This isn’t an exhaustive list of useful, functional bikepacking kit. Rather, it’s a kind of collection of long-term micro-reviews of go-to items and those that have proven particularly valuable beyond their monetary cost or, sometimes, expectations. With space and weight at a premium, they are some of the objects that have stood the tests of experimentation and experience.
While three of the shortlist are bike-specific, most are useful for any self-supported, multi-day outdoor or travel activity. These tend not to be larger, big ticket items, not least because it’s easier to be disproportionately delighted with something relatively cheap and unassuming. My Shimano M8100 brakes, for example, are great but that’s unsurprising given their cost and decades of development. The aim of this post is to showcase less obvious and, hopefully, more helpful observations.
In each case, I state an average online price at the time of writing and describe why I feel it deserves to be on the shortlist.
1. Montbell “OD Compact Dripper” reusable coffee filter
Around £26
Real coffee in minutes with a minimum of fuss — what’s not to love? This Japanese device lives in its dedicated pouch inside my cook set. It weighs next to nothing (8g), couldn’t be simpler to use and the clever design uses chopsticks or twig substitutes to support itself — no separate moving parts required. This size makes two to four cups.
Why?
- Services my addiction with practically zero weight or space penalty
- Easy to “assemble” and clean; dries quickly
2. GSI Outdoors Compact Scraper
Around £8
This was a revelation in cleaning greasy and burnt cooking residues from pots, particularly my wild camping dinner staple of various stuff (pasta, noodles, couscous etc.) cooked in water and fatty stock cubes. Really helps in getting cookware passably clean in the “bush” for packing away until you can do a proper job. If used in conjunction with a source of running water it does that “proper” job with minimal detergent. Another permanent fixture of my cook kit, used with Dr. Bronner’s biodegradable detergent.
Why?
- Saves time and effort in dealing with the burnt hotspots that are often a feature of camp cooking
- Completely eliminates the need for bulky, plasticky products such as scourers and much more effective than fingers
3. Opinel “no. 5” Classic carbon steel folding knife
Around £9
It’s challenging to imagine many items with a better utility to cost ratio than this knife. Cheap, lightweight, functional and easy to sharpen and maintain. This is the largest size one can have about one’s person in public in the UK without risking potential arrest. Apparently it’s also what Picasso used to carve figurines.
Why?
- Top value
- Indispensable camping and travel item
- Non-locking design and size makes it UK street-legal
Lunch in Umbria, Italy
4. The Scrubba wash bag
Around £40
“Portable washing machine” pretty much sums it up. The best kit is multi-functional and this doubles as a dry bag when not in washing use, meaning that the weight penalty of carrying this “semi-luxury” item is negligible (it’s slightly thicker than a standard dry bag and has a small valve for excluding air). Mine has been going strong since my first ever tour to Greece, even used for everyday laundry of underwear and sports kit while temporarily living in a caravan upon our arrival in Lewis.
Why?
- More effective than sinks and streams
- Minimises impact (can be emptied away from watercourses)
- Robust and easy to use
5. Topeak Road Morph G pump
Around £40
This pump has lived in my frame bags since purchase and seen action and abuse across Europe. It still works perfectly. Having been designed to achieve skinny road pressures (rated to 160psi; that might be an effort to achieve but greatly exceeds anything my backside would ever want to bounce on), it easily fills larger volume gravel tyres. It’s literally like having a compact track pump with you at all times. The inline gauge isn’t the easiest to read but its low weight and compact nature is an acceptable trade-off and, anyway, I have fingers for pinching tyres. It has enough oomph to reseat tubeless tyres (for example, when I filled mine with wax lube instead of sealant in Sofia) and a reversible Presta/Schrader/Dunlop head with a solid clamping mechanism.
Why?
- Bombproof, functional road and gravel bikepacking essential
- Long bore and fold-out foot means much less exhaustion and pain, respectively, vs. standard mini-pumps
6. Nitecore 20,000mAh lightweight powerbank
Around £105
After a disastrous and very expensive experiment with a dynamo front hub and the awful Cinq Plug5 Plus buffer battery and stem cap plug kit (it’s easy to find online reviews of its terrible quality, fitting problems and dreadful customer support), I returned to simply carrying power banks to charge small electronics like my phone and GPS unit. In reality, dynamo hubs can be of very limited use on slow, stop-start off-road bikepacking trips. Then, there’s the need to build them into a new wheel and, in the case of my Shutter Precision model, return them to Taiwan for bearing service.
