How to Train for Bikepacking

Unlike general fitness or cross-training activities, on-bike training focuses on improving the physical mechanics, energy systems, and mental resilience needed for cycling. Whether you're aiming for a bikepacking adventure or a race- or even just increasing your overall fitness- time spent on the bike helps you adapt to the unique demands of pedaling efficiently over long distances.

Different types of rides also target different skill sets you are looking to bolster, for example:

• Long-distance endurance rides to build stamina.
• Short, intense rides to boost cardiovascular capacity and climbing power.
• Flat rides for cadence work and efficiency.
• Hilly rides to strengthen climbing muscles and technique.
• Off-road rides to improve bike handling skills and confidence on varied terrain.

On-bike training is about more than just building fitness—it’s about gaining confidence in your abilities and ensuring your body is ready for the challenges of your ride.

Our Approach to On-Bike Training

Mine and Mat’s approach to on-bike training has always been to keep things fun and interesting so that we look forward to doing it - which makes it much more sustainable. 

This looks like going out on a variety of different rides - switching up distances, types of terrain, levels of effort, hitting new locations and destinations, and adding in anything else we can to spice things up. 

Last year, we even incorporated an Easter egg hunt into a training ride on Salt Spring Island, where we stopped at every roadside farm stand we could find on the island to check and see how many eggs were for sale that day.

These sorts of micro adventures keep us motivated to get outside and rideour bikes and encourage us tostay out exploring for longer.

On Bike Training For Beginner Fitness Levels

Svein Tuft - "My advice to someone starting out is to first make sure your bike fits you. Then, as time permits, start riding consistently for fun. A heart rate strap is very helpful to make sure you're not overdoing it. For example spending your entire ride at threshold will lead quickly to burnout over time. 

You don't have to overcomplicate your rides with intervals and workouts, you just need to consistently ride your bike at the lower intensities."

"Too many people go chasing after the quick progress but there's nothing quick and easy about this process. Start with 4-5 hours in the 1st week and slowly build over months to 15-16 hours depending on your time restraints. 
As the good weather comes - do a few practice trips. Start with an overnighter. This experience will help you understand if this is something you will truly enjoy. Then you can keep building on that." 

On Bike Training For Moderate/High Fitness Levels

Svein Tuft - "For people who are at moderate fitness levels - their goal will be to increase their metabolic efficiency through ramping up their volume and a considerable amount of time in Zone 2.

The human body is amazing and makes huge adaptations while riding at this level. There's nothing sexy about training. It's simply about work and consistency."

"For those with a high level of fitness, you can start looking into things like a metabolic cart which will give you data like your Vo2 and FatMax numbers.

The metabolic cart can measure your expired gases and give readings of how many carbs and fats you are burning during a given effort.

As an athlete riding all day, it makes a lot of sense to try and train/ride at the power where your body utilizes the most fat as your fuel. This can be trained and it's through a metabolic cart test that you can learn all of this information. Consider a small investment to gain a lot of information about yourself.
You can also do a test 3 months later to see the improvements you've made." 

How to Keep On-Bike Training Interesting

Svein Tuft - "I think one of the best ways to keep training interesting is to do a variety of disciplines on the bike. I like every kind of bike and I think they all compliment each other. "
"If you're taking on a bikepacking adventure, then I'd highly recommend working on your mountain biking capabilities as it will give you a lot more tools and confidence when you get into tricky situations on a loaded gravel bike. 
A road bike can give you quality training without all the jarring and rigor of a MTB or gravel bike."

Hike-A-Bike Training

Hiking is a great way to strengthen bone density and quality bang for the buck when it comes to endurance exercise. 

Don't forget, no matter how good of a rider you are, there will be times when you're relegated to pushing your bike, so hiking is important! With plenty of variety in your program this should keep you motivated and excited for the next objective. 

Svein’s Training Protocol

My training protocol is all about building a solid foundation throughout the winter, I love to cross country ski and ski tour.

I spend a lot of time in Zone 2 - as this is the intensity that bikepacking is primarily ridden. When spring rolls around I'm super eager to get on the bike.

As I build volume throughout winter into spring, I will start doing longer rides that represent the type of riding I'm planning for my key events. There's nothing like doing the effort to know exactly what you're getting into.

This doesn't mean that you go and ride 1000 km in 3 days, but maybe you test what it feels like to ride 300 km in one day. These types of efforts change the body physically and metabolically and that is the whole goal. They also give you peace of mind that you're capable of the given distance or time.

3 - What Is Cross-Training?

Cross-training involves incorporating a variety of movement modalities into your fitness routine to complement your primary activity—in this case, cycling. 

By engaging in diverse activities, cross-training builds a more well-rounded base of fitness, targeting complementary muscle groups, improving overall strength, and enhancing endurance in ways that cycling alone cannot.

This approach also helps reduce the risk of overuse injuries caused by repetitive cycling motions and keeps your routine fresh and enjoyable, preventing burnout. 

Mindfully integrating cross-training can sustain motivation and promote better recovery between rides, ultimately making you a stronger, more resilient cyclist.

Examples of Cross-Training Activities:

• Trail Running/Hiking: Builds cardiovascular endurance and strengthens stabilizers for navigating uneven terrain.
• Walking: A low-impact way to stay active while aiding recovery.
• Weight Lifting: Enhances muscle strength in the legs, core, arms and back, which supports long rides and carrying gear.
• Yoga/Stretching: Improves flexibility, balance, and core strength while promoting recovery and reducing stress.
• Swimming/Rowing: Excellent for cross-conditioning and developing upper-body strength.

Cross-training doesn’t just improve physical performance; it builds overall strength and resilience that enhances all areas of life, extending far beyond cycling.

