"I actually hate biking. It's my least favourite of the sports." Before getting into cycle touring, Claudia Bastien was training for a half Ironman, adamantly sure she had no interest in spending more time than necessary on two wheels. She's since ridden well over 7,000 kilometres across four countries, solo and unsupported, most recently on the Baja Divide, a roughly 2,700 kilometre gravel route through Baja Mexico, fully self-supported and mostly off-road. She made it 2,100 kilometres before a bike crash cut the trip short.

Corporate to Cycletouring

Twelve years into a corporate career, while also training for a Half Ironman, Claudia got laid off. That same week, she met a bikepacker heading from Alaska to Patagonia, who took one look at her life and saw all the makings of someone built for the road. Already bike fit from triathlon training. Comfortable sleeping in a tent. Suddenly with plenty of time on her hands. "Have you tried bikepacking?" "I was like, nope. I've never thought of doing such a thing. I actually hate biking."

She went on a weekend trip with him anyway. "I actually really loved it." Eight months later she set off on her first big bikepacking trip, the Great Divide, riding from Alberta down through the US into Mexico. She's been chasing routes ever since, including the recent three month, fully self-supported trip down the Baja Divide.

Chasing Silence Instead of Splits

Most endurance athletes measure themselves against something concrete. A pace, a power number, a personal best. Multi-month bikepacking trips don't really offer any of that, which raises the question of what actually keeps someone motivated to ride hundreds of kilometres alone through the desert. For Claudia, the answer has nothing to do with Strava segments or crowns. "I'm personally chasing silence. Peace and quiet. That's what I really resonate with the most." She seeks out places with no people, hidden camping spots, and the kind of unplanned, serendipitous moments that only show up when you're not in a hurry to get anywhere. "There is no chasing finish lines, no personal best. My mindset is very much, I want to be there as long as it feels enjoyable, as long as I have enough food and water."

That mindset wasn't fully formed when she set out. On her first day in Baja she rode big distances over heavy elevation, the way she had on every previous trip, because that was simply what she did. By her second day, only 30 kilometres in, she came across two fellow bikepackers, August and Jerome, set up on an empty stretch of beach with nowhere to be. She stopped to talk, ended up staying to enjoy the afternoon with them, and the day reshaped the rest of her trip. "I really questioned why I wanted to do these big long distances every day when the whole route is incredible and stunning. So why rush past it?"

She carried this shift in thinking into the remainder of her trip and doesn't regret a single day of it. "I would have missed so many of the most exceptional experiences if I tried to race through it."

Fueling the Ride

Fueling a multi-month bikepacking trip looks nothing like fueling a half Ironman. Where race nutrition is precise and planned, life on the road is closer to controlled chaos. "When you're bikepacking for months on end, you're just eating everything you can get your hands on, because you're going to be in a calorie deficit no matter what." What that looks like shifts from country to country. In the US she could find familiar staples whenever she needed them. In Australia, instant noodles became her main food group. In Mexico, it was fresh tortillas, a package of beans, a package of meat, whatever cheese was around, squashed together into something resembling a meal. "I'm looking for carbs, then making sure I have enough fat and protein intake, and just trying to get as much fuel into my body."

Restocking on food in Baja was unpredictable. "Sometimes you'd get to a tienda and they'd have one moldy banana and a couple of chips." On the good days, though, it was adobada and queso tacos, fried cheese melted onto a fresh tortilla with marinated meat, in portions roughly twice the size of a normal taco. Claudia recalls a few raised eyebrows when she placed her order three at a time, to replace the calories lost. "They look at me like, 'are you insane? Those are massive.'"

Fresh water wasn't a guarantee either, and Claudia doesn't believe in drinking just plain water, what she calls "empty water," when she's sweating that much. "I carried three packs of Hydra+ repackaged into plastic bags from the very beginning, because I knew electrolytes were going to be harder to find." She'd carry between seven and eleven litres of water at a time, and on her hottest, longest days she'd double dose it with Hydra+. "Having electrolytes in my water while I was active saved me carrying more than the seven to eleven litres I was already hauling on my bike."

The Burnt Toast Theory

When Claudia unexpectedly found herself bikepacking solo, a woman she met at a campsite shared something she called the burnt toast theory. The idea is that something small and frustrating in the moment, like burning your toast and running late, can end up changing your day in a bigger way than you'd expect. Running late might make your boss angry but could also keep you off the road during a car accident, or send you into a coffee shop you'd never have visited, where you meet someone who becomes a friend. "Sometimes the silver lining shows itself pretty quickly. Sometimes it takes months, if not years, to realize that something that felt really difficult was actually a really beautiful turning point."

Claudia has had more than a few of these moments herself. "I'm always meeting the most amazing people when I'm having the hardest times," she says. As much as she's chasing silence and peace out there, she's just as drawn to the people she meets along the way.

