Things that I just dont leave home without, and some tips (more random tips coming soon…:
Earplugs: For noisy campsites, windy days or shove them in your nose if there’ s lots of roadkills rotting away.
Home made camera holder: I mount this home made camera mount onto my bike frame, and then I can make nice films hands free.
Drysack/rugsack: This handy lightweight drysack is not only handy for keeping my cloths dry it’s handy as a rugsack on days off or to get the shopping.
Self-inlating pillow: no sore neck for me anymore, works under crappy hotel pillows too. Well worth that little extra space and weight for those of us who aren’t 25 any more.
FM/AM Radio alarmclock: For the lonely evenings, and weather forcasts . I find world service boring and local african radio stations make too much uselss noice. For America having a radio was very nice but nowadays things like the newer IPod nano have an inbuilt radio function. Therefore, I left my radio in Uganda saving 200g.
MSR Dromedary 4l: Handy for cooking, cleaning, filling bidons, showering, screws onto my waterfilter and can also be used as an icepack.
Bog(wc) roll: Yeh pretty obvious…..but heres the tip…..Put it in a plastic bag, remove the core then pull from the middle, a nice handy WC roll despenser.
The bottle: (with wide opening…no I’m not bragging its just handy) Ever woke up in the middle of the night in your tent needing a pee? only to see a swarm of thirsty mosquito’s outside or its pissing down with rain? The rest I’ll leave to your imagination…..
Ortlieb kitchen sink :Yup even the kitchen sink goes with me (a foldable one anyway) and for putting stuff in, doing a wash, carrying stuff, getting water from the river before filtering etc etc. Or as a funky hat for fancy dress parties. Only used it about 5 times in 10000km, so its not going to africa. Saves 200g
Bike Touring Survival Guide : A great (and cheap) e-book written by Friedel and Andrew Grant from www.travellingtwo.com. The book contains hundreds of pages of tips and advise for starters and more experienced touring cyclists.
Ortlieb/Tubus Hack: At some point during a long trip, especially on bad roads the spacer blocks in the Ortlieb hooks with wear down and fall out, usually at a bad time. To solve this I’ve thrown away the last couple of spacers and created my own long lasting spacers on my racks. Simply use an old innertube, some double-sided tape and some insulation tape/ duct tape and wrap it around the rack hook positions until its about 15mm thick. Then its just a case of renewing the outer tape from time to time. I’ve also done the same thing but thinner in areas where the bags rub against the racks to prevent them wearing out and getting rusty.
Really good tips there pal… almost good enought to make me buy a bike….. 😉
Stay safe and keep on living the dream!