How we roll

How we roll

The gear

A large part of the fun of travelling is the prep - at least for me. Obsessing over what to pack and what to leave behind, how to minimise weight and yet maintain creature comforts, is a challenge I cannot get enough of.

Camping

Comfort item number one: the sleeping mat. Therma-rests are expensive, but this is not where to false-economise. After all, we spend more time on the mat than on the bike. The NeoAir Xlite NXT is light (RS: 424g, L: 520g)

Next is the tent (Wild Country Zephyros Compact). Prices go up as weight goes down. On a bike that is less big a deal than on a hike, but still, we settled for something small, light (1.94kg) and simple. The other KPI is how water proof it is. I will report back when I know, but hope not to have to test that too extensively. On our world trip we had a total of two wet day in an entire year - there, now I jinxed it.

A ground sheet is a versitile item to have. Protects the tent, provides a dry clean place to sit and can serve to cover things and keep them dry. Ours is 180x210cm, comes with peg hooks and weights 357g.

I am not a big fan of sleeping bags. Unless it is very cold, I don’t see the point of turning into a sausage. Proper sheets and a light cover, which can be reinforced with a sleeping bag over the top, if needed - that’ll do. Small tents keep the warmth anyway.

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The gas stove is still the original Primus from 24 years ago (450g). It is simple and robust, but perhaps a bit noisy. That said, there is a Pavlovian effect when turning it off and it suddenly turns quiet, you know food is near - joy. It doubles up to run on Diesel, but while we are in Europe, I hope we won’t need that and stick to gas.

With cutlery we went a bit stingy in the past. Turns out a hot drink is much nicer in a proper mug, and food tastes better with a decent plate and knife, fork and spoon. No compromises here.

Tools

Tools are both essential and a luxury. Taking tools for all eventualities would be far too heavy and should be quite unlikely to come to good use - there - jinxed it again.

The tools
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The tools

Jobs I anticipate and prepare for:

The bits to respond:

Spares

TPU inner tubes make taking spares easy. We have 8 spares, which take up next to no space and add ony 25g each. Unfortunately we have different wheel sizes. Ali 26" and I am on 700C. So we have to have separate spares.

Bags

We still have the complete set of Ortlieb panniers from our trip 24 years ago. What can I say? They are phenomenal, super water proof and ‘unkaputbar’. I also checked with Gilbert, who used a Bob trailer when we cycled with him back in 2001. The verdict is that paniers are best. The only addition is an extra under-saddle bag to avoid strapping too much onto the rack.

Tech

I have a love-hate relationshitp with tech and decided that for travelling less is more. In 2001 we had:

We also had some walkie-talkies, but never used them. It would be fun to travel with exactly this setup again - after all, it served us well and the phone batteries lasted over a month. And we are not far off. The current combo is:

And there are so many new things I considered taking: GoPro, SLR camera, laptop or a drone. In the end I opted for minimalism. The phone does so much now:

Numbers

Do not read. This section is for my own records.

Ali

Max

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