Our Approach to Cross-Training

We love training all year-round - although, much this ‘training’ is often disguised in adventures like hiking, trail running and riding bikes. We get outside to move our bodies in some way, shape or form every single day - unless we are really sick! 

Even after big outings, we make sure to include some ‘active recovery’ practices the next day, be that a walk, a hike or a mellower workout. Our favorite cross-training modalities are hiking, trail running, weight lifting, bodyweight strength training (think push ups and air squats), core work, and going for a walk.

In fall and winter, when we aren’t on big adventures, we aim to get some form of strength training everyday - even if it’s just some push ups and squats - and to hit the gym at least three times a week to lift weights. 

We are always switching things up, but one of our favorite approaches for muscle strength (not hypertrophy) is the 5 x 5 x 5 method. You pick 5 exercises (ie. deadlift, bench press, incline bench, overhead press, bent over rows) Do 5 sets of each exercise for 5 reps each (at a weight in which your last rep is quite difficult). Remember to take rest in between sets. We aim for at least 2 minutes.

It’s crucial for us to build strength in the off-season, because it diminishes during lengthy bikepacking adventures. One way to off-set this on really long trips is to make it a priority to maintain that hard earned strength on tour - whether that means incorporating gym stops, or bodyweight workouts into your day - pushups, air squats and core work can be done anywhere! 

Svein’s Take on Weight Training

I believe that weight lifting is a huge part of the preparation for bikepacking. As I've stated before, maintaining bone density and muscle mass as cyclists into our older age is super important. It's important to work with a trainer initially to make sure you learn the proper technique. 

Another important aspect is to understand the training load that weight lifting adds to your weekly volume and to periodize your lifting plan because of this. For example: in the fall and early winter when training volume is low, you can work on heavy lifting and building strength with heavy compound lifts, 2 times a week. 

As the season progresses into spring/summer and the riding volume goes up it's important to back off the intensity and duration of your lifting sessions. Easing into a more maintenance based lifting program of 1 day a week with sets of higher repetition. 

Lifting weights has so many beneficial components for cyclists that I'd suggest everyone makes room for at least 1 session a week even if it's not something you enjoy. Your posture, bones, hormones and muscular endurance will all thank you for it.

4 - Mental Training

One important part of the preparation for a bikepacking voyage - is the mental training aspect.

We like to think of it as “cultivating an adventure mindset” - one where you practice being excited to face the inevitable challenges and unknowns of the adventure ahead, while also working to maintain good expedition behaviour in the face of said adversity.

What is Expedition Behaviour? 

We think of expedition behaviour as defined by the way in which you respond to challenging situations on adventures and outdoor explorations.

How do you react when there is inclimate weather or dangerous situations? When there is an injury or fatigue?

What do you say and do when you get to camp and realize you forgot your tent poles in the truck, which is 15 km away?

You expedition behaviour is informed by who you practice to be.

If you practice choosing to respond to these situations with a growth mindset - one that is excited about the lessons, self-awareness, growth and creative problem solving that these situations present - you will be an asset to yourself and everyone in the field with you.

Having good expedition behaviour makes you a good team member - able to be respectful, cooperative, and self-aware, prioritizing the needs of the group over personal comfort, communicating openly, and taking responsibility for your role.

This will ensure both the success of the mission and the well-being of everyone involved.

How To Improve your Expedition Behaviour?

Good expedition behaviour is a skill transferable to every situation in your life and one way to improve it, is to put yourself in hard situations that will allow you to practice responding in an optimal way.

Another good way to improve your expedition behaviour is by improving your overall health and well-being

You can do this through better sleep, exercise, nutrition, self-care and recovery will aid in developing a more positive, enthusiastic, growth mindset which will make a world of difference in the way you are able to handle yourself in these challenging conditions.

Svein’s Approach to Mental Training for Bikepacking

ST - I think having a mindset of being grateful that you actually get to live a life where you get to take on these types of challenges for fun is super important. 

It's easy to get wrapped up in a million details and how you thought the trip was going to go, which leads to a lot of unnecessary stress about things you have zero control over. 

This is why I believe training is so important, because you put yourself in difficult situations and start to learn that there's always a solution and way out as long as you keep your cool and keep moving. 

I like to visualize the types of problems I think I might run into on a specific trip or event. That could be difficult terrain, crazy weather, or a pace that I'd like to adhere to. With that in mind I set out on training trips/rides that I think will best replicate that. 

This way, I have confidence around the objective I'm chasing. I know I've put myself in the fire and came out ok. A lot of these efforts are all about knowing you have the ability to make it through. 

How To Prepare Your Mindset For Adventure

ST - It's inevitable, even the easiest of planned trips will have their difficulties and hardships. The only thing you can control is how you will behave when they happen. 

This is why it's so important to visualize the types of scenarios and problems you will run into. 

If bad weather is something you're concerned about, go and train on a nasty day and figure out your best layering and clothing system. This way when it happens you will have been there before and it won't catch you off guard mentally. 

If climbing long mountains is daunting, practice your climbing with a loaded bike on shorter hills to find your sweet spot pace that you can ride for 40 mins plus. If this means you have to change your drivetrain to find that sweet spot, then so be it.

This is why you practice.

The Relationship Between Mental & Physical Training

Our bodies and minds are connected, there is no way to separate the two - so that which we do to one, we do to the other.

ST - For me they are like peas in a pod. When trained right - with intention - you are working both of them equally. The physical side is important to respect but the mental side is what will get you to the finish with a smile on your face.

I believe life is all about perspective. Remember you chose to take this challenge on, it has to be fun the majority of the time. How you deal with stress and difficulty is all up to you.