I think that's his point. Not everyone is motivated by the minimalist mindset.

I don't need my Kindle or a book and the weight it adds, but by touring life would be worse without one because I like to read when out on the road.

Or you can look at it as carrying what makes you comfortable. An extra pair of shorts weighs near nothing A wet pair of shorts makes me uncomfortable. Why wouldn't I carry a spare pair? Just like I carry light weight of bike shoes and off bike clothes. Just like I also carry a two man tent for one person.


I guess minimal gear is an easy way to drop weight and it really doesn't cost you anything but your comfort. I guess it is better than investing a fortune in light weight frame and components to save a few ounces. That one makes me laugh when you see someone with a really expensive light weight bike and they could easily lose 10 to 20 pounds or more off of themselves. ;)


I want to know what minimalist do in the event of torn shorts? Yeah probably not a real common occurrence but it can happen.

My glasses are so important to me I carry 2 pair plus the contacts I am wearing while riding. I also carry backup medication in the event I do something dumb like leave it in a bathroom. Never had to use either but I know it is there when I need it.

I did fly off to Italy once wearing my contact. I left my glasses at home! I can't wear my contacts all day so I had to have a pair made once I got to Italy. That is when I got the idea of backups. They are the first thing that is packed. So matter what happens I have a pair.

A few times I have had to give water to badly dehydrated cyclists that were bikepacking and they had run out of water hours earlier. There are limits to this ultralight weight obsession that some people seem to have.

I have one pair of cycling shorts and one jersey on my tours, but not because I'm trying to save weight. If I wanted to minimize my load, I would carry running shoes, sandals, but not both. Or I would bring along a single paperback instead of two or three. Or I would mail things home. (On the first day of a 12 day tour, I had breakfast with a friend who gave me a gift that weighed about 500 g/1 pound. I found a corner for it in my pannier, and left it there for the duration of the tour.)

The first thing I do when I arrive at my overnight destination is take a shower, and launder my shorts, jersey, and perhaps one or two other small items. It's part of my touring rhythm rather than a desire to save grams. It takes me five or 10 minutes to hand-launder these items and set them out to dry overnight.

If the shorts or jersey happen to be a little damp in the morning, it's no big deal. Body heat drives out any remaining dampness even before I finish breakfast.

I guess it's about simplicity, not convenience, and different people draw those lines differently.

So then why would you not add a pair of shorts and a jersey to your gear? What value is there is taking one set of riding clothes other than saving weight?

And they thought you were kidding...


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It's not a question I have given a lot of thought to! I don't mind washing my clothes every day.

I suppose the opposite of what I do would be to carry of shorts and a jersey for each day of a trip! Imagine, no laundry! :)

No hard and fast rules. Generally take two pair, and wash shorts and synthetic jersey after arriving in camp each day, then hang to dry overnight. If still wet the next morning, will drape on top of rear panniers and hopefully its sunny and dry out. I try to avoid stuffing damp things in teh panniers 0- they tend not to dry out in there. If its raining when I arrive at camp, or I know its going to rain, I will sometimes skip washing and hope to do the next day or just wear "dirty" shorts a second day. Nice thing about wool tops is you can wear multiple days and they don't stink. Also, wool drys relatively fast and you can actually put on damp and dry out. Bottom line, I think it depends on climate and weather. Multiday rain is going to stress any rule you come up with.

I don't. I'm not sure where this idea that you can't dry Lycra came from but it is entirely wrong. Bicycle clothes don't need to be air dried. They are simply not that delicate. The heat of a drier is even beneficial in that it resets the stretch of the Lycra polymer.

I have loads (and loads) of bicycle clothes that have been machine washed and dried for more than 20 years and they are still going strong. They are starting to look a little thin but that's wear. They still stretch like they always have.

Now I know that some (perhaps most) people only carry one extra set of bicycle clothes and do laundry every night but I personally hate doing that. A jersey and a pair of shorts doesn't weigh all that much so I carry 4 total sets of bicycle clothes (I wear one and carry the other 3). That way I only have to do machine laundry every 3rd or 4th night.

