Equipment Evaluation

This is the equip­ment I car­ried for the trip & some thoughts on, for exam­ple, why I bought it & how it fared. It is divided into the fol­low­ing sections:

  • The Bike & Upgrades to It
  • Bicy­cle Equipment
  • Sleep­ing
  • Clothes
  • Cook­ing
  • Toi­letries
  • Med­i­cines
  • Tech­nol­ogy
  • Doc­u­ments
  • Paper

I’ve had some of my gear for years but I upgraded a lot of it for this trip after weeks of con­sult­ing the Inter­net, send­ing emails to peo­ple and talk­ing to peo­ple who worked in bike shops. The weblinks are ran­dom finds but pro­vide the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion regard­ing the products.

The Bike & Upgrades To It

Bike

I bought it in Anchor­age for $1049. it retails in the UK for £999. The price dif­fer­ence enabled me to do the fol­low­ing upgrades to the bike. It is also a bar­gain at the price — noth­ing went wrong on the whole trip, beyond punc­tures, worn down chains & a rear cas­sette, & a bent derailleur — the lat­ter being my fault — over the 15,000km-trip.

Another review of the bike.

Saddle

It has worked a treat – a bit hard to start with but once bro­ken in it’s very com­fort­able. I put Proofride on before I started & then have done so 5 or 6 times more so far. I’ve also stretched the sad­dle each time I’ve put on the proofride, but not at the begin­ning of the trip. Price = $99 in Anchor­age; Proofride = $10.

Tyres & Tubes

I orig­i­nally wanted to buy Marathon Extremes but they are no longer mak­ing them, so I plumped for the Marathon Plus. I had a total of 19 punc­tures, 12 of which were over a 3-week period in Mex­ico due to metal studs from blown-out vehi­cle tyres. Punc­tures became more reg­u­lar as the trip went on due to holes in the tyres from day-after-day cycling in lots of dif­fer­ent con­di­tions. The tread, how­ever, is still in excel­lent con­di­tion & will last for 1000s of kilo­me­tres more. These tyres great on– & off-road but in 2nd-world coun­tries like Mex­ico & Panama they fear less well where the roads & shoul­ders are full of blown-out tyres. Price of tyres = $60 each in Anchor­age; price of tubes = $12–13, both in Anchor­age & San Francisco.

I went for 26 x 1.5″ tyres because I was start­ing on the unpaved Dal­ton High­way and was intend­ing to go out­side of North Amer­ica where 700ccs are dif­fi­cult, if not impos­si­ble, to find. I have no inten­tion of shift­ing to thin­ner tyres even though most of the route has been over good asphalt road. A lot of road shoul­ders, city streets and back streets are not in per­fect con­di­tion, even in Canada and the USA. I think that I will always tour on 26″ tyres — they may slow you down a bit but who’s in a hurry?

After 3000, 6000, 9000 & 12,000km I changed the tyres over – the back tyre to the front, the spare to the back and the front became the spare tyre – a tip that came from sev­eral dif­fer­ent sources. With more weight on the back, this sup­pos­edly allows the tyres to last longer as they are los­ing tread at a slower rate.

Pedals

The ped­als were highly rec­om­mended by many peo­ple. Regard­ing the toe clips, I sim­ply don’t like cleats and didn’t want to go with a sim­ple pedal. The deep steel toe clips also came highly rec­om­mended & allow for enough foot move­ment dur­ing con­tin­ual days of cycling, while giv­ing quite a smooth run up hills, but, obvi­ously not as smooth as with cleats. I’ll con­tinue to use them. Price of ped­als = $30 in Anchor­age; Toe clips = $20.

Brakes

I came across two cyclists – one who’d done the Alaska-Argentina run & another who had done Beijing-London with this com­bi­na­tion, so at what I thought was a rea­son­able price, I couldn’t really argue with the reli­a­bil­ity. Have per­formed admirably. The brake pads lasted the whole trip. Appar­ently, you can’t have disc brakes on this bike. Price of brakes, levers & pads = $150.

Bicycle Equipment

Mudguards / Fenders

The debate on the Inter­net seemed to be about whether 45s or 55s were the most suit­able length for long-distance tour­ing – my own per­sonal opin­ion was that 45s fit­ted bet­ter on the LHT. Have per­formed very well.

Kickstand

One of very few fail­ures. This wasn’t my choice of stands but an order failed to come through so I went for this $14 model rather than noth­ing. It is isn’t sturdy enough to with­stand loads & strong winds. When you rest up at the side of a road, there is often no wall or bar­rier sup­port so you rely on the strength of the kick­stand. It also kept work­ing its way loose.

In Port­land, OR, I found that rear kick­stands don’t fit the LHT because of the posi­tion of the two extra spokes. I replaced the stan­dard for a dou­ble stan­dard. Although a great stand, it had worked its way undone within a cou­ple of days as the rub­ber pads placed in between the stand & the frame were already wear­ing through. I tight­ened it at least once a day until I got to San Fran­cisco when a bike mechanic told me to put beeswax on the bolt. It’s still not per­fect but works much bet­ter than the rub­ber pads, need­ing to be tight­ened every few days, depend­ing on use.

Pannier Racks

Rec­om­mended by Jon at Para­mount Cycles, Anchor­age, as the most heavy duty racks around, I went for them based on piece of mind. They are expen­sive at around $140 each but they are built like a tank to avoid pres­sure on rims & spokes. Excel­lent purchase.

