The AC Bikepacking Trend Report

Hello & welcome to the AC Bikepacking Trend Report for 2025!

We’ve never done this before, but we have so many discussions in here about what’s popular & what’s not, we thought we should share it.

Abbotsford Cycles has been stocking bikepacking gear for almost 15 years now. Did you know we were the first people to bring Revelate Designs into Australia?

Why would such a small shop (that doesn’t even sell bikes!) be so ahead of the curve when it comes to bikepacking? Because this is a touring shop!

Touring is the original bikepacking – bicycling touring has been around for a hundred years at least.

The difference between touring & bikepacking up until extremely recently was the use of a rack.

Bikepacking has been about a streamlined approach to touring. Carry all your gear on the surface of your bike, without carrying 50L of gear on the back on a rack.

And of course once you free yourself from the constraints of a bike rack and a heavy rear end, you can go anywhere. And you can go on any bike.

Probably the best thing about bikepacking was how just about any bike could carry gear. Between a handlebar roll & a saddle pack, you were set. And of course frame bags fit in so, so many bikes.

The reduced space for stuff meant that cyclists could get out on those rough trails & take short, hard trips.

We at Abbotsford Cycles love a short challenging ride.

But there were downsides to bikepacking set ups. Basically everything we just mentioned but inverse – you can’t take as much stuff, and that means shorter trips.

Unless you were Flashpacking of course (flashpacking also known as Credit Card Touring where you carry no camping gear & stay in pubs & hotels instead).

And the limitations of bikepacking were serious if you were a shorter rider on a small bike frame. There simply isn’t as many places to load gear on your bike when it’s a size 48cm / XS.

So we have entered a new half-way between touring & bikepacking – bikepacking with a rack!

 

The best bikepacking gear is… a rack and panniers

 

Racks have surged back into popularity. It’s astounding to us as a shop that has always sold rack & supported touring. To see the huge increase in people wanting racks & panniers is awesome!

Because this is stuff that’s been around for decades and decades. There are so many excellent bike racks & bike panniers out there. Take Tubus racks, their steel racks are unbeatable when it comes to durability. And they make so many variations to suit any bike, and any set up.

And of course how do you mention touring without mentioning Ortlieb. The original and the best, their seam-welded panniers have been the gold standard for bike bags for decades. If you want the best, there is no better than Ortlieb.

And of course Ortlieb are all over the trends in bikepacking and touring. They know what the people want.

People wanted to go bikepacking – sometimes – on their regular bike. Because really how many long weekends are there in a year? Fitting a bike trip in around your regular family commitments, school holidays and everything else is hard. And it’s harder still to fork out hundreds of dollars on bikepacking bags that you have to keep in the garage for 300 days a year!

Ortlieb’s Quick Rack has been a game changer for so many people.

Unlike a regular bike rack where it becomes a permanent fixture on your bike, the Quick Rack comes off in seconds. Meaning your regular bike can be an adventure machine on the weekends. Genius.

With a temporary rack (that is fine to leave on your bike forever if you want) you have added flexibility.

Want to take a longer ride, and stay in hotels as well as camp sites on your ride? You can carry everything on a rack!

The practicality of panniers is unmatched. There is simply no comparison to digging around in your saddle bag while you hold your filthy rear wheel between your knees trying to find something in there.

Run a rack and you can take your pannier off your bike & tip it upside down if you want.

Panniers have no limitation on what you carry in them. So no more careful planning of where your jacket is on your bike (handlebar bag, saddle bag, fork pack…could be anywhere).

And if you’re the type to ‘over plan’ or carry a lot of stuff ‘just in case’ this is made worlds easier by the volume you can carry in your panniers.

Ah, but Ortlieb didn’t stop there! they knew that carrying a pair of 20L panniers on a rack does not sound like a fun jaunt on a bike.

And of course Ortlieb have been making smaller than usual panniers for decades. They were designed for touring!

You can think of them as touring panniers, because they were designed for running on the front rather than the back. And almost always required you be riding a ‘touring bike’. As touring bikes were the only ones with eyelets on the fork to mount a front ‘lowrider’ pannier rack on the wheel.

Ortlieb switched it up and made the Gravel Packs. These are small profile panniers that are half the size of a regular rear set.

And they come with an additional anchoring hook, making them SO off-road ready.

The combination of a rear rack and a set of little panniers you had the perfect set up for long weekends on the trails.

And this is absolutely what we see and what we talk to people about every day in the shop!

 

Fork ..panniers?

 

 

But it isn’t all about racks. Bikepacking is still alive and well – in its new half-touring form. And that means people are still using any available space on their bike’s frame to carry gear.

And with the huge influx of gravel bikes with bosses on their forks, carrying gear on forks has become super popular.

The options for carrying things on your fork are many, but they follow a basic rule. Either they are cages, or they are bags.

Cages on your fork allow you to strap whatever you want to them. Sleeping bag, tent pegs, Nalgene, shoes, banana….whatever.

And of course in steps Ortlieb with their Fork Packs. These are essentially micro-panniers for the fork. They are little squared off waterproof bags that have their own mounting system. So no fiddling with straps and re-attaching your gear to your bike in the morning. Just clip your fork pannier on! (Don’t tell Ortlieb we called them that).

But once again taking a touring idea & making it a bit more ‘rugged’ has really filled a need.

Fork Packs can hold your stove, all your heavy cooking stuff, and will give your steering stability in the process.

If you have not ridden a bike with a loaded front end you simply haven’t lived. Try taking a gravel descent with a nice heavy front wheel and you will never go back. Confidence inspiring is the marketing term, and it’s annoyingly accurate.

 

To tube or not to tube

 

It’s interesting to watch the switch of the average cyclist from a bikepacker to a tourer. And it has a lot of run-on effects of what you want from your bike.

