I’m not really one to write about gear. Talk about it, obsess over it, over-analyze it, yes, but there’s something about personal blogs that feature gear reviews and gear talk that makes me nauseas. I didn’t start this to get free gear, free trips, whore myself or promote the continuation of our material culture that is leading to the degradation of our environment. Lest you believe I’m a total cynic about this sort of thing have yourself a read of Craig Childs’ piece of the “Buying and Selling of Nature”, and Dane’s piece about the “Elite” attitude of sporting becoming the norm. Although these pieces might not actually say much it is a pretty good jumping off point for the conversation of the amazing duality that exists between outdoor enthusiasts and the material “gear” culture that we’re so entwined with. We rely on our gear, it’s a huge part of what is enabling us to push our boundaries and find new limits. You’ll not be finding a thousand-word blow-fest about a mid-layer polartec hoody here, we can leave that for the “athletes” with pretty faces who’s job it is to sell things. Mostly themselves. What I do want to offer you is a glimpse at the gear I use, how normal and average it is, how it fits on the bike, and how easy it is for you to make the transformation yourself.
The impetus for this post is a recently published write-up of our Zion trip to my friend Ed’s site VerticalMinded.com. If you haven’t yet, check it out, it’s mostly a bunch of pictures but there’s a little bit of the insight and reflections that went into (and came out of) that trip. I don’t plan on re-posting it here but I thought I would instead include few things that I left out of that posting, mainly, a look into the gear we use, what we brought, and how you can do it too. In the hopes that others might follow suit, here’s a quick look into our panniers, our minds, our bags of gear, and why packing all of the same stuff into your car is weak sauce. Enjoy.
Bicycle touring is not a new concept. Lucky for us, it’s been around long enough to be perfected by many before us. At the heart of this concept lies the bike, a machine not easily improved upon; one drastically overshadowed by the car for daily transportation and recreational-getaways. We’ll start there.
Amos modeling the frosty San Remo
Liz and I were able to find a deal on Surly Bikes, so we went with the Disc Trucker. The DT is modeled after the Long Haul Trucker and is quite possibly one of the most solid, simple, and cheapest bikes for fully loaded touring. We opted for 26-inch wheels cause we’re small and for the ease of finding replacement tires should we find ourselves in a foreign country with a shredded tire. Another by-product of the smaller wheel size is sturdiness, although this is relatively unsubstantiated, a smaller wheel is stronger and after about 5000 miles of unloaded and fully loaded riding, neither of us broke a single spoke. We opted for the disk brakes because they’re more powerful and reliable, and the reality of bringing an extra set of pads and an extra rotor really isn’t that bad. Yes, if a wheel is damaged on a tour it could be difficult to find a replacement, but unless you really eat it the hub will probably still be intact and you could simple build another wheel. Contingencies like that are hard to plan for and you’re better left to cross that bridge when you come to it, after all, it’s all part of the adventure. As a side note, there are plenty of frames out there today that offer the ability to switch from cantilever to disc brakes, so if you had said frameset, a busted wheel might be easier to replace with whatever’s at hand.
The bicycle is a simple machine, if you don’t have one and don’t want to spend a bunch of money on one, don’t fret; there are plenty of suitable rides floating around on craigslist and other social networks. Bikes generally last forever and are incredible easy to work on yourself, if none of your friends have a bike stand, check around for a co-op shop like the SLC Bike-Collective that offers donation-based shop time and tools, they’re becoming more popular all over the states.
If you’re not down with the panniers, or have a ride that doesn’t accept a front rack, consider a trailer. Although we’ve found the longer tours to be more comfortable with panniers, when cragging and climbing alpine rock in Washington, Liz and I would simply pack a backpack, and through it in the trailer. Easy to lock up, nothing left behind. Trailers like the single-wheeled B.O.B. work best, and can be attached to ANY bike.
We went with Surly’s racks because they’re steel and they can carry about 150 pounds together. Steel is heavy but easily welded should it crack or break, not so with aluminum or titanium, something that could easily happen riding on dirt roads or trails far from nowhere. Next up are our bags. When you put a bag on a bike, it suddenly becomes a pannier, which is French for purse. It helps if panniers are waterproof and strong, as they take a lot of abuse from wind, rain, dirt and general road debris. We bought bags from Green Guru Gear; a boulder based small business that constructs bags from recycled bicycle tubes. Recycled and up-cycled gear is as good as it gets, and Green Guru’s gear is bomber and storm proof. Our front bags are made by Ortlieb, a German company that has been making waterproof bags for ages, tried and true, they’re great.
