niknak

I bring rain pants on longer trips in cooler/rainy climates. I always ride with shorts or pants over padded undies. The shorts and pants can be used off the bike. I like having separate shorts and pants instead of zip-offs so I can use my shorts as swim trunks and change into my pants while the shorts dry.

The same strategy applies to shirts. I carry one thin short sleeve and one thin long sleeve that can be used interchangeably or doubled up if it's cold. With a fleece mid layer and a cheap rain shell, I'm covered for 3-season touring.

Some people like to bring extras of everything. That's fine. It just means you're carrying lots of dirty clothes around, which means larger luggage, which means more weight, which means you need a beefy bike, which means more weight, which means your parts wear out faster, which means you need to carry more spares and tools, which just keeps compounding the complexity until you're riding around with 4 huge panniers, and handlebar bag, and one of those huge sacks going across your back rack with a spare tire lashed on top. I've been to that kind of hell and prefer a more minimalist approach now.

HendersonD

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I have decided to take two pairs of pants with me. My Sauconey running pants which are very comfortable and can be worn over padded bike shorts and my Eddie Bauer lightweight long pants for off the bike. I am also trying to minimize weight on my cross country tour but decided having two pairs of pants is worth the extra weight. As many folks have mentioned, I can adjust this as I go, sending items home and picking up other items as needed

indyfabz

What are you going to do for shorts off-bike?

HendersonD

On bike I am wearing Zoic padded liners and Uprising shorts from Elevenpine. These shorts can be worn off bike as well. I will also be bringing a pair of Eddie Bauer lightweight shorts that I will use off bike.

indyfabz

If you get a lightweight pair of convertible pants you will have long pants and shorts all in one.

HendersonD

Never liked convertible pants. I might end up sending my Eddie Bauer shorts home since I can wear the Elevenpine Uprising shorts off bike as well. We will see how things go across the first 500 miles

djb

I always recommend after a bike trip, to make your exact list of what you took, marking down what was in each pannier, and your thoughts on stuff like:

-what worked well for the temperatures/weather you encountered

-what didn't work-what you never touched and really didn't need

-what you said at one point, "damn I wish I had my X or Y" (sometimes tiny useful things like nail clippers or whatever

-what thing you had but maybe a lighter, better, smaller version would be better--future purchases ideas
all this really really helps with enjoying a trip more, but clearly very individual

For instance, I bring an inflatable camp pillow--better sleep for me totally totally worth it

indyfabz

Having never camped before my first tour (6,000 miles in the US that included ACA’s Northern Tier west to east starting in May), one thing I did was ask a friend who had touring experience what are some things I might be forgetting. She recommended at warm hat and a good flashlight. Turned out to be excellent advice. I used both often, including during the first night on the road.

HendersonD

Good advice. I do have a complete list of all the items I am taking. I have posted this in my Cycleblaze journal. I am sure at the end of the trip there will be items I sent home and other ones I will have purchased and I will document that as well

HendersonD

I do have the advantage of doing a lot of backpacking and camping for nearly 40 years. Some of this experience does spill over to biking but in some ways I feel like I am rookie when it comes to bike touring. This forum along with some friends who bike a lot have been great sources of information

staehpj1 

Note on that last one... I tried a bunch of the early inflatable pillows and hated them.. The shape was all wrong regardless of inflation level. I used regular pillows about 1/4 the size of a small bed pillow (from a fabric store and way better than "camp pillows") or clothing stuffed in a stuffsack. Those were kind of okay, but on really cold night I needed all my clothes as insulation (either worn or just laid on top of me). Then I tried the Exped Air Pillow (size M). It was as comfortable if not more comfortable than a real pillow. At 3 ounces it was a no brainer to me. One of the most useful 3 ounce splurges you can make IMO.

Yes, the list and noting impressions is very important. Everyones method of keeping the list is likely to be a little different, but regardless of that doing it and paying attention to details is key.

Not sure how many feel this way but I consider the list a living document that evolves over the years. It is related to the backpacking and canoe camping lists or actually a version of the same iist in my case since the list can have all the possible items on it and I check off check boxes to activate items in the count.

Folks like to poke fun of gram counters, but regardless of how heavy or light you choose to pack there is no point in carrying excess and the saved pounds are generall achieved by trimming ounces. Folks should only take what they need to make them happy. but not bog themselves down with more than that. That is true whether what makes them happy requires 15# or 55# or whatever.

One thing I'll note here is that I find my packing list changes suprisingly little for various trip conditions unless you get out of the three season range. Trip length doesn't change my packing lst or weight carried. My gear is versatile enough that I can get by for most spring-fall trips including overnight sub freezing temps with no real chamge in gear. I might choose between the bivy and the bug bivy depending on the weather and my clothing may vary a little, but not much since in the mountains I am always expecting a possible frost. So I would take the same stuff for a couple days or a couple months.

Obviously they are times and places where you need to carry extra water to bridge between resupply, but adding capacity by grabbing some empty sports drink, soft drink, or bottled water bottles to carry water for the time you need them is usually easy enough. Food is seldom needed to be carried for more than a day at a time unless going off pavement into the back country, but I consider that something more specialized than normal touring (that is what I would use the bikepacking label for)..

pdlamb

Re: warm hat, a polypro skull cap fits under the helmet for riding, and it's so thin that it'll be dry enough to sleep in by the time you finish setting up camp and eating.

indyfabz

Yeah. I have one now. Back in '99 they were not as ubiquitous. I ended up buying a wool watch cap for in camp. Funny thing is that I was never a big hat guy, in part because of my fuzzy/kinky hair. I became one quickly First night on the road it got down into the upper 30s. Very cold when we woke up the day we crossed the North Cascades Highway. A few days later, while eating breakfast in camp before tackling Sherman Pass, we experienced snow flurries. We even had a few cool nights in MN.

Tourist in MSN

One thing that I use a lot on bike tours that I do not find much use for in backpacking or most other camping is a flat silicone drain stopper for doing sink laundry in campgrounds. It is very unusual to find a campground sink that includes the stopper. And I bring a 3 oz bottle of laundry soap.

The clothesline is a small diameter cord that has very little stretch to it, and I have about a dozen clothespins that the cord runs through.




In my previous post I said I did not want to recommend what I wore for long pants on a bike because the price skyrocketed. But I was unaware you already own a Zoic liner. The pants plus liner are absurdly expensive, but since you own the liner already, the pants are not as absurd at this price.

My long pants that are convertible for shorts for touring are these:
https://zoic.com/bmc

Mine are 8 years old, I assume they have not changed, mine have a small button hole and button near the bottom to hold the pant leg up instead of a strap. I use an ankle strap with them. They fit a bit tight on my legs, but not TOO tight, they certainly are not loose. When I first saw the button hole, I thought it was a flaw, thus I mention that here, it is not a flaw.

staehpj1 

I have one that is real thin and is kind of rubberized on one side (neoprene I think?) I really like it for all kinds of weather and all kinds of use I think it is an REI house brand (Novarra).. I used it a lot for trail running in all of the cold weather we got in Maryland when I lived there I ran in r=the very early AM so I caught the overnight low pretty often, but that was seldom below 0F. Anyway for me that meant that I only need it to cover the tops of my ears, which it just does, in the coldest weather and not cover my ears at all as it warmed up a bit.

On tour I seldom find it cold enough to wear it while riding in dry weather, but do wear it when it is wet and cold or in camp when it is cold even if dry.

I have another couple without the neoprene side, but prefer the one with it.