More thoughts on the gear list
30 January 2004Posted by Dale
First of all, shame on you who have not stopped by MountainbikingX.com. If by some chance you haven’t, please do.
I am going to give you a brief run down of my part in this journey. Unlike Jayme or Mack I have no chance of ever getting a month off to ride from Oregon to ND. The best I can do, in what is referred to as a prime time vacation month, is five days in a row. It should coincide with the last five days of the trip give or take. I am making all the preparations I can so I can join them, but I must admit I am jealous of the fact that I cannot be there for the whole thing.
Now I will admit that I am no Marine, and as Jayme will tell I have had a fairly posh life growing up and still do. But as he will also tell I am an old farm boy who can make things work, don’t mind to get dirty, and know to improvise when needed. I love to ride bike, so to me that side of this trip will not be a worry. My physical condition may.
I know I need to be in way better shape if I want to achieve the miles I have to ride. I am joining these two when they are almost done. They will be seasoned. A hundred mile day should be nothing for them. I am going to have to train hard so I can join up with them and be ready to ride that hard. I am going to be the guy with a loaded trailer you see on the roads this year putting in my fifty mile training rides. I plan to ride at least once with both loaded panniers and a loaded trailer to compare the two. I am pretty sure from what I have read the loaded trailer will be better, but I don’t want to say that with out first trying both. Once I decide on one I am going to make a number of runs, working up to a certain distance to make sure I am ready to ride with the needed weight.
I am trying to help out with this trip where I can for Jayme and Mack and this is one of the reasons why I must question some of the things they (I should say Jayme, I know how he is Mack) come up with sometimes. It is actually going to work to our, and everyone who reads this and is looking for info on touring, advantage. All three of us have different views on what we do or don’t need to do or bring for this tour. Granted I may not be doing the whole thing, but like I wrote in my article I really don’t think it matters much if you are doing fives days or twenty-five. You will still need a lot of the same things. You can read more about that and other stuff about touring here. Now granted I am going to get by easier in the sense that I can bring less food, but that is about the only place for now that I found I can really cut a lot of corners. I am still bringing just as many clothes, spare parts, and camping gear.
The camping gear is where our first real disagreements have begun. One thing about Jayme and I you have to remember is we love to disagree. It feeds our egos to disagree with each other. It gets so bad that even when one of us may agree with the other on a subject we just dig our heels in and stand our ground. But that is the way it has been for years and will continue until we beat each other over the head with our canes in the nursing home over which Jell-O flavor is better.
On the other side of the spectrum we are each coming up with some ideas that the other two may not have realized or may have overlooked on why it is important. I will give you one point that has come to light already: what to eat out of. My original plan was to use a military issue mess kit. I saw one on eBay and it looked good, compact, and fairly light. This was before I read Jayme’s gear list and saw something called a Canteen cup that I do believe Mack gets the credit for. This thing is great. I can drink, eat cereal, and heat soup in it. You name it and I can do it with this cup. This is one fine gem of camping material. While on eBay I found one and paid for it and discovered I can buy a stand and trioxane fuel specifically for it. Perfect. I can now have my beloved hot oatmeal for breakfast. I watched a new