Panniers

I’d bought these a few years ago. I still think they’re great. Tested to the limit in a tor­ren­tial down­pour in north­ern Mex­ico (3cm of rain fell while I was rid­ing) a small amount of my stuff got a bit damp. In other wet con­di­tions, 100% water­proof. They are also tough and durable. The one prob­lem with these pan­niers is that the quick release on the front side of both pan­niers has worked its way loose about a dozen times while I was rid­ing. One of the back pan­niers did fall off on a road in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia & again, in Mex­ico – for­tu­nately, empty ones.

Handlebar Bag

A shock­ing pur­chase. I wasn’t con­vinced I wanted a han­dle­bar bag so, in the end, bought a small one. One of the two zips broke in the first week. This didn’t really mat­ter too much as long as the other worked. It is also about as water­proof as something’s that not water­proof, as is its water­proof cover. This starts to let in rain within 20–30 min­utes of not very heavy rain start­ing. I replaced it with a cheap shower cap as I didn’t think it would last very long. The 2nd zip broke in Tijuana & into the bin it went.

Dry Bag

This fits very com­fort­ably on my back rack in between the two pan­niers. It holds my day pack (for sight­see­ing when I stop), med­i­cines & extras that I don’t need to access very much. When I unpack it off the bike, I rarely have to open it to get at it. It has been 100% water­proof, is very light & the bright yellow/orange base gives traf­fic behind me one more piece of bright equip­ment through which to iden­tify me from a dis­tance. Very happy with it.

Bungee Cords

Two of them tie the dry bag, spare tyre & locks to the back rack in between the two pan­niers. It all mys­te­ri­ously fell off going over the Golden Gate Bridge – for­tu­nately, again into no oncom­ing traf­fic in the bike lane. I have no idea how or why as I’m con­vinced I’d strapped it one prop­erly that morn­ing & hadn’t noticed it work­ing itself loose at rest stops – either of those is obvi­ously not true. It has been solidly tied down on the rest of the jour­ney. The other is tied around my front rack & was used to strap down the 6L water bot­tles they have in Costa Rica. I never used it for any­thing else.

Cycle Computer

A very good multi-function wire­less option for a long tour­ing trip with time, cur­rent alti­tude, daily dis­tance, accu­mu­la­tive dis­tance, aver­age speed, max­i­mum speed, % gra­di­ent increase or decrease, tem­per­a­ture & total dis­tance climbed.  I travel with it on the aver­age speed & % gra­di­ent increase or decrease func­tions. This allows me to keep an eye on my speed & dis­tance with­out get­ting too both­ered about exact dis­tances; & to be par­tic­u­larly aware of the gra­di­ents I’m on as I’m climb­ing. The sen­sor stopped work­ing 3 times: once in the USA, where Cat­eye had a new one with me within 48 hours; once in Mex­ico where it took them 3 weeks to even­tu­ally to get on to me via FedEx as the orig­i­nal was sent through the post office; & finally, in Costa Rica, where I had a spare from the 2 I was sent in Mex­ico. How good is a prod­uct that breaks down 3 times in 9 months? At least Cat­eye hon­oured their inter­na­tional war­ranty. The down­side of such a com­puter is that it is time-consuming to set up and you have to re-set it up when you change the bat­tery over. On very bumpy roads it can also jump back to ‘0’ but this has only hap­pened a few times.

Pump

I hes­i­tated about pay­ing $43 for a pump. I thought it was the cor­rect deci­sion until it stopped work­ing in Belize. This was a shame as it is small & com­pact, open­ing out into a foot pump. It also has a PSI gauge. It pumps up a flat tyre eas­ily &quickly. How­ever, when it broke Topeak refused to send one out to me. They would only send one to an address in the USA, from where it would cost more than the orig­i­nal price to have it sent out of coun­try. I had one sent out to a local bike club rather than say I didn’t want it. Based on this & the han­dle­bar bag, I’ll never buy another Topeak prod­uct again. Of the hand­ful that let me down on the trip, 2 were the only Topeak ones I was car­ry­ing — brand new, as well. After that I used my much harder to pump up old spare, but it was there when I needed it & saw me through the jour­ney after years of ear­lier use.

Lock

I’ve not seen any­one else car­ry­ing a U-lock but, for me, it’s worth the extra weight. There’s noth­ing more impor­tant than the secu­rity of your bike & you have to leave it out­side when you go into super­mar­kets etc., so it is not always pos­si­ble to keep an eye on it. My think­ing with the mini U-lock is that if some­one is intent on steal­ing from the bike they can; but not THE bike. I always dou­ble lock at such stops. Both are under the kryp­tonite minimum-theft-money-back-guarantee i.e. if some­one makes off with the bike & I can show the cut locks, I get $1200 back off them, or, at least, thats what they say.

Waterbottle Holder

I’ve only seen one other tourer with a camel­bak. This sur­prises me as, com­pared to hav­ing to bend down & take water from your cages all the time, you just suck away. I’ve only ran out of water once &, that time aside, have never come close to feel­ing dehy­drated as I have done in the past with the bottle-cage sys­tem. A bit more sweat ver­sus hav­ing to bend down numer­ous times each day & not being in com­plete con­trol of a fully-loaded bike often on busy roads – there’s no com­par­i­son. And, then, I stu­pidly left it on a boat between Belize & Guatemala, & was left with the same sit­u­a­tion as before. After that, I suf­fered quite a bit from the heat. Aaaggghhh!

