After nearly 8 years of operating bikepackingshop.nl, we realized that not all our customers are bikepackers. We attracted a diverse group including backpackers, hikers, bushcraft enthusiasts, expedition participants, and motorcycle lovers, all united by our passion for quality lightweight or even ultralight outdoor gear. This realization led to the creation of a new branch of our company: Lightweight Outdoor. Our goal is to assist everyone, regardless of their background or preferred activity, with the best lightweight gear.
Our story
Hi, I’m Bas. As a child, I was already fascinated by nature — building forts, climbing trees and exploring the woods (in Drenthe) around our home. I cherished my first backpack (a blue Nomad, much too big for me) because it let me take everything I thought I needed on my adventures.
Later I started mountain biking and fell in love with bikepacking. I did my very first “bikepacking trip” back in 1992 with a school friend: two weeks in Denmark on the MTB, with a duffel bag strapped to the handlebars and an improvised rear rack — it was brilliant. I’ve always been obsessed with lightening my bike load (a true “weight weenie”), which naturally spilled over to the rest of my gear. In 2015, while working as a freelance photographer and journalist, I was challenged by a bikepacking-bag importer who believed that selling online would never work. That is how bikepackingshop.nl was started, initially offering bikepacking bags but soon expanding our range to include other (light and compact) outdoor gear.
As an avid ultra-racer I am constantly looking for great compact and ultralight gear to improve my set-up. I get a lot of inspiration from thru-hikers, ultrarunners and long-distance hikers. These products are of course useful not only for a bikepacker, but for everyone who loves lightweight outdoor gear. That is why growing from bikepacking into lightweight and ultralight outdoor gear only seemed like a logical step. We hope you enjoy the things we carry as much as we do. Happy trails!
Tried & tested
As a true gear nerd, I try to test and use the things we sell in our shop in as many real-life situations as we can. That means taking it on a bikepacking trip, in our backpack during an overnight micro-adventure, or during an ultra-race. And if I haven’t tested it myself, it has been tried out or recommended by a trusty inner circle of like-minded outdoor enthusiasts (you know who you are).
And I know from experience how important it is to have gear you can trust. I regularly take part in ultra bikepacking races, like the Atlas Mountain Race and the Trans Balkan Race. In those kinds of conditions you have to be able to rely on your equipment completely — it can not only decide how your race unfolds, but at times it can genuinely be a matter of comfort or misery (that sounds dramatic, but you really can end up extremely uncomfortable when your gear doesn’t work as expected). Besides that, you don’t want to carry too much, because weight is something you don’t enjoy hauling around (especially not up those mountains). The same goes for pack size: big, bulky items are just a pain to stow away in your bag.
We have plenty of used and abused gear at our headquarters, and I’m more than happy to share my experience and discuss which gear would suit you for your next adventure.
Contact
We are open by appointment only. Just send us a message or call to arrange something (if we’re not around because we’re out enjoying the outdoors, we’ll get back to you as soon as we can).
Phone: 06 43 92 05 67
We are located close to the A28 in the little town of De Wijk, about a 25-minute drive north of Zwolle. We don’t have a fancy shop — just our nice headquarters in our garden (and a very boring warehouse on an industrial estate without coffee, so we never meet there).
Our company info:
Moss Gear bv
Trading names: Bikepackingshop | Lightweight Outdoor
Molenstraat 45
7957 CH, De Wijk
The Netherlands
VAT nr: NL864484288B01
Chamber of Commerce nr: 88038599
What is Moss Gear bv?
“Moss Gear bv” is the company behind Bikepackingshop and Lightweight Outdoor, both of which are our trading names. This structure simplifies our operations, enabling us to scale our business and venture into exciting new outdoor markets. For instance, we’ve developed our own brand of ultralight outdoor products, marketed under the name “Moss Gear”. Sounds like a big deal, but it’s just an easy way to organize things (at least that’s what our accountant said).