I really hate the idea of doing all the things you need to do at the end of a day of touring and then add hand washing bike clothes to that.

right ;)

i think the idea here was touring in places without coin-op laundrymats,
or where dropping off at the chinese laundry overnight isn't convenient.

Maybe if you have a modern advanced washer and drier with a delicate/hand cycle? Some driers you can even switch off the heat. Otherwise, stay away from commercial washer/driers. Those agitators are way too powerful, and the driers will cook your cycling clothes (Lycra) before you know what happened.

At best, it will weaken the fabric shortening its life and causing it to lose its shape and wicking ability. This is true with clothes in general, but more so with delicate items. Front load washers ftw.

Sorry but you are wrong. I've used both commercial washers and driers to launder bicycle clothes while on tour. You have to be a bit more diligent with commercial driers but the fabric just isn't that delicate that it's much of a problem.

Again, no, it doesn't. The polymer that makes up Lycra is not "rubber". During manufacturing, the Lycra is "set" ( i.e. given its stretch) by heating it to from 175° to 200°C (~350°F to ~400°F). That's far hotter than you can get in any commercial drier and also far hotter than most "rubber" compounds would stand. Reheating the lycra fabric in a drier helps restore some of that stretch, not degrade it.

It's hard to say. Boomhauer didn't say where he was touring nor the conditions. While there are a lot of people who bicycle tour to remote places in the world, the majority of people probably aren't going to be too far off the beaten path. That means the conveniences of laundry facilities somewhere along the way. Even, and perhaps especially, when I stay in a hotel (it's nice to sleep in a soft bed once in a while:rolleyes:), 99.9% of them have a coin-op laundry that I can use. In a pinch, I have even stopped at a laundromat along the way during the day.

That's cool, until where you are cycling is 50F and damp all the time. Then, putting on wet shorts in the morning just plain sucks, and you will be miserable for a while. Maybe it'll dry out, maybe it'll still be damp when you're done for the day. At least wet shoes I can stick a pair of thicker wool socks on my feet, which keeps the wet on the outside and the warm and dry on the inside.

BTDT,good part of the reason the next trip is in hotels.

Crash and watch shorts get destroyed in a hurry.

Agreed. My bike shorts go in the dryer with the rest of my synthetic stuff, generally on high heat. No issues thus far, with them or any of my other plasticy clothes.

But you have to attach them firmly, lest you have to backtrack to retrieve them.

Last year my first day saw 8 hrs of hard rain and 6 hours of just rain after that. Glad to have another dry pair of short to wear the next day.

I agree with you, and use a washer and dryer if available. However, we were on a 2 month tour where we were only able to use a washer and dryer 5 times. We did a lot of hand washing.

We were on another tour, 3-months, where we experience 35 days of rain. We became pretty creative rigging clothes lines in hotel rooms. IME most European hotels/motels do not have laundry facilities that the public can use. Even when you find them, the washers and dryers used in Europe are painfully slow; it takes about 5 hours to do one load of clothes. Imagine a large campground with only 2 washers and dryers!

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/802/2...c2dbfb5e_c.jpg

If I remember correctly, there was a sports bra on each rack pack, flapping in the wind. The same method works for shorts:)
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/807/4...81a4c2a1_c.jpg

I don't know about dryers. My Pearl Izumis seem to wear pretty thin after a season or two. To the point I don't trust them anymore. ;) Not like I put on tons of miles. My average was around 2.500 miles in a year. That has probably been reduced to under 2,500 in the past few years.

I figured it was the dryer so I decided to start line drying. Maybe I am buying th ewrong brand?

Doug,

Not to take the thread OT but where is this? Looks like a really nice bike trail.

Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, Idaho. It is a very nice trail and will take you most of the way across the Idaho Panhandle. It is also near the Trail of the Hiawatha.

https://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov...coeur-d-alenes

Oh great! On my list for next year as well as the Route of the Hiawatha.. Plan is to do a loop out of Spokane. Then return home on the Empire Builder if I can stomach waiting till 1:30AM for the train to leave. ;)