Liz loaded down.
Before we take a look at what goes into these bags, take a moment to imagine everything you’d through in the truck for a day of cragging. How about for a weekend of alpine rock in Lone Peak Cirque? What would you take if you were heading down to the desert for a week of big wall routes? Got it? How many ropes? Triple rack with extra hand sizes? If you’re heading to Zion you’ll probably take some wide gear cause the climbing there has a habit of getting big and dirty. Well here’s what we took: a double rack from .5 up to #3, single down to green TCU, no 4’s or 5’s, single set of nuts, two single ropes and 8 alpine style draws. That’s it. We each carried our personal gear: shoes, harness, chalk bag, personal anchor to serve also as some extra cord should need be, our climbing helmets doubled as bike helmets. We cycled in sneakers and brought climbing shoes.
Amos brought the Flute.
There’s something pretty silly about pairing down your rack when you’re climbing a wall that’s only about ½ hour walk from the road, but we had to schlep this gear about 700 miles down and back and the idea of dragging along a two-pound piece that you might place once or twice seemed like a waste of time. We did limit our options by not bringing wide gear, but we’ve also found that with a little bit of route choice, and some exciting run-outs, there is plenty to be climbed in Zion with a rack this size. Better to sack up, run it out, and make it happen. Although this is a point that is closely related with what gear you bring and how you use it, I’m going to leave it alone for now, suffice it to say that choosing to not own a vehicle is not only about the environment, it’s about not taking the easy way, about honoring how and why you travel. Climbing has its parallels with the gear you use and the style you climb in. Light and fast, low-impact style doesn’t start at the trailhead; it starts when you leave your front door, and when you stick the key in the ignition you’ve blown it. Nuff said.
Liz showing how it’s done, with less.
As for everything else we brought, well, here it goes. We went climbing; we brought everything you might bring to climb in a zone that takes a few days to reach. Between the three of us we brought one stove, a whisperlite international, with 60 oz of fuel that lasted about the first 10 days, we ended up buying another quart of fuel but only used about 30 oz’s of it, so for 16 days, 700 miles and 16 pitches of climbing, we used a little over 30 oz’s of fuel each, that’s just over 6 oz’s of fuel for the three of us each day.
Dinner at a rest area.
We brought one tent, the floorless Black diamond Mega-Light. It rained, it snowed, it was super windy, but this thing kept us relatively happy after a long, cold, wet day of riding. It’s light, and that’s what really matters. We were each able to bring in our personal gear and we often cooked right in the tent. Amos brought along a small tarp to cover our extra gear, which came in handy.
Food, we stoked up on before we left, but we ate out often and still had to restock at Sol Foods in Springdale before heading back home. We would often grab a single recipe item at a grocery store at the end of the day to make meals a little more exciting. Bicycle touring is hard work, and you end up eating a lot, our favorites were Malena’s in Ephraim, Los 5 Amigos in Richfield, and whatever was cooking in our single pot. Pasta, rice, and oatmeal pancakes were staples. We brought one pot each, which boiled down to one for cooking, one for water in the am, and an extra one for somebody to eat out of.
Energy
Being late October we brought some warm cloths but still got cold. We had a camera, journals, and some speakers and an IPod to keep up the moral. Overall, pretty simple. I’m not sure how much it weighed but I can tell you when we left loaded down with food, it was heavy. There’s beauty in simplicity, satisfaction as well. This is what we brought on a two-week trip but you can imagine it’s pretty easy to slim down for a day or three. At the heart lies the bike, simple, solid, functional. Go get one, or give yours some love. Ride it, and be free. Do you have any idea how many parts exist in the average automobile? Not to mention the fuel, where it comes from, how it’s extracted or brought to you? I don’t, and I don’t give a shit.
Energy came from food, and sun. We managed to do most of our light and gadget charging from these little panels.
Overall, it’s not about buying new gear, buying more fuel, buying a plane ticket, it’s about making do with what you’ve got, making do with less. That’s the goal, and the solution. Cheers
T