I went for the 1.5L bot­tle cage. When my camel­bak was empty, I sim­ply stopped & filled it up from the bot­tle & add 1.5 spoons of Gatorade pow­der. I rarely had to drink more than 3L of water in a day which means fill­ing up at the start of the day & off I go. If I need to fill up dur­ing the day there’s never any hurry & it’s rarely more than once. When I lost the camel­bak I had to revert to 2 smaller cages & refill my water bot­tles sev­eral times a day, often at incon­ve­nient times.

I bought a Platy­pus 4 litres in San Diego for the desert in Baja Cal­i­for­nia, so I could carry up to 7 litres (& if I need more, bot­tled water is read­ily avail­able in Latin Amer­ica, which I can carry on my front rack between the pan­niers tied to a bungee cord). The platy­pus goes on top of my dry bag on the back rack, tied down with the bungee cords. An ideal size for such a trip.

I used the water fil­ter a lot in Alaska, The Yukon & North­ern British Colum­bia. I didn’t use it since but kept it with me for emer­gen­cies – there’s lit­tle more impor­tant than water – as it’s so small & easy to use. It has worked very well pro­vided you rinse it off regularly.

Chain

I was on my 5th chain by the end of the trip. I changed each one about every 3000km. I always carry a spare, as well.

Tools

Great tool-kit – I’ve not found I’ve needed any­thing more so far, apart from a pedal span­ner when I dis­man­tled the bike to send it home. I also bought a 6mm allen key with a longer grip for the double-kickstand & a small adjustable span­ner when loos­en­ing or tight­en­ing some of the nuts & bolts on the bike.

As well as the repair kit, I also made sure that I had plenty of spare patches. Even so, I nearly ran out when I had almost a punc­ture a day for 2 weeks in Mexico.

Bike Spare Parts

Not had to use any of these, except when I used petrol sta­tions to pump air into my tyres.

  • 2 Rags

Easy & cheap to use for clean­ing the chain etc.

These are still going strong even after 15,000km. I didn’t realise until well into Latin Amer­ica that I was only car­ry­ing one spare — an over­sight on my part, I should have car­ried 2.

Bike Cleaning Equipment

I found it rubs off very eas­ily & you go through bot­tles of it very quickly when you have to lube every 1.5–2 days.

All I could find in Prince George, Canada was Tri-flow . I used it until I fin­ished the bot­tle but I didn’t like it – the chain got very dirty & every­thing stuck to it. Of the two, I pre­ferred White Lightning.

In San Diego, I was rec­om­mended Dumonde Tech Light. I did like it very well. You didn’t have to lube as often as with White Light­ning & the chain stayed cleaner than with Tri-flow. I ran out just before Panama City, so it lasts well.

Car­ry­ing it for 3 rea­sons: 1 is weight; this small tin lasts a long time & it is a cleaner & degreaser in one. I like it.

  • Old Tooth­brush

Price­less on the 3 occa­sions I had to clean mud out of every­thing north of Fair­banks, Alaska; & for the other cou­ple of occa­sions when this happened.

To speed up the tooth­brush clean­ing I bought a larger brush for quicker clean­ing. It can attach itself to the chain rings eas­ily for more effi­cient clean­ing. A use­ful purchase.

Sleeping

Tent

Green in colour to avoid easy detec­tion when free camp­ing, I have mixed feel­ings about this tent. On the free camp­ing score it is great. Other advan­tages include its weight, a mere 1.3kg, mak­ing it small enough to go in one of my pan­niers. It is also 100% water­proof. How­ever, I have never man­aged to get it erected tightly – one side always slopes slightly, so I often wake up with con­den­sa­tion on one side of the tent where the fly sheet rubs on the outer tent. This is due to the small front pole, which is nei­ther big nor sturdy enough to allow the tent to go up rigidly. It is also not a 2-man tent, more like a 1.5, which is good as I can get all of my gear in at a squeeze. It could also do with more win­dow ven­ti­la­tion, as the small one it has is inad­e­quate, although the mate­r­ial the tent is made from makes it pretty breath­able. I also ripped one of the cor­ners very early on in the trip & have replaced the pegs with longer, more robust ones. Just about good enough, but not worth the £200 I paid for it. I’ve never man­aged to get any­where near close to the 7 min­utes Vango reckon it takes to put up, more like 15 minutes.

Sleeping Bag

  • Moun­tain Craft Elec­tron 1000 (so old they’ve stopped mak­ing it)

I’ve had this 3-season sleep­ing bag for years & it still does the job. When I replace it I’ll get one that doesn’t take up as much room. I couldn’t jus­tify ditch­ing a good work­ing sleep­ing bag for this trip, even though I could have saved some space in one of my panniers.

  • Silk Inner Liner

Not used but very happy with it from other trips.

Sleeping Mat

I upgraded my pre­vi­ous Ther­marest for the lat­est one on the mar­ket. Not cheap, at over £100, but is far more ver­sa­tile than the pre­vi­ous one, in that it packs down very small, is tough & can be blown up to dif­fer­ent lev­els of firm­ness. I dis­pute that it can be blown up in 20 breaths, though, as the man­u­fac­tur­ers claim. Well worth the expense.

