nun

For those interested here is the setup I used on a 10 day, 400 mile ride around the perimeter of MA



Bike

Cervelo RS, Mavic Open Pro 32 spoke wheels, gearing 46/34 x 12/25, 2 x 1 liter water bottles

Bags

Ortlieb front bag, Carradice camper rear bag with Expedition Bagman

Front bag contents
Rain jacket, shower cap for heavy rain
First aid kit
umbrella
Cable lock
Sunglasses
Head lamp
Toilet kit; small towel, tooth paste and brush, shampoo, razor, sunscreen, comb, lip balm
Leatherman juice
Iphone and charging cable
Hypermac mini battery for iPhone and charging cable
Wallet
Energy bars
Batteries

Saddlebag contents
Main Compartment

NeoAir sleeping pad
Jacks R Retter Hudson River quilt
inflatable pillow
ExOfficio convertible pants
EMS Techwick long sleeve T-shirt
Cycling shorts
Seersucker off bike shirt
kungfu shoes
Padded cycling underwear
Regular underwear
Smartwool socks
8 oz ethanol
Cooking kit; Ti mug, Ti alcohol burner, lighter, windscreen, mug, dish cloth
"Chaincondom" - cover for drive chain for when I take the bike inside motels
Bike pump
50ft cord

Side pockets
Over shoes
2x tubes
repair kit; multi-tool, spare cables, nuts, bolts, puncture kit, zip ties, tape

Tea bags
instant oatmeal
couscous
chicken stock
nuts and raisins

Tarptent Contrail strapped under saddle

Wearing
Cycling cap
Small radio with headphones
Techwick T-shirt, long sleeves
Padded Cycling underwear
Cycling touring shorts
Smartwool socks
Shimano MTB shoes
Bandana

antokelly

Nun thanks for that packing list looking good really good and basically all you need for an extended tour.

edit.
Nun sorry for been a pain but i dont suppose you have a photo of your bike with rack without saddlebag.
your rack seems to be near enough level where mine is tilted to nearly 45dec
making it hard to attach it to the QR .
cheers.

Bacciagalupe

That's nice, but do we really need six threads about you using your racing bike for a short tour?

nun

Here's a photo. You can bend the bagman to get the saddlebag position you want.

antokelly

Excellent stuff thanks for that.

CrazyLemurBoy

Very cool! I dig your setup. What was your average speed while on tour?

bmike

nice nun, proving that bike travel isn't really about the bike...

Bekologist

I was expecting triple, quadruple the mileage after all the hype about the UL loads/crabon fibre touring bike.

a person could do 40miles a day on a worksman trike!

Good job all around, proving a carbon fiber "Relaxed" geometry short reach brake bike can work, if not exceedingly well, as a touring bike.

the back bag looks awfully largely stuffed. And i don't see any insulating layers or warm hat on your packing list It's a problem i deal with using a carradice/ front bag setup too, BTW....at some point still within the UL spectrum, shifting the load towards the axles using racks and bags makes a lot of sense.

nun

15 mph on the road, but there was a fair amount of climbing. I stopped to see a lot of sights along the way and took afternoons to sightsee.

nun

Double the mileage would be ok......not 3 or 4 times though, that's too much for me. My goal was to get to know some bits of MA I haven't visited so I rode in the morning and went to museums and walked around the towns in the afternoon. I find that 50 miles a day makes for an agreeable average over a tour and leaves plenty of time to see stuff.

The only issue I had with the bike for touring was that some of the steep gradients in the Berkshires would have been more comfortable with a lower gear ratio. My lowest was 34/25. So the frame is good for touring, but most people would probably want lower than the lowest stock gear ratio.

As this was a summer tour I didn't pack a wool beanie, long johns, gloves or neck gaiter or my Dri-Climb wind jacket, but there's plenty of room for those.

Danneaux

Hello All!

Posted on behalf of antokelly.

Gorgeous lightweight setup, Anto!

Best,

Danneaux.

antokelly

excellent dan thanks a million.
so this is my attempt at trying to go lightweight.
carradice camper on rear ortlieb up front.
the exped down matt is taking up a lot of room in saddle bag as is the thermarest compressable pillow, but i really need these to get a good nights sleep and cant afford anything lighter or smaller at present.
still a lot to do to get to NUN's standards but i'll keep at it until i do.(forget the bubble wrap)

fuzz2050

I just got a Thermarest Neo-Air at an REI garage sale, it's easily the best $20 I've spent. It's the same thickness as your DownMat, and it's insulation should be more than sufficient for most temperatures. Bargains can be had, keep an eye out for 'broken' sleeping pads, ones with slow leaks and the like; repairs are easy, and most companies have a good return policy (Thermarest just replaced the old, leaky 1st gen Neo-Air with a brand new X-lite, and all for the cost of postage.)

antokelly

how small does it fold up fuzz2050. i've heard the neo air matts are pretty good.

nun

The neoair must be half the folded size of my previous Big Agnes pad. It gives good cushioning and insulation. The material feels a little strange against my skin but sleeping in a T-shirts solves that.

