I’ll be honest about this journey. I have no idea what I am doing regarding “overlanding” and what that even means.
I know camping. I do that quite a bit. In fact, I lead bike tours that involve a LOT of camping. And when you camp using your bicycle to carry all your gear you get pretty good at keeping things tight. The term we use is “bikepacking” – when you head out on your bike carrying everything you would need to survive overnight, for a weekend, for a week, or for a trip across the country.
But you see I have this truck – a 2020 Toyota Tacoma Off Road 4×4. It’s well-known as a fantastic overlanding platform. And since I go to a lot of gravel bike events where camping is a big part of the weekend, why not combine these things into one super-experience?
Before we go too far, I need to give a little backstory. Cycling as a sport is nothing new, but road cycling events traditionally revolve around showing up to ride or race an event in the morning and then leaving when you’re done. An exciting new type of cycling has recently come onto the scene – gravel cycling.
Gravel cycling events are weekend-long experiences for many of us. We show up Friday night to camp, ride or race on Saturday and camp again that night leaving the next day.
This presents a unique opportunity to combine a couple of things together because who wouldn’t love the comfort of sleeping in luxury off the ground in a rooftop tent when compared to a ground tent?
Taking it to the next level, it would also be great to explore dispersed camping on public lands and forest roads right in the heart of gravel cycling country.
So here we are.
It is my intention to explore this world of “overlanding” as a means to end to enhance my gravel cycling enjoyment. And let’s be honest, driving a big truck loaded down with gear off into the wilderness for a weekend sounds pretty fun.
My first attempt at truck camping hooked me. It was GRUSK 2022 (Gravel Race Up Spruce Knob) in July. I grabbed a truck bed tent from Amazon to see if I liked being off the ground. Yeah, nothing compares to elevated camping. So I began casually checking out truck bed campers like the Go Fast Camper, then trailers, and now I think I have discovered the perfect launching off point for my adventures. (POST to follow)
Come on along and watch me make some mistakes, tear some stuff up (hopefully not too much), learn a lot, and of course – have a good time.