Space Blanket

Bought about 20 years ago, & I’ve never used it, which is a good thing. I always carry it because you never know. It takes up so lit­tle space & weighs so lit­tle that I’ll never leave home with­out it.

Cleaning Cloth

  • Micro-fibre

Washes well and is durable, so the extra expense has been worth it as it’s still going strong and work­ing well after almost 5 months. It also dries very quickly so can be packed away soon after use with­out get­ting any­thing else wet nor hav­ing to put it in a plas­tic bag.

Ear Plugs

A god­send for so many occa­sions: not hear­ing bears in the wilder­ness as they tram­pled through your tent, hear­ing traf­fic when camp­ing, lis­ten­ing to RV gen­er­a­tors (aag­ghh!) and block­ing out the Ger­man cou­ple hav­ing very loud sex at 5am in the next room, among other reasons.

Eye Mask

  • Air­line Issue

Great for the mid­night sun up in Alaska & the Yukon but both eye bands snapped pretty quickly so it wasn’t as durable as I’d hoped for the night I camped in the Baja Cal­i­for­nia desert behind a power sta­tion & the lights came on.

Clothes

Hats

I feel naked with­out it …

… how­ever, when it gets to about 33 degrees Centi­grade I start to suf­fer, so I put my won­der­ful Tilley hat under­neath – this just caused me to feel hot­ter. So, on qui­eter stretches of road, I rode with­out a hel­met & just with the Tilley hat – one of those deci­sions I’d rather not make. Great for sight­see­ing in the heat, too.

Sunglasses

This is the one item I always lose. I lost two pairs of Bloc £30 glasses on this trip. I’ve lost so many over the years that I won’t pay much more than this for a pair as I don’t think the cost-to-loss ration is worth it. I bought the Ser­pas Force 5 in Port­land, OR, for $50, & am very happy with them, espe­cially as they come with a hard case & 3 spare sets of lenses. The fact that I cycled from Ore­gon to Panama with­out los­ing them is a miracle.

Jacket

Dou­bles as my pil­low. Has been a great 4th layer on top of a Merino wool base­layer, a dry-flo t-shirt & the Kath­mandu Merino Mid­layer Runout. I’ve never felt that I’ve needed a 5th layer, although I for­feited the pil­low for wear­ing the jacket in bed in The Yukon when it got to below freez­ing at night.

I bought this as a wind­stop­per to com­ple­ment the Fleece, wore it twice & lost it in north­ern Alaska. Although a bit peeved at the time, I haven’t needed it so it’s meant I’m car­ry­ing less weight & bulk. I’d def­i­nitely get another one if I was con­sis­tently in need of an alter­na­tive 4th layer to the fleece, at higher alti­tudes than I’ve been at, say in the Andes.

Became less yel­low as time goes on, but I rode with it, right unti it became a sweat bucket in Cen­tal Amer­ica. I per­son­ally think this is the first thing that a dri­ver sees from a long-way off.

Tops

Used as a 3rd layer in Alaska & North­ern Canada & as a 2nd layer since then, with­out the Merino base­layer. A great light­weight, non-bulky piece of cloth­ing that goes on in the morn­ing when I wake up if I’m camp­ing & at the end of the day when I stop cycling, & some­times at rest stops as well where dry­ing sweat can make me cooler. Not used it since Mexico.

I don’t wear cycling tops. Dry-flo tops dou­ble as non-cycling t-shirts so I’m effec­tively car­ry­ing 5 t-shirts with me for when I’m off the bike. I laun­der every 6th cycling day & some­times wash things by hand in between to cut down on laun­dry costs. I wear the t-shirts as fol­lows – Day 1: t-shirt no1; Day 2: t-shirt no2 while t-shirt no1 gets an air­ing on the back of the bike; Day 3: t-shirt no 1 again; Day 4: t-shirt no 3 while t-shirt no2 airs; Day 5: t-shirt no 2 while t-shirt no3 airs: Day 6: t-shirt no3 again.

Cot­ton t-shirts which I sim­ply like to wear around town when I’m off the bike. If I’m cycling the next day, I just put on the next dry-flo top.

  • 1 Cot­ton Vest

Casual wear when I’m off the bike, par­tic­u­larly at the beach or around a house or hotel or just going down the shop on days when I’m not doing much. What I wear when I’m wash­ing the rest of my clothes.

Waterproofs

I bought the jacket in Port­land after my very old rain jacket basi­cally gave up the ghost. I’m impressed with it, hav­ing had to wear it a few times in long, heavy down­pours. I like the open­ing at the back & the zips under the arms as they give more ven­ti­la­tion. How­ever, you do sweat in it a lot. That said, it is 100% water­proof; that’s why I bought it.

I’ve had these for a num­ber of years. I pre­fer them to long pants as my legs get very hot & sweaty eas­ily. It takes a lot of rain to wet either your legs or what­ever you’re wear­ing under the shorts. I can’t remem­ber me ever wish­ing that I had longs on instead of shorts.