We are many years into the Tubeless story now. We think just about everyone knows about tubeless now, compared to a few years ago. And many people want to try it.

Increasingly we see people who run tubeless on all their bikes, all the time. And especially on adventure rides.

And of course we get it (we at AC also run tubeless on our bikes). But it has meant an increase in discussions on maintaining a tubeless set up. And repairing tubeless punctures, because yes they do still happen and they suck just as much as a tube puncture!

Should we use this space to talk about it? Everyone on earth has a different opinion when it comes to the sticky stuff inside tyres. Probably we’ll be safe and say it’s not an exact science, and therefore outcomes are generally unpredictable. So if you feel like you have been cursed by the tubeless gods, you probably have.

Tubeless is absolutely fantastic for taking away probably half the punctures you would normally experience. And you get to run nice comfortable low pressure in your tyres. And wider tyres! All the usual benefits of tubeless.

But it’s not a fool-proof system – nothing is! And you need to be prepared for the worst when it comes to bikepacking and touring.

Luckily there are brands like Dynaplug who are the people making plugs for punctures in tubeless tyres. And their plugs will last longer than your tyre most of the time.

 

Touring saddles are bikepacking saddles

 

But speaking of disasters and dramas that try to ruin your adventures, let’s talk about saddles.

Abbotsford Cycles was once the biggest seller of Brooks England leather saddles in the Southern Hemisphere. Is that not crazy?

So you’d best believe we talk about saddles a lot.

Brooks leather saddles continue to be the number one choice for bikepacking & touring. Because who wouldn’t want to sit in a leather armchair on a long ride?

And that’s how people describe their ‘broken in’ leather saddles. These saddles mould & form to your sit bones & your body just like those comfortable leather shoes you have. (Not Dr Martens. Brooks saddles are so much more comfortable than Docs, trust us).

So if you’re planning a long ride, and you’re not worried about your legs (I’m jealous of you) then the next most common worry is your saddle.

If you’ve ever spent ‘too much’ time on your bike then you know it is excruciating. Even the most comfortable rubber and foam saddle is going to feel like wood under your sit bones at some point.

But do people tell us this happens to them with a leather saddle? No!

If you’re reading our blog we think you probably do the rounds on bike forums and blogs and have some knowledge here. We trust you have read or heard about the glorious Brooks B17 leather saddle.

And yes, we think it’s the right saddle for long rides. But not the first ride. Plan ahead when it comes to new saddles – give yourself 6 weeks to really get comfortable on any saddle, including a leather one.

We have seen a huge increase in the number of people who want the most comfortable option in a saddle. And again it’s so great for us to see this, as a touring shop we have been banging on about leather saddles forever!

And we are so glad to see more and more people love their bike, love riding their bike, and love their extremely old-school cool saddle.

Got a steel bike? Nothing looks better than a leather saddle on that bad boy.

 

The most popular bikepacking routes in 2025…so far

 

 

And then there are the routes.

We love hearing about all the rides people are doing – because we want to know where to go on our next rides!

So here’s our top 3 routes that we hear people undertaking in 2025 so far.

 

The Otway Rip

 

 

We can speak more about this than any other ride in this little list because several of the AC team have been on it.

We know why people like this one. It’s super easily accessed from Melbourne – just jump on the V Line. And it follows the original Great Ocean Road – so no cars! And there’s some beautiful sections of rail trail with towering tree canopy above – beautiful.

There’s also a brewery to stop in at on the ride, and a camp site where you can shower – seriously luxurious.

And if you’re a one of those people who can use your legs in a way which is not throwing them in a circle, there’s a hike! You can stop off in Princeton for a day hike on the Great Ocean Walk.

But fundamentally it’s a breezy little 3 day ride with limited elevation, nice gravel, cool scenery, cute koalas & a minimum of single track. Meaning it’s a great ride for bikepackers with racks!

 

 

Mawson Trail

 

Quite possibly the worst/best sounding ride to the serious bikepacker. We haven’t done this one ourselves but the stories & the photos of that Peanut Butter Mud are incredible – and a little off-putting?

We love that people are willing to go out and give this one a go – it’s 900kms in SA that isn’t easy to get to, and thus isn’t easy to bail on when the going gets tough.

Weather has a huge impact on this ride, so you will be rolling the dice when you make your plans. But really even if it storms & ruins your day, at least you’ll have the stories right?

 

Munda Biddi Trail

 

This is the one we have ride-envy over. 1000kms through WA and there’s no one but other cyclists out there! Well, it’s a walking track. But there are huts along the way with bunk beds and a place to clean your dirty bike. And the huts aren’t hike-in – they’re for us rugged cyclists.

And when it comes to bikepacking with a rack we hear the Aeroe rack is the best option because you better be riding a mountain bike! Or at least the big beefy tyres of a mountain bike. Because that’s some rough, loose gravel. And if you don’t want to lose all your momentum to the chattering of your tyres & your brain rattling in your head you will need big tyres.

 

The AC Bikepacking Trend Report – what’s next?

 

The year is not even half way over, so we are sure there will be more interesting trends to watch in this scene.

Most definitely the landing in August of the latest iteration of Ortlieb’s Quick Rack will be a big one. A thru axle mounting version? We can’t wait to see it.

And we hope more people come around to the idea of dry bags on racks. They’re just so practical – like throwing a duffle bag on top of your rack. Easy!

We also think the creeping return of touring and bikes designed for touring will mean a corresponding return of double & triple chainrings. (This isn’t the end of 12 speed cassettes we promise.)

And we think that tyres will continue to get fatter and fatter….no we’re kidding, we think the sweet spot will be 42-47c tyres.

And we look forward to finding out how right (or wrong) our predictions are!

 

 

(This blog post has been brought to you by a real human – no AI at AC!)