Erwin Sikkens

While some of you, living in The Netherlands or Belgium, might know Erwin from a Komoot webinar, others will probably know him because they follow the ramblings he ventures into anywhere in the world on his bike on Instagram. When seeing his images, we reckoned that Erwin would be the Wildhood-kind-of-guy. So one rainy night in January we chit-chatted over Skype while trying hard to do a serious interview.  I guess our next conversation will probably happen somewhere around a campfire with a couple of brews in the hopefully not so distant future.  Chances are high that there won’t be a written account of that, so enjoy this one.

Hey Erwin! Who are you and what brought you into cycling?

Well, what triggered me to start cycling is probably my family.  My parents are both cyclists and my grandparents were too.  As a youngster I really didn’t want to cycle, but somewhere during my student years that feeling changed. I got myself a road bike and it took off from there.   I started to take the road bike off-road from time to time until the industry came up with the gravel bike. That was exactly the bike I had been looking for! I discovered bikepacking. I just strap things on my bike and go for an overnighter or even take off for a couple of days or weeks. Even in winter I sometimes head out for an overnighter. Like now, I just came back from a trip on the Island of Terschelling where we stayed in one of those old beach huts which were built to shelter people who washed ashore from the North Sea.

What’s your main occupation and how does that fit into a cycling life?

Actually, my week consists of seven days cycling. Lucky me. I’m the in-house photographer for Mantel, the (online) bike-shop.  I work 4 days and then I get 3 days off. That results in a nice work-life balance and it gives me plenty of time to ride my bike and go on trips.

Did you have an education in photography or are you more of a self-taught photographer?

I studied to become a teacher and I did that for a couple of years, but it turned out not to be exactly my cup of tea.  So, I kind of fled into the world of cycling because I needed something to take my mind off.  I started at the customer service department of Mantel and when they opened a position for a photographer I just went for it because I was already doing some photography in my spare time.  So yes, you could say I’m self-taught.  I’ m really a point-and-shoot guy, of course I had lots to learn, but right now it comes natural to me, I ride my bike with one hand and shoot with the other.

 Gravel, all-road cycling, adventure cycling… what’s the tag that captures your own riding?

Generally speaking, you could say that the word “gravel” is sticking, but it can mean so many different things.  Right now, people are putting flatbars on gravelbikes and then the mountainbikers are saying like ‘hey, we got those years ago’.  A gravel bike can be so many things. To me it’s like the  Swiss army knife of bicycles.  I can go bikepacking with it in the Black Forest, ride some roads around home and even do mountainbike-ish descents on it and it all works out pretty nice.

Do you think hike-a-bikes belong in gravel rides ?

Definitely! In 2020 I rode the Bohemian Border Bash and there were more than a few hike a bikes in that route and that’s fine.  It was one of the most fun events I have ever participated in, people shouldn’t be narrow minded about it.  And you know, there are these Grinduro events where they translate the mountainbike enduro concept with timed downhill segments into a gravel formula. That’s awesome too.

What has been your favourite adventure and the most challenging one so far?

I would say the Scottish Highland trip I did in 2019 with my friend Bram is the one I cherish most.  I was there before, in 2017, and back then I wasn’t too comfortable going off the grid because I was riding all by myself, so I felt I had to go back for that big and wild adventure.  We crawled over mountains, got lost, slept in bothies and best of all, we totally got immersed in the breathtaking scenery of the High Lands.  Even now I still feel the urge to go back there again anytime soon.

The most challenging thing I’ve done is probably my first bike tour. I cycled from The Netherlands to Rome. It wasn’t challenging because of the technical skills, but just because it was my first trip.  Whenever people ask me for advice on bikepacking trips I always say, start with an overnighter and grow into longer trips.  So, yeah, not me, I had to learn it the hard way on an over-packed bike.  I thought I’d get to Rome in 3 weeks, riding about 100 km a day which sounds like totally do-able, right? But not on that heavy bike considering all the mountain ranges  like the Alps and the Appenines.  Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing trip and it felt so good to finish it at the Colosseum, but I was so tired that I almost slept a full day, did a quick visit of the city and hopped back on a plane home the day after.

So, packing light is the way to go?

Yes. I’ve grown to love my bivy, which I am using sometimes in combination with a tarp and there’s a lot of shelters too that you can find on the Komoot map. I must admit I don’t like the hassle of a tent, especially if you’re doing longer trips. I remember being on this trip in Andalusia and after three weeks I got so sick of breaking up the tent each morning and building it up again at night. I’ve come a long way from that first bike tour from the Netherlands to Rome with that heavy touring bike with over-stuffed panniers. It’s definitely about the art of leaving stuff behind than about what stuff to bring.

So what’s next?

Well, obviously a lot of events got cancelled last year and postponed because of the pandemic and that should make this year great, if they can all take place.  Because of joining the Shimano Gravel Alliance, I got access to so many great events and I really, really hope these don’t get cancelled this year.  I try to plan a lot right now because I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket in case things are blown off again.   If everything works out as planned, I’ll have a crazy year with a lot of next-level things in front of me.  I’m really looking forward to The Rift, which is a 200km gravel race in Iceland through volcanic landscapes.  I’m going to participate in this race, but I’ll probably also map out a bikepacking route to get there and back.

To finish this off Erwin, The Netherlands probably aren’t that appealing for off-road cycling.  Still, you seem to do a lot of great local riding.  Where should people ride if they want to take their bikes off the beaten track?

Well, there are 3 areas that are really great to ride.  First there’s Brabant and then there’s South-Limburg, the nice thing about these areas is that it is not over-developed like a lot of other parts of the Netherlands. Take for instance Flevoland where almost every square inch is man-made.  But of course living in Arhem, the Veluwe is the place where I am mostly riding and that I would recommend to people.  It is the biggest National Park we have in this part of the Netherlands, it’s approximately 1000m2.  It might not be big to international standards, but there are plenty of great gravel roads for long days in the saddle.

If this interview inspired you and if you’re curious about the places Erwin has been talking about in this interview, we would suggest you visit Erwin’s Komoot profile, where he shares a lot of his tracks.  Click, download and maybe you will be sleeping soon in that hut on the island of Terschelling.

Words: Philippe Michiels

Photography: Erwin Sikkens