I bought these in San Fran­cisco. I cycle in a pair of Merrell’s as they dou­ble, triple & quadru­ple as numer­ous other types of shoe i.e. walk­ing shoes, which cycling shoes don’t; even the newer types of cleated shoes you can walk around in don’t come close. How­ever, they are not water­proof & I’ve had them squelchy wet a few times, so I thought I’d give the booties a go. I wore them occa­sion­ally & my feet have been prac­ti­cally dry after wad­ing sev­eral inches through water-flooded streets. They are worth car­ry­ing since they are so light & take up so lit­tle space.

It goes in my day­pack on sight­see­ing days. It proved its worth in the rain of north­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Mex­ico & Costa Rica, where it is still nice to walk around in a t-shirt rather than wear a rain­coat. I think that when you are car­ry­ing so few clothes you need to try & keep your spares dry.

Another San Fran­cisco pur­chase. I’d worn a shower cap both over & under my cycling hel­met before then, but although water­proof the rain would quickly start to drip down on to my face & into my eyes. The head cover doesn’t do this & is also warm, some­thing a shower cap isn’t. Just like the booties, I had decided not to pur­chase one at the start of the trip but am glad to have this small, light­weight piece of equip­ment in my bag.

Thermals

They don’t come cheap but are pos­si­bly the best &, most cer­tainly, the light­est around. The top acted as a bot­tom layer in Alaska & The Yukon while I was cycling. Both top & bot­tom have kept me warm in bed, in the same two places & most recently, in Cen­tral Mexico.

It triples as a warm hat, part bal­a­clava & full bal­a­clava. I wore it con­tin­u­ally in the tent in Alaska & The Yukon & often cycling in the morn­ing & late in the after­noon at high alti­tudes. It def­i­nitely kept my head warm. I haven’t had to wear it since North­ern Canada.

Gloves

Apart from the fact that your hands sweat a lot while wear­ing them, they are very warm & don’t affect your han­dling of the bike while wear­ing them. I wore them reg­u­larly in Alaska & North­ern Canada, but only put them on a few times after that, usu­ally early in the morn­ing or when my hands got very cold with con­tin­u­ous rain. They have not let in water, either.

Shorts

I wear one pair over my cycling shorts or longs as they have pock­ets, so I can carry some money & lip­balm in one pocket & my Canon IXUS85 cam­era in the other. I wear the other pair in places like the beach, for swim­ming or when relax­ing at the end of a day or on a day off while relaxing.

  • 3 Pairs of Cycling Shorts

I started with 2 pairs but have found that 3 is bet­ter for keep­ing my crotch area cleaner, drier & freer of sores. I use the con­cept for wear­ing them as I do with my t-shirts.

  • 1 Pair of 3/4-length Shorts

I wear them in the evenings or on days off when it is warm enough; I never cycle in them.

Pants

  • 1 long pair of black cot­ton pants

I wear them in the evenings or on days off when it is not warm enough to wear the ¾-length shorts.

I wore them a lot in Alaska & North­ern Canada but have hardly worn them since, only when it is rain­ing heav­ily under­neath my water­proof shorts. I wouldn’t travel with­out them.

Underwear

  • 2 pairs of underwear

I find 2 pairs to be enough, par­tic­u­larly as my swim­ming trunks can be used as a 3rd pair, or my multi-sport shorts, too.

Swimming

  • 1 pair of swim­ming trunks

I carry them for use in swim­ming pools where they insist that swim­mers wear proper swim­ming trunks.

Very-quick dry­ing, folds up very small & weighs very lit­tle – does the job. I dry it off the back of the bike when it is wet in the morning.

  • 1 Pair of Swim­ming Goggles

Essen­tial since I had eye laser surgery. My eyes can get quite sen­si­tive to salt & chlo­rine in the water.

  • 1 Sarong

For use as a beach towel to dry me & to lie on.

Socks

  • 1 pair of thick wool & 1 pair of medium wool socks

For those colder days when the thin­ner socks aren’t warm enough.

  • 4 Pairs of Thin Anklet Socks

What I cycle in the vast major­ity of the time. I carry 6 pairs of socks based on the 6-day wash cycle.

Footwear

I cycle in them & wear them around town. Won­der­fully ver­sa­tile. After 11 months on the road, I have had no prob­lems with foot infec­tions, nor do the shoes smell. They don’t sweat even in tem­per­a­tures above 35°C.

For use around town & the beach when it is warm enough.

Cooking

Stove

I have used a Tran­gia stove for years but they don’t come with the mul­ti­ple fuel option that the Whisper-lite does. Inter­net boards raved about the Whisper-lite. Its only down­side seemed to be that you can’t sim­mer with it. I have to agree. A great stove: light, fast-boiling, easy to put together & clean. When it comes to sim­mer­ing pasta, for exam­ple, you just cook with the lid slightly open so that the water doesn’t boil over too much. I don’t cook any­thing more adven­tur­ous than that. I use lots of tinned foods as they are easy to use on this stove.

I went for the small­est of the 3 sizes & I don’t regret this. Sev­eral peo­ple who were car­ry­ing the largest bot­tle (30 fl oz) say they wish they’d gone for the mid­dle size (16 fl oz). I could have gone for this but I don’t the need to upsize as much as those who have bought the largest need to downsize.

I had the choice of the 0.9L & the 1.3L. With hind­sight, I should have gone for the 1.3L. For the large meals cyclists need, the 0.9L is just big enough, but at a push. The 1.3L would have given me a lit­tle bit more room to work with. A great non-stick pan, though, & easy to clean. Worth spend­ing the money on.

