Testing a Kickbiking Touring Set Up

Almost since the day I purchased my Kickbike Sport G4, I’ve wanted to try doing multi-day rides with it. For a few years I tried various setups to allow me to achieve that, based on the cycling touring equipment I already owned, but I was not happy with the set ups I tried. About a month ago, I tried another setup using equipment I already owned: a Topeak MTB Front Rack (for bikes with disk brakes) with a large Topeak MTX Pannier Bag. And it all looked good. I added some extra weight to the pannier bags to simulate at least some of the weight I would have if touring. That was successful.

The next thing to do was try it in a ‘real world’ situation. That is, I had to do a multi-day Kickbike tour with the set up I had worked out, plus a day pack for extra storage. I devised a plan. Between 15th and 17th March 2024, I would try the set up in the ‘real world’ by riding from Rutherglen where we live, to Chiltern (about 20km away) where I would stay for Friday night and Saturday night, then return to Rutherglen on Sunday. The weekend would require me to carry everything I need for a weekend in either the pannier or day pack: tent, sleeping gear, mattress, pillow, spare clothes, some food and water, bicycle repair stuff.

Friday 15th March 2024: Day 1: Rutherglen – Chiltern. New Kickbiking shoes.

My legs were a bit tired even after just 23km, but part of that is that I did a work shift before the ride that involved a lot of walking, climbing stairs and squatting. That meant I had already done a ‘workout’ before I even started the ride. This ride was also the first day with my new Kickbiking shoes: $25 Kmart hiking boot style shoes. I planned to try both asphalt and gravel roads to see how having the pannier bag on the front handled both types of roads. I also wanted to see what it was like going up and down hills.

The Kickbike with the pannier on the front handled the gravel roads ok, although I wouldn’t want to ride it like that in very loose gravel. Going down hills was easier enough – the brakes handled the extra weight ok, and the extra weight on the front didn’t cause any stability problems with braking. Going up hills was harder, as was to be expected, as the extra weight meant more effort would be required. I was pretty pleased with how this ride turned out.

Sabbath 16th March 2024: Day 2: Sabbath Morning Kickbike Ride Exploring Chiltern – Mt Pilot National Park and surrounds

This days Kickbike ride was from and to the caravan park where I was staying for the weekend at Chiltern, and was a ride of exploring the Chiltern – Mt Pilot National Park and surrounds. This meant I didn’t have to carry everything that I carried on the previous day’s ride but only some bike repairs things, some munchies and water in the day pack. A number of the places I visited were described in a leaflet I got from the information centre as having good bird life and hence a good place to watch birds. Only one of them, the Chiltern Valley Number 2 Dam, had lots of birds and most of them appeared to be pelicans when I visited them! Maybe I visited at the wrong time of day or wrong season. I also tried to find the Donchi Hill Lookout, which was described as “a forest of straight trees growing close together with a sparse understory. Picnic table and fireplace provided“. But I must have ridden past it without realising as I didn’t find anything fitting the description. On Donchi Hill Road I did find a number of pretty awesome spiders webs, one of them and the spider that engineered it are included in this blog post. Despite not achieving some of the things I was hoping to this ride was still an enjoyable way to spend a few hours on Sabbath in dry Box Ironbark forests.

Sunday 17th March 2024: Day 3: Chiltern – Rutherglen

This day’s Kickbike ride was the last day of my Kickbike Multi-day touring set up. The ride seemed easier than Friday’s, and I did the 21km in about 1.5 hours, which is about 10 minutes more than it would take without all the touring gear. I think there was also a bit of a tailwind in places. Some blisters have developed on the top of my small toes, probably because of the new shoes. But apart from the blisters, this ride was a success too.

Overall, the weekend was a resounding success, and proved that the way I had set up the Kickbike for touring and staying in a tent works very well.

The next thing to try would be trying a multi-day touring set up where I would be staying in accommodation such as hotels, motels and caravan park cabins. This type of tour would be more expensive, and less flexible in terms of where I stayed, than the camping tour set described above, as hotels, motels and caravan park cabins are considerably more expensive than camping. The plan was to try taking just the day pack with everything in it that I need which would include a change of clothes, raincoat, bike repair stuff, some food and water. This required some thought regarding exactly what is ‘needed’ vs ‘wanted’ as the day pack I would be using is not that large! The ‘real world’ test for this type of tour would also involve a weekend ride, with accommodation booked in advance.

Thursday 28th March 2024: Day 1: Rutherglen – Boralma – Bowser – Wangaratta

This day’s 39km Kickbike ride was part of a 2 day ride to test my multi-day Kickbike touring set up where I stay in accommodation (eg cabin, hotel or motel). All that I needed to carry would have to fit in the day pack and bumbag as I wanted to try this without the front pannier.

I’ve ridden this route on the Kickbike and other bicycles a number of times, but this was the first time I rode it as part of a multi-day Kickbike tour. The ride today was problem free, and I even surprised myself regarding how well I did considering I had a very active 3.5 hour work shift before I even started the ride.

Approximately 20.5km was on gravel roads of varying quality, the rest of the ride was on asphalt or concrete roads and trails.

Friday 29th March 2024: Day 2: Wangaratta – Bowser – Boralma – Rutherglen

This day’s Kickbike ride was in the reverse direction to yesterday’s, but was longer and had a much higher proportion of gravel & dirt roads than yesterday’s. About 8kms of today’s ride was on asphalt and concrete roads and trails, the rest was gravel or dirt roads. Most of the ride was pretty flat, but there are hills approaching Rutherglen from the south. Unless I made a massive detour to approach Rutherglen from the north so as to stay of major roads (which would mean less hill climbs, but adds maybe 10km to the ride length), I couldn’t escape those hill climbs. Today’s & yesterday’s rides prove the Kickbike accommodated touring setup I devised works well, as long as there is a place to buy food at the end of each day.

I weighed the day pack + bumbag, with everything I carried except water, and it was 5.6kg. So the total weight I carried in the day pack & bumbag would have been about 6.5kg in total after water was added.