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I'm a total novice in bike touring or even cycling, but I do a lot of hiking and backpacking. I live in Germany and bought a 50 euro bike on facebook marketplace the other week, then did a little tinkering with it and last weekend went out on a trip. I only did about 50km total (I did this to celebrate getting over being sick for the last month but I'm still taking it easy), but did it by loading my bike on the train, riding that to the Rhine valley, then biking along the river until I found somewhere to camp. I didn't have a place picked out, but found a beautiful flat spot up on a rocky ridge overlooking the river and a nice town and busy train tracks (it's /n/, the traintism comes naturally). I cooked up some ramen and sausages on my stove and slept on a foam roll-up sleeping pad under an inflatable pad, a 20ºF sleeping bag in a waterproof ultralight bivi sack, and then my hammock rainfly over the top (picrel). It was rainy and cold but I'm nobody's bitch so it was fun. Slept pretty decently with earplugs to keep out the train noises. On the ride back, I had a freaky moment where I guess the lubrication of the rain I was riding through loosened up the allen screws holding my handlebars in place, so they got loose and started shifting around. That was spooky, but I rode 25km holding them in place very carefully. It was awesome anyway.
Anyway, here's the discussion topic. I don't have attachments for my bike (europoor), so I just used my 55L backpacking bag. I figured it would be uncomfy but I'd just deal with it, since all bikepacking setups I've seen use saddlebags and whatnotinstead, but it was super comfy! It was a short ride (for someone not recovering from pneumonia), but still, I felt like I could've done far far more without getting uncomfy. I'll admit my backpacking bag is a nice one, it has great back support and I've done week-long backpacking trips on rough terrain with much heavier stuff in it with no discomfort. What do you guys do?