  • Water­proof Matches

They were in the shop when I bought most of my other stuff so I bought them. I’ve not really had to cook in the rain so I don’t know how other matches would have fared but I’m glad I’ve got them.

Utensils

I bought these as they fit­ted per­fectly inside my cook­ing pot but have barely used them. I tend to use the pot for every­thing. I treat myself to a reg­u­lar cof­fee from a cof­fee shop (it’s my trip treat) when they are around so I wish I hadn’t bought the bowl or the cup. Instead of using so much plas­tic, or what­ever they serve your cof­fee in, I wish I’d bought a tita­nium mug, instead.

I bought the fork, spoon, knife set but have not used the fork at all. The knife & spoon work very well.

I’ve had it for years. I always take it with me, rarely use it but wouldn’t do with­out it as there are always a few occa­sions when it comes in usual e.g. cut­ting up the odd bit of meat I’ve bought for cook­ing. Then, I lost it, like oth­ers before it, but didn’t miss it. Maybe it’s not so useful?

It’s not dif­fi­cult to find tins now with pull-off open­ers but on the odd occa­sion that I’ve not found one this comes in very handy … and for less than $1.

Cleaning

  • Pot scourer & Sponge (cut in half)

With a tita­nium pot being so easy to clean, I’m still using my orig­i­nal pot scourer & only my sec­ond sponge. As I am the only one using all of the cook­ing stuff, I’ve never used washing-up liq­uid, a tip I picked up years ago when I worked in a sand­wich shop. I just use water & what­ever else I need to get things clean, i.e. a bit of elbow grease.

  • Tea towel / Rag

A tea towel cut in half dou­bles up as a rag for clean­ing the bike. I’m on my sec­ond tea towel & nth rag.

Preservation

  • About 20 ziploc bags of var­i­ous sizes

Any­thing that is spill­able goes into a Ziploc bag, such as sun­screen. Any­thing that is small & needs to be kept together goes into a Ziploc bag, for exam­ple, my cut­lery set. Any­thing that is in a pan­nier with some­thing that is spill­able goes into a Ziploc bag, like my umbrella.

Toiletries

  • Boots UK Chemist 50ml 4-bottle Travel Kit + Holder

These are what you are now allowed to take onto an air­plane in trans­par­ent bot­tles. I use them for sham­poo, shower gel, sun­screen & after-sun. I buy travel-size packs of these prod­ucts to cut down on weight. It works out a bit more expen­sive than car­ry­ing full-size bot­tles but I pre­fer to lose the weight. I have other trans­par­ent bot­tles that I use for car­ry­ing things like cook­ing oil.

  • Tooth­brush & paste

I buy the small­est pos­si­ble size tooth­pastes I can find. I cut the tooth­brush in half so it fits into the above toi­letry bag. When I have fin­ished with the tooth­brush it becomes part of my bike clean­ing kit.

  • Den­tal floss

One of those things I keep won­der­ing if I should carry but it fits in the toi­letry bag so it’ll stay there.

  • Sham­poo

Travel-size packs.

  • Deodor­ant

Small­est roll-on I can find.

This goes in the pocket of my shorts as a reminder to put it on. I con­tin­u­ally for­got & had chapped lips a few times which is dif­fi­cult to clear up when you are going through the desert of Baja Cal­i­for­nia. Works great when I remember.

  • Wash­ing Pow­der / Gel / Liquid

Travel-size packs or the small­est size I can find. Goes inside a ziplock bag in case it spills.

I use the ‘sport’ vari­ety. I started with Fac­tor 20, went to 25 & am now using 30. When this bot­tle runs out I’ll go for 35 as I still get a bit burned if I don’t apply it every hour – which I some­times don’t. Although it says that you won’t sweat in this, try tells the Cen­tral Amer­i­can humid­ity that. I think it’s another prod­uct that has not been fully-tested in dif­fer­ent con­di­tions for its claims to be borne out.

  • After-sun (can’t remem­ber which one I bought as it’s not label-less)

Because of my stu­pid­ity with the sun­tan lotion, this really does cool me down.

This is the stuff you need for the hordes of mos­qui­toes you’ll find in Alaska, in par­tic­u­lar. I actu­ally used up a bot­tle of this on the Dal­ton High­way alone. I’m still on the 2nd bot­tle 5.5 months later as I’ve rarely been both­ered by them since. It smells unpleas­ant but boy does it do the job. Any­thing less in mosquito-infested areas will not be good enough.

  • Toi­let Paper

Am never with­out a roll, espe­cially for the wilder­ness & the odd toi­let in Mex­ico is with­out either paper or paper tow­els, or both.

For dig­ging that lit­tle hole when you’ve just got to jump off the bike & go.

Not an obvi­ous thing to carry, but many h/motels delib­er­ately don’t pro­vide them. After a tough day on the bike, there’s noth­ing worse than see­ing a poten­tial hot bath go down the drain because there isn’t a plug. I don’t do it often as I don’t like to waste water but some­times you’ve just got to take the chance of soak­ing in a hot bath. The same goes for shav­ing – here it’s about sav­ing water. If I really need to shave, and the water I have access to is not hot enough, I’ll boil some with my stove & pour it into the sink which will not let it go due to the plug — well, most of the time.

