Yesterday, I just finished my #bikepacking trip... ~1500km , 13km D+
https://www.komoot.com/collection/2957155/-eclectic-tour-2024

Some lessons learned:
- I did it to visit friends and family not seen in a long time, and it is important to see them and show them they're loved and not fogotten.
- As always, people met on the road are always nice (also, trike effect playing), from the hitchiker having fun with you to the restaurant owner seeing you in the heatwave and offering to refill your bottle with fresh water and ice cubes. People are nice, stop living in 24h-news-channels horror world.
- Things will break and/or get lost. Zip tie/duct tape and tool kit will be your best friends, but also carefully identifying which bike repair shop are still opened in August could be key to your sanity (took me 3 closed shop to get someone fixing a broken brake cable)
- Heat / wetbulb effect is as tough on your body as food/sleep deprivation, your performance will plummet under a 37° / feeling like 44° weather: you need to rest and avoid putting yourself in danger when it hits, starting at 6:30am (obviously with proper light/sunrise) and stopping at 11am is a tactic that could be used to continue movibg without getting too much exposure to the heat.
- Be a good member of the community, if you see people working (e.g. delivery/truck driver...) in your mirror on a small road in a mountain, lose 30s to stop in a safe place and let them pass you, they'll happily honk and remember your whole community as a caring one.
- Do not trust GPS apps, if you've got a bad feeling on a road (gravel/dirt instead of expected asphalt) stop, take time to verify (e.g. satellite view of the path etc.), and proceed. On a trike, identifying as a "road bike" on komoot, got me better results, it's a shame some bike-specific roads are non standard (in France at least), to the point I entirely avoided them after damaging my bike on a dirt road in center of France.
- Camping for 40€ a night does NOT worth it, you might get a bit more expensive hotel nearby (say 80€) where you'll get more rest and better access to water and electricity. 20€ would be my high price on camping for a bike and a small tent: camping owners: get your shit together and stop racketting overnight bikepackers.

I'll reply to this list with other ideas when it comes to me.