Antokelly, I can see what you were talking about re the angle of your saddlebag. I think you are running into issues with the small distance between your saddle and wheel. Which bagman do you have? The larger saddlebags usually require an Expedition Bagman.

antokelly

Nun i have the newer type expedition rack, i did bend it back as far as i could,
actually it's ok i wont run into any problems reguarding the bottom of the rack hitting the wheel, the struts on the rack make it solid no movement which is great.
now i just need to get a matt that takes up very little room,i really dont want to loose my pillow it's the only pillow i can sleep on , i do have 3 inflatable pillows all good brands but i just can't get on with them at all. so my thermarest will have to stay.

Danneaux

Anto,

Is it possible you could stuff your ThermaRest pillow into a small compression stuff sack? It isn't the weight so much as the space it takes...that might help a bit.

Best,

Dan.

antokelly

dan i did have one of those compression sacks but for the life of me i can't find it.
but the sleeping matt is the main thing i need to sort out.
i'm only trying this set up out just to see if i can get on with it .
i always have my sherpa and panniers.

djb

grumpy old git! ;-)

last time I checked, there wasnt an obligation to look into this thread, oh wait, the snub nosed 38 up against my ear has made me amend that statement.

always fun to see another list of stuff by someone

Bekologist

Nun's bike is close (without any real insulating layers), and Antokelly's bike clearly showcases my axiom about UL loads and packing using just a carradice and HB bag with a full 'ultralite' camping kit.


my setup, and it is very very sparse on creature comforts, but 'complete'..... If i get a bike with a low trail fork i could mount a front rack and much larger HB bag in the front and have more room for more stuff without overly packing the back bag.

At Nun's blog posts about the trip, it doesn't look like Nun actually camped out, just stayed in motels for the 10 day trip - Hardly an exercise in how well the camping kit and lack of warm clothes actually works out while on tour.

if people are going to try a camping tour with an Ortlieb HB bag and a Carradice, you have to really, really look at your packing lists and parse it down perhaps even more judiciously than Nun's list at the top.

antokelly

yeah my set up is basically set up for overnighters, all the gear in my saddlebag is mostly sleeping not much room for anything else to be honest.but if i was serious about this i would look for the smallest packable gear i could find, ( my stuff is to bulky although light weight)
so if i could manage to reduce bulk i could certainly go 3 season lightweight camping.

bmike

once you are setup for overnight, you are pretty close to being sustainable (3 seasons), so long as resupply is easy.

here's a snap from a fall ride. temps in the 30s overnight, so i have an insulated air core and extra clothing along.
i had a wingnut gear bag on my back, nearly empty, for a food haul to camp.

nun

I didn't camp because motels were more available than campsites. And at 51 if a motel is available I tend to go for it while being prepared to camp if necessary. I've done enough camping with my setup to know that it works well.

https://wheelsofchance.org/2010/05/26...-one-day-tour/

As this was a summer trip I didn't pack extra warm layers, but I would for a fall/winter trip. However, if I were to get an unexpected cold night my sleeping quilt, 2 x techwick long sleeve shirts, rain jacket and various combos of trousers and shorts are more than enough to keep me warm. My list has worked well for summer camping/touring, but I would add a couple of items for fall travel. It's important to develop your own list; don't just copy existing lists as what is perfect for one person might well be a disaster for another.

antokelly

lovely set up well done, give me some clues on packing light.
you need to ask people that do light weight touring to find out there secrets.

bmike

Salsa Fargo by mbeganyi, on Flickr

here is the same kit on a tour through the ADKs.

i'm not ultralite, working on it.
this was in fall. was packing rain gear and some warmer layers, 50s overnight, but could have been colder.

have a big agnes bag (30dF), an insulated air core (too heavy for 3 season use).
carried the tarp from my hammock, a bivy, and a ground sheet. i now carry a tarptent contrail. using it this weekend in the VT mountains. same bike, similar setup. and i carried a wingnut gear hyper with fluid. i cameled up (to test how it would feel) with about 2 gallons of water 20 miles out from my camp site. i think my kit dry (no water, but food for camp and on the road) was maybe 16-18 pounds. heavy, by some ultra standards. that included a can of bear spray (will need it out west on a future trip, so working out where it will ride, etc.)



homemade alky stove, ti cup, some food, etc.

i'll take pics of my updated kit this weekend. first time all the new stuff will get a workout.
revelate tangle, gas tank, and jerry can bag will be used instead of the jandd.
tarptent contrail and maybe just my bag liner or fleece blanket, depending on temps.
will likely carry water in a bladder in the tangle bag, or add 2 cages to the fork (little singletrack planned, but forest roads and jeep trail).


you can read about that trip here:
https://littlecirclesvt.com/2011/08/adk-bikepacking/