  • Nail file / Clip­pers / Tweezers

Par­tic­u­larly for stop­ping your grow­ing toe nails push­ing against the front of your shoes, which can be painful at times.

  • Gillette Sen­sor Razor & Blades

I have left the razor at the bot­tom of the toi­letry bag as the blades have become an excru­ci­at­ing $10 for a pack of 5 in Mex­ico. Although I’d rather not use dis­pos­ables, I will con­tinue to do so until the price drops to a rea­son­able level.

  • Con­doms

Always have & always will – make sure they don’t expire.

  • Cot­ton swabs

I know some peo­ple won’t put them in their ears, but I always have a few on hand. They can also be use­ful for rub­bing cream on sores, when you may not be able to clean your hands prop­erly if you are free camping.

  • Wet Ones

That’s why I always have a pack of 12/15 wet wipes, so I can at least clean my hands, face & crotch area – the lat­ter espe­cially. I’ve noticed that when I’ve suf­fered most from sad­dle sores is through the north­ern Alaskan wilder­ness & in the Baja Cal­i­for­nia desert. Why? I was doing a lot of free camp­ing, with­out access to proper wash­ing facilities.

  • Mini Mir­ror

To check I’m still beau­ti­ful, of course. When not admir­ing myself on an hourly basis while going down the shoul­der of a high­way, it’s for shav­ing when I need to & am not in a proper toi­let or shower area; & for some­times check­ing out the state of play in my crotch area – sad­dle sores.

Medicines

I gen­er­ally carry only the basic med­i­cines I need, as it’s easy enough to find stuff you may only need once or twice, or not at all, along the way.

  • Vac­ci­na­tion Booklet

Con­tin­u­ally updated with what I need for the areas I’m trav­el­ling in.

  • Knee / Ankle Supports

Age & past sport­ing injuries means it’s nice to have these on hand. I haven’t needed them on this trip.

I don’t take them nearly as often as I prob­a­bly should but I didn’t get ill until 9 months into the trip, in Costa Rica.

  • 12 Imod­ium

An essen­tial item – I always carry them but haven’t used them.

  • Ibupro­fen / Paracetamol

I get the odd headache & a cou­ple of pos­si­ble colds com­ing on, so these have come in use­ful to kill off the signs.

  • Equate (fun­gal infec­tions e.g. athlete’s foot)

Another essen­tial item which I haven’t had to use so far.

  • Tiger Balm (sprains, headaches, insects)

Another essen­tial item which I have only used to rub on my itchy mos­quito bites.

  • Vase­line (sad­dle sores, cuts etc)

I rub this in every night after either show­er­ing, or when not within reach of a shower,  after clean­ing my crotch area. The results have been very pos­i­tive i.e. the times I’ve suf­fered most from sad­dle sores are when I’ve not cleaned off the sweat from the day’s or days’ ride(s).

Another essen­tial item which I didn’t use until Costa Rica. They do come in handy when needed, though.

  • Tylenol Cold & Flu

Another essen­tial item which I haven’t had to use.

  • Malaria Tablets

I used chloro­quine in Cen­tral Amer­ica; and malarone, in low­land Colombia.

Technology

Netbook

The one I brought from the UK crashed in south­ern BC, Canada, so I bought another one. At $300 each it’s not a cat­a­stro­phe but I don’t want it to hap­pen too often. An essen­tial item if you are blog­ging, among other things. I also don’t really carry paper so I also have books, guide­book pdfs. etc on the computer.

I back up ‘My Doc­u­ments’ twice a week, not ‘My Pic­tures’ or ‘My Music’. I leave that up to my online back-up.

I pay $55 a year to have every­thing on the com­puter backed up offline with Mozy. It takes days at the begin­ning to trans­fer all of the data from the com­puter to their servers so you need to do this at least a week before your depar­ture. Con­sid­er­ing the com­puter crashed, this is obvi­ously money well spent. Get­ting your doc­u­ments back is slow, though. It took me 6 days to retrieve them all & restore them back on the new machine – you only have 7 days before you have to repeat the process. I also back up every­thing twice a day, if the machine is on – this is auto­matic. If it’s not, I try to remem­ber to re-back it up each time I switch the com­puter on. I’ve got 32GB of stuff so this can take at least an hour each time.

Camera

Small, com­pact, tough & takes great pic­tures & videos. Love it.

Car­ry­ing my own com­puter means that I can upload pho­tos reg­u­larly, so I’m car­ry­ing the extra mem­ory card more in case the other one breaks than because it will get full quickly before I can upload.

Apart from in north­ern Alaska, where the cold short­ened the life of the bat­ter­ies con­sid­er­ably, 2 is more than enough. Even if I take a lot of pho­tos each day, a bat­tery will last between 4 days & a week.

  • Charger + Lead

I charge the bat­ter­ies as reg­u­larly as I can so the spare one is always ready for use.

  • Car­refour Mini Tripod

Bought for about $2.50 sev­eral years ago; it’s still good enough. How­ever, my next one with be a goril­laz.

  • iPOD 30GB + Earphones

I’ve not used it any­thing like as much as I have on back­pack­ing trips. I never cycle with ear­phones in. It has stopped work­ing twice at alti­tude but has started again when it has been recharged.

