibility to try most of them. Unfortunately, as usually happens, there isn't a universally perfect saddle for every one of us. There are some factors influencing our comfort, so the choice must be made carefully. Following you will find some advice in order to understand which factors to consider when choosing your seat, then a list of the best touring bike saddles.
One of the many accessories that we always carry on a medium length cycling trip is a bicycle touring tent to camp everywhere. It doesn't matter if we will use it for half of the nights during the trip, but we prefer to carry some extra kg but to be free to choose where to sleep. We have slept in the most different places during these years of bicycle touring, so we developed a pretty accurate awareness in this matter, and we try to share with you some thoughts in order to help you choose the best tent for your cycle adventures..
Are you looking for the best panniers for bicycle touring? Well, I'll try and tell you, but before let's try to understand what we're talking about. In these last years, the number of bicycle tourists has grown bigger and bigger, and so has the offer of bags, panniers and bikepacking bags to carry our things on the bikes. In this specific case, I'll be treating the classic panniers for bicycle touring, the ones you mount on a rack, front or rear.
By now using a GPS for bicycle, outdoor activities or trekking has become very important, let me say essential. We have been using it for 15 years now. We started with a non-cartographic GPS together with paper maps, in order to track our routes, to then switch to a cartographic GPS more similar to a cyclo-computer. Now we are using a more generic one, more outdoor-oriented than bicycle oriented. Enough talking: let's see which are the best bicycle GPS on the market in 2019 in my personal opinion and online research.
Lately, I've been experiencing a lot of curiosity about outdoor GPS Apps, in particular for Android OS. In general, what I like the most about these apps is their facility of use: I don't always have a lot of time to study and learn methods to exploit my smartphone at its best during MTB excursions or bicycle travels, mostly because I use a dedicated GPS navigator that is complete and satisfying. For emergencies, curiosity or urgency I don't disagree about using my smartphone with a good outdoor App, and recently some apps are remarkable. Today I'll present one of the most intuitive apps ready to use: Locus Map, very convincing and really powerful in its free version.
It is one of the most underrated components of a bike. However, if we want to optimize our comfort, it is one of the most important. Let's see how many bicycle handlebars there are and which one to choose.
If you are reading this article you're probably about to buy a gravel bicycle. I won't linger about gravel bikes or the reasons why you chose this specific kind of bike, because these topics are not interesting for people who are going to decide what gravel bike to buy. The thing you have to know is that in the last years more and more people have chosen this "philosophy" and try this halfway point between a road and a mountain bike, to travel or for daily excursions on gravel roads near their place. I decided to write down my little (and for sure not complete) research, trying to understand which ones are the most liked gravel bicycles and which ones are used by mud lovers. Here you'll find the 10 best gravel bikes of 2019.
One of the most important accessories when travelling are bike panniers and choosing the right ones isn’t easy or taken for granted: bicycle touring bags which are too small will cause a lack of space for the luggage; purchasing bags too big, vice versa, will invite us to fill them often transporting useless weight and items that will remain unused on the bottom of the bags themselves. Hereafter we’ll see in short how to choose the right bicycle bags, which characteristics to take into consideration and how to understand if they’re suitable for our needs.