A 20,000mAh brick like the Nitecore has a large capacity (around five iPhone charges) but sits below airline limits of around 27,000mAh. Carry two or more of them and that’s a lot of time away from electricity, covering all but the remotest expeditions and certainly proving more than sufficient for European bikepacking trips with the possibility of the occasional stay in accommodation to top them up. Mine, the original model, weighs around 325g and the current third generation product is down to 291g. It has a variety of electrical safety features and is designed for hardcore outdoor use.
Why?
- (Relatively) lightweight, tough and much cheaper and easier than rebuilding the bike with dynamo and buffer battery systems
7. Silca T-Ratchet and Ti-Torque kit
Around £110 for the current second generation model
Probably the biggest indulgence on this list at an eye-raising price for a mini-tool. I bought it to replace the Topeak Ratchet Rocket Lite DX tool, whose bits were gradually rusting up (despite being regularly treated with GT-85) in the damp recesses of frame and handlebar bags.
The Silca kit is an investment but is beautifully made and should last a long time. It features a titanium torque bar with measurements from 2Nm to 8Nm, which includes most areas likely to need tightening to a set pressure when out and about. Given the potentially expensive, dangerous and inconvenient consequences of wrongly torqued bolts and/or lacking a quality tool for repairs on the move, perhaps it’s better value than it may seem at first glance. It offers peace of mind when, for example, reassembling a bike post-carriage as cargo on train or plane.
Why?
- A well-engineered mobile torque wrench and ratchet set that doesn’t rust
- Hardened steel bits that won’t damage expensive and more fragile parts or break on remote tours
- Multiple configurations and rubber rings to help with awkward access and grip, respectively
8. Evernew Water Carry
Around £15 for 1.5 litre pouch
The squeeze pouches supplied with Sawyer mini filters are small, opaque, fairly flimsy and have an easily misplaced separate cap. Evernew pouches, available in three sizes, are tough, transparent and roll up with a storage bungee. The cap is firmly attached and the thread is a standard size that matches the Sawyer filters perfectly. Also useful as additional water carrying capacity with minimal empty weight. Lives permanently in a small “water kit” dry bag with filter, syringe and steri-tabs.
Why?
- Better than Sawyer pouches for filtering and useful for any outdoor activity
9. Laboratory wash bottle (“bush bidet”)
Depends on quality but multipacks available online for < £10
Useful for remote hygiene and water conservation when carrying a limited supply. Even biodegradable detergent impacts aquatic chemistry and one of these helps with washing away from watercourses.
Why?
- A small “luxury” to assist with getting clean in the wild, helping to avoid issues such as saddle sores and infections
10. Continental Terra Speed tubeless-ready tyres
Average of around £40 each for 700c (28″) at online retailers
Now available in a variety of styles and sizes, I bought these tyres in 700c 40mm (40-622) format ahead of our Sierra Nevada trip in autumn 2021. After countless thousands of miles on and off road and having developed numerous holes that leak sealant, they’re still holding air like new. I top them up occasionally and add sealant during services and that’s it. So much for tubeless being a “hassle”. Chanté would often find the (terrible) WTB Byway tyres that came on her Hunt wheelset completely flat, despite sealant top-ups, and so she now also has a similarly long-lived and high performing pair of these on her gravel bike.
On my rig, these replaced Kenda Flintridge Pro gravel tyres. They never sealed as well as the Contis and were much more sluggish on the road. I was shocked how fast the Terra Speeds roll for a chunky gravel-oriented tyre.
Why?
- Low resistance, supreme durability and minimal maintenance
About to be replaced, finally, in June 2025
Honorable mentions
I bought two Tribord 5 litre dry bags from Decathlon in Foligno in 2017, which I use as fork bags on the bike, or throw into a rucksack or kayak with cooking kit inside. They’re still almost completely unscathed and would have definitely made the list if still available. I can’t vouch for their current range but it’s probably worth a punt for the price.
I use Alpkit Toliari 12 litre (front) panniers on my rear rack for day to day transport, also bought in 2017 for the Greece tour, in order to avoid the temptation to fill higher capacity luggage. They’ve lasted very well and are still 100% waterproof but recent reviews suggest that they’re still not there with suitably improving the fiddly fixing system.
I love my indestructible, reliable Trangia spirit burner, selected due to the quasi-ubiquity of some kind of denatured alcohol or meths type fuel worldwide. When kayak camping in February I learned that a toilet paper wick can get it lit in sub-zero temperatures, when the fuel doesn’t evaporate to form vapour.
Voile straps are famously functional and particularly handy for rail and ferry travel with a bike