  • Charger + Lead

I started out with a charger & a lead but gave the lead away. As long as the com­puter is on I can charge the iPod, so I didn’t think I needed both the charger & the lead.

Headtorch

Great for so many things – set­ting up the tent in the dark or any­thing to do with camp­ing in the dark. My favourite use is read­ing in bed with it, as when my eyes start to fade all I have to do is turn it off, put it to one side & turn over.

  • AAA Bat­ter­ies

This Petzl takes 3 AAA bat­ter­ies. They last pretty well – I’m only on my 3rd set since I set out 11 months ago. I don’t carry a bat­tery charger or recharge­able bat­ter­ies as I don’t believe it’s worth the weight or has­sle for just 3 batteries.

General

As I was only intend­ing to cycle through The Amer­i­cas, it’s all I’ve needed to use with my mix­ture of Euro­pean & UK plugs. Still going strong.

Documents

Always worn on my per­son. I wouldn’t travel with­out it.

  • Pass­port

Goes in my money belt.

  • Money

I’m car­ry­ing $200 in $20 bills for when I cross bor­ders or in case of emer­gen­cies. This is eas­ily renew­able in Cen­tral Amer­ica where there is often the choice to with­draw either the local cur­rency or dol­lars, or in El Sal­vador & Panama US dol­lars are the local currency.

  • 2 Debit  cards

Kept in sep­a­rate places for the 2 bank accounts I have. Both have been blocked by my banks at dif­fer­ent points of the trip but not at the same time, so I’ve been able to use the other. There’s always Pay­pal to get over both being blocked, if it is buy­ing some­thing over the Inter­net. How­ever, I’ve just both Bar­clays & Pay­pal block me. It’s now the 5th time this has hap­pened with Bar­clays. As I travel so much, time to find another more traveller-friendly bank.

As a life mem­ber, I always carry it. It got me dis­counts in Alaska, Canada & the USA.

  • Spare Pass­port Photos

I always carry 4 spare ones, mainly for apply­ing for visas but as I haven’t needed any visas in North Amer­ica or won’t do so either in Cen­tral Amer­ica, I would have returned home with the same 4 I started out with had I not lost them.

  • Pho­to­copies (Pass­port etc.)

I have sev­eral pho­to­copies of impor­tant doc­u­ments such as my pass­port, my birth cer­tifi­cate, my travel insur­ance & vac­ci­na­tion book. I also have copies of all such doc­u­ments on my laptop.

  • Bike Travel Address Card

I keep mean­ing to, but although I’ve made one, I never got around to print­ing it ready to give out to people.

  • Insur­ance

For purely a cycling trip, this is not easy to find. I know of two options: British Moun­taineers Club (which I’ve cho­sen) & World Nomads. Both insure cycle tour­ing trips of up to 15 & 18 months, respec­tively, but the key dif­fer­ence for this trip is that the BMC cov­ers inter-continental tour­ing while the Nomads pol­icy would have cov­ered me on only one con­ti­nent, which they deter­mined as North Amer­ica so it would have been use­less beyond the US-Mexican border.

Paper

Books

  • Jour­nal

This is more a note­book that I carry with me, not always, but very often. I note things down of inter­est & update reg­u­larly ready to trans­fer to the blog.

  • Read­ing Books

I carry one paper­back & have quite a few oth­ers on the com­puter, either down­loaded from Ama­zon Kin­dle or Adobe’s My Dig­i­tal Edi­tions to cut down on weight. There are lots of other e-book sites out there, many of them free.

I buy the Lonely Planet’s ‘Buy by Chap­ter’ guides for the areas I’m inter­ested in trav­el­ling through to cut down on weight.

Maps

I never used any in North Amer­ica. I bought the ITMB’s Mex­ico, Cen­tral Amer­ica & South Amer­ica maps sup­ple­mented by Google Maps. The Mex­ico map is not par­tic­u­larly impres­sive – there are lots of typos & incor­rect infor­ma­tion, such as miss­ing off Dolores Hidalgo, cra­dle of the Mex­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion – a pretty impor­tant town in Mexico.

  • High­lighter

Not used.

Games

  • Travel Scrab­ble

Never used. Not what the mind needs after a day cycling.

  • Play­ing Cards

Not used, either.

Gifts

  • Bal­loons

I give these out to the small chil­dren of hosts or other peo­ple I may come into con­tact with where there is more than just pass­ing conversation.

  • Post­cards of my Hometown

I send these back to hosts I have stayed with for more than 1 night or to those who have gone out of their way for me in some way or other.

Miscellaneous

Not used as there has either always been one for me to use or I’ve machine-dried my clothes.

  • Biro Pens

I carry about 3, espe­cially for my notebook.

  • Small Pad­lock

For lock­ers in hos­tel dormitories.

I’ve used it only to keep my spare tyre wrapped up small enough that it fits on the back of the bike & to hold an area of my front mud­guard / fender together when it came loose from the screw. Esssential.

  • 6 Plas­tic Cable / Zip Ties

Numer­ous uses includ­ing to replace dam­aged ones on my cyclocomputer’s wire­less sen­sor & sim­i­lar to duct tape as emer­gency repairs.

  • Var­i­ous indus­trial bin-liners (up to 240L)

For uses such as keep­ing dirty clothes sep­a­rate from clean clothes.

http://www.camelbak.com/Sports-Recreation/Packs/2011-Rogue.aspx