It's part of why Baja stands out to her, despite being the route most people warned her away from. "So many people told me, out of all the bikepacking routes to do solo, don't do Baja." She did it anyway. "Baja had the best people I've ever met in my life."

Going Solo

The warnings about Baja weren't unique, and Claudia has noticed a clear pattern in how these conversations tend to go, depending on who's doing the talking. "It is so interesting how the public perceives solo women travel, and also how they communicate to you as a woman when you're about to go do these solo missions. They're just, like, so dangerous. Are you sure? What will your parents think? Do you have a husband? Is he coming with you?" The same trip announced by a man tends to garner reactions along the lines of, “That's so cool, I wish I could do that."

She'd already proven plenty to herself by the time she reached Baja, having solo bikepacked through the US for six months, safely, and met with far more kindness than caution along the way. "That narrative is really hard to get around, and it can be really scary when somebody is telling you that again and again and again." Her advice is to tune out the noise and trust her own read on a situation instead. "How do you feel in your body? What does your gut say? I think our intuition is really strong. You know yourself the best." Preparation still matters, just not perfection. "Make sure you know how to fix your bike. You don't need to know how to fix every part, but you need to know how to fix a flat. I say that because I didn't know how to do that, and it definitely got me in trouble at one point. But go do it. Don't listen to the noise."

Beyond the Bike

"I love moving my body. I love being outside where there's no people. If it's a sport that gets me out there where there's not that many people, I'll probably do it." Getting outdoors explains most of Claudia's athletic life. She hikes, surfs, skis, and climbs, and has recently added sailing and tennis to the list.

Tennis has been a change in pace from some of the other sports. "It feels low effort, a little more social. It feels almost like a rest sport, even though I know it's not actually a rest sport." Sailing scratches a similar itch in a body that's taken on a lot of wear from years of pushing through when she probably shouldn't have. "I'm looking for sports that are more manageable as I deal with injury and changes with my body as a woman." She's learned, gradually, that rest isn't something to earn. "I don't need to earn a stop and I don't need to earn a rest. I can just listen to my body and stop and rest."

The Grass Is Green Wherever You Are

Months away with nothing but a satellite connection have made Claudia genuinely comfortable in her own company. "That doesn't mean I don't miss my friends, my family, my cat," she says, "but it helps to be really present in the moment, whether you're with them or away from them." Rather than treating homesickness as a sign the grass is greener back home, she's learned to be fully present wherever she happens to be. "The grass is green wherever you are."

The Hardest Six Days, and the Best

Claudia's favourite stretch of the Baja Divide is the same one most people consider the worst. No water, no food, no villages, mud thick enough after rain to swallow a tire whole, a section most riders try to blast through in three days flat. True to the lesson she'd learned with August and Jerome back on day two, she took six. "I just go slow. I know I'm self-sufficient, I can carry a lot of weight on my bike. It's fine." She saw dolphins, manta rays, sharks, and clear water coves, and spent her mornings reading on the beach. "That felt like a really beautiful memory because it was also a change of pace for me."

It's a section that tends to bewilder people when she tells the story. "When I tell people I spent six days in that section, they're like, what did you do for food and water? Well, I carried it." For Claudia, that surprise says more about how we're taught to measure a trip than how she wants to measure hers. "Slow is so impressive for me."

One of the hardest parts of the trip wasn't a place at all. Weeks into the route, with no medical services nearby for a full month, she came down with pneumonia. "I felt like I prepared for a lot. I prepared for maybe a stomach illness, but pneumonia took me out." She kept riding, kept getting rained on, kept getting sicker. "My lungs started to feel like they were tearing." The month and a half of buffer time she'd built into the trip got swallowed by illness instead of the experiences she'd planned for, and waiting it out, patiently, without being able to do much else, was harder than any climb or mud pit on the route. 

When things get genuinely hard out there, she comes back to one thought. "I chose this. I did this to myself. It doesn't make it any less hard, but it's a reminder that I made an active choice." And if that doesn't quite do it, there's always the burnt toast theory.

Coming Home

The first thing Claudia does when she gets back from a trip is shower her cat with affection. "I snuggle my cat so hard." Then she eats whole, unprocessed food after months of packaged everything, and lets herself sit in the small luxuries most people never think twice about. Running water. A shower. A toilet. A bed. "Those things are huge. While bikepacking, they're actually quite rare." It's not lost on her how lucky she is to have them. "I feel lucky to have this when I come home."

You can follow Claudia on Instagram @wandering_claud

That's all for this week! If you enjoyed reading Claudia's story, head over to the Blonyx Blog for more stories of athletic ambition.

– Train hard!

Looking for more ways to keep up with Blonyx?

Now, you can join the Blonyx Strava Club to track your progress, share training tips, and connect with athletes who share your athletic ambition.

You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook for additional sports science information, announcements, exciting giveaways, and more!