Sleep systems for bikepacking events

This post is aimed at events, where you are trying to travel fast and likely light rather than a trip. Again if you’re the 1% at the front, do your thing.

Before considering specific setups we should start at the top: why are we sleeping and what are we trying to accomplish? If you’re stopping in an event you’re spending time that could otherwise be used pedalling and making forward progress. Likely you are not stopping by total free choice, but necessity. If you are hungry, you’ll stop to eat. But clearly you are stopping to sleep because you are tired, and likely your body needs a break. So, the point in sleeping is to allow rest and regeneration – in normal circumstances sleep would be to allow recovery, however in an event that is unlikely. The level of adenosine (the chemical makes us feel tired) has build up and it is only by sleeping we can reduce it. Sleep has two components: quality and quantity, making up the overall effectiveness of the sleep period. It stands to reason, as we are in an event trying to maximise our time pedalling and thus minimising our time sleeping, that getting the highest quality sleep possible should be the priority, so we can minimise the time we need to be asleep.

I became quite renowned in my Transcontinental period for sleeping in hotels nearly every night. Now you see why, quality!

To sleep I took a tent to Silk Road Mountain Race in 2019 and 2021

The most efficient way to consider sleep systems is to break events into categories: on-road, off-road civilisation, off-road remote. It is wise to do your pre-race analysis first to determine: remoteness of event, weather, culture, cost of lodging, duration of event, likely duration of sleep needed. These factors will help you determine what you need. First, let’s look at the equipment choices.

Equipment:

Shelter: Hotel, tent, bivi, bus stop, nothing

Sleeping: Hotel duvet, sleeping bag, clothes, emergency foil bivi

Comfort: Hotel mattress, inflatable pad, foam pad, grass, concrete.

A tent is great, you don’t need to use it, but if you do need it then it’s a life saver. Whereas a bivi is generally always crap – in my opinion. If its not raining you don’t need it, you can just sleep in a sleeping bag, if it is raining then you really want a tent. Personally I don’t use bivi bags much, for an on-road event you can nearly always find shelter and for an off-road event in anything but perfect weather I would likely take a tent. Tents can be lighter than most bivi bags if you have the money, and buying a great tent will quickly outstrip a few hotels. It is qorth considering how quick the tent you look at is to pitch, my Zpacks altaplex can be up in 20 seconds, with its one central carbon upright pole. Far more practical and faster to pitch than a hooped bivi – weighs less too.

A lot of people won’t bother carrying a mattress but I consider it almost essential. They weigh from 200 grams, which is nothing, and if it means you can just lay out anywhere and get 90 minutes sleep in comfort to me it seems a no-brainer. Maybe I am just soft and need comfort, but I do feel better for laying on a soft surface than hard. The first item I would carry is a mattress, before sleeping bag or shelter.

On-road

On-road events generally mean civilisation and thus hotels or B and Bs at reasonably frequent intervals. If a warm dry bed offers the highest quality it might be your aim to sleep in a hotel every night – cost allowing. Or perhaps every other night. The other factor to on-road events is a hotel or shelter is never too far, so you can consider carrying less sleeping equipment. Perhaps just a sleeping matt (comfort) and a emergency foil bivi – in case you can’t stop at the ideal hotel. The ability to cover distance easily does affect the ability to rely on hotels. If you can happily knock off another 50 km beyond what you would like to make it to a hotel then OK, however not all will be able to, and so having some flexibility to sleep under the stars is advisable. It’s worth noting that with the arrival of COVID and all it’s bureaucracy staying in hotels will not be as fast or simple as it was and thus I would not currently rely on it for a full time strategy – just the occasional night as needed.

Off-road civilisation

This would be a more remote event, less easy to get shelter or a nice hotel. When considering events like this you need to be more prepared to sleep outside most nights. Trying to get a hotel at the right time is unlikely every night. Thus if carrying a sleep system anyway, you might as well make use of it. Depending on your pre-event analysis you can decide what to carry. It might just be a sleeping pad or you might need a sleeping bag and bivy too.

Off-road remote

Think Silk Road Mountain Race and Kyrgyzstan. The chance of finding shelter is near nill and almost impossible to get at the right time. The weather is more likely to be tough and thus you need decent sleeping system. Also once you add in the possibility of getting sick or a mechanical, spending 3 days alone in the remote sick in a bivy becomes unappealing. Imagine if you wheel broke and it was snowing, you’re tyring to fix that without a tent. Just because you carry a tent does not mean you need to pitch it. In 2019 SRMR I pitched my tent twice, the other nights I just used it as a ground sheet. But those two nights, I needed it to protect me from the rain. Yes you can sleep in a storm drain on some cardboard, but for the weight of carrying some good sleeping equipment the improvement in quality is worth it.

Location

Urban or rural? Me I generally choose to sleep in more rural settings if possible. It will be quieter, you are less likely to be disturbed or woken. However if you don’t have your own shelter then you might need an urban setting for getting out the rain. It is worth considering where. One night I laid out in front of a supermarket in Austria I think, only to be woken not long after by a delivery at 3am, unexpected! If I’d had shelter I could have slept anywhere and better. Plus, don’t forget those church bells.

Some examples of sleep setups I have used, I don’t recommend these for you, but give insight.

It is better to take something and not need it, than wish you had it. Like food, sleep is key to making good happy progress. Skimping on your sleeping setup to save a few hundred grams is short sighted and shooting yourself in the foot. Always go back to ask yourself the purpose of something and work from there.