By Jacob Martin
Guest Contributor
@mid_nowhere
Sooner or later, things break or wear out. In this short piece, Jacob Martin describes his mindset toward mechanical problems and offers some practical tips for handling them when they unfailingly arise. Read some of the lessons he learned along the European Divide Trail and share a memorable issue or field repair here…
Things going wrong is part of bikepacking. Maybe we get lost or have to haul our bikes over and around hundreds of storm-blown trees. Maybe the trail on the map doesn’t actually exist, or we get soaked and cold in the night because we didn’t pack our tarp, or we fall off and hurt ourselves. They can be big things, small things, seriously miserable things, or just funny mistakes we later laugh about.
I remember my friend Tom planning a three-day “gravel” ride for a big group of us across Exmoor and Dartmoor in South West England. The first day started as a good laugh—except for those in the group expecting true gravel riding—before it dragged on and on and got more boggy and difficult as the evening drew in. We made it to the planned camp for the night just before dark. Unfortunately, we arrived a good couple of hours after the planned pizza had packed up and gone home. It was quite a hungry night and a slog to find food in the morning but a funny story each of us remembers any time we see each other.
The most common issue we get while bikepacking however, is probably some part of our bike going SNAP! The humble mechanical. It could be a HISSSSS! POP! SQUEAK! CRUNCH! or jarring CRACK! too. That haunting sound or feeling of impending doom inside that has us glancing down and brings us to a quick halt.
If I’m just heading out for a short pedal from the front door, sometimes I won’t take any tools, pump, or spare tube with me; I’m willing to take the risk of having to walk a couple of miles back home. However, as I venture further out, deeper into the unknown and away from civilization, the risk grows, and so will my pack of spares and repairs.
Like with all that we do, it’s a balance between luxury (in this case, a quick repair on the trail) and weight. We could carry a spare for every single part of our bike and gear, but that’s a little silly and excessive. We balance it out with the likelihood of that scenario happening.
Puncture? Pretty likely, pack a spare tube and a pump on almost all rides. Snapped chain? They happen occasionally; a quick link and a chain breaker might be worth chucking in the bag for all but a quick little spin. Ripped rain jacket? You never know, but the half-gram of tenacious tape isn’t going to hold you back on an overnight adventure, and you can use it on your tent or dry bags, too. What about a mashed-up derailleur? It’s happened to me a couple of times before. Still, the chances of it happening on most trips are slim, and a spare is big and bulky, so I’m going to risk it and leave a backup at home.
Thinking about this, it’s not just likelihood. It’s consequences, too. What do I have to do if I can’t repair this at the side of the trail? Maybe I just have to walk an hour to the nearest station and get the train home, or I can freewheel back down the hill to a busy road and hitch a lift to the nearest bike shop. But it could also be a whole lot harder to solve. Certainly, deep in the wilderness, a two-day hike out might be in the cards—not what you want, especially if you don’t have appropriate food and water supplies. Or maybe you’re in a country that doesn’t have parts or even tools to work on your fancy modern mountain bike.
These are all things to think about and some lessons you may not want to learn the hard way. I learned at least few the hard way while I pedalled the European Divide Trail a couple of years back.
One key lesson I took away is to give every part of your bike a thorough service before heading out on a long trip. You may have never had a problem or even a squeak from it, but all those complex parts need a good look. For me, it was my freehub and my suspension fork. Both broke, both took a couple of days to repair, and both should have been serviced before I left.
Another relevant lesson leads on from the suspension fork: keep it simple. The more complex it is, the more likely it is to break. If you can simplify it, simplify it! Dropper posts are great, but they have moving parts, and moving parts break. Electronic shifting? I’m skeptical, certainly, when I don’t have a soldering iron, and I’m 150 miles from the nearest outlet. Changing a gear cable is oh-so simple, even at the side of a trail. I don’t think I ever truly needed the suspension fork for my ride across Europe. If I hadn’t had it, it couldn’t have broken.
Punctures are the number one mechanical we would all expect, but somehow, I lucked out on this one. Throughout some 7,600 kilometres, I didn’t get a single flat tyre. Some still think there is a debate over tubeless or tubes. For me, however, the debate is well and truly over.
All this to say: prevention is better than cure. Take as many steps as you can to avoid the need to get that repair kit out in the first place. However, we can’t avoid everything, so we must ensure our repair kits are stocked and we know what to do when things break. This doesn’t just apply to your bike. We need to think about every piece of gear we have: clothes, tents, dry bags, and certainly inflatable sleeping mats, to name a few.
Here’s what I worked out I should take with me before setting off for three months on the European Divide and what has become my standard bikepacking repair kit:
- Cable ties
- Duct tape
- Two spare tubes
- Patches and glue
- Tyre levers
- Tubeless valve
- Pump
- Tyre boot patch
- Spokes (stored in handlebars)
- Spoke nipples
- Tubeless plugs and applicator
- Brake pads (two sets) and spare retaining pin
- Chain lube
- Cloth rag
- Grease
- Misc. bolts, nuts, and washers
- Quick links
- Few links of chain
- Chain breaker
- Gear inner cable
- A small amount of PTFE tape
- Small multi-tool with knife and pliers
- Multi-tool with screwdrivers, hexes, spoke keys, spanners
- Superglue
- Derailleur hanger
- Hose clamps
- Tenacious tape
- Sewing needles
- Thread
- Therm-a-Rest patch kit
- Tent pole spare parts
From the research I did, this seemed like it would cover most bases without being excessive. I could have carried more, that’s for sure, but it would have come at the compromise of weight. At least in Western Europe, I knew I’d never be too far from a bike shop or at least a bus, train, or hitch that could get me there.
This kit served me well. I changed a snapped spoke in Sweden, patched a dry bag in Germany, and replaced a gear cable in Spain. The chain lube was essential, though I never used it anywhere near as regularly as I should. My own repair knowledge is basic, but I try to do anything I need to fix on my bike when I’m in the comfort of home instead of heading straight to a bike shop. That way, my knowledge of my bike grows, and I’m a whole lot more likely to be able to diagnose or fix the things that go wrong with it out on the trail.
I got a tip once to help if you are ever struggling to sort your bike yourself: turn it upside down and remove a wheel. This way, it is obvious you have an issue, and more often than not, a friendly passerby will notice and give you a hand, point you at a bike shop, or offer any support they can. I left my bike like this one morning in a village in Sweden while I made my breakfast. Not long later, a man came by and told me of a bike hire shop just around the corner that might have some tools. Google Maps is great, but local knowledge can get you out of many sticky situations.
Lastly we can’t talk about repairs without a nod to the important skill of bodging, the way we fix things with what we have and use things in unconventional ways to get us home or keep us moving until a proper fix is possible. Cable ties, hose clamps, and duct tape come into their element here, but we often have to be creative, search our bags and surroundings, and see what we can make happen with what we have. To some, this is not just a skill but an art.
None of us ever wants to hear a horrible sound coming from our bike. We don’t want to feel rain on our faces in the night. We don’t want the pain, unexpected trips off route, or to be standing by a road with our bikes upturned trying to thumb a lift into town. However, I think every one of us wants adventure, and as we know, we don’t get that until something goes wrong.
Thanks for reading! If you have any recommendations for additions to the repair kit or any memorable repair bodges you’ve done, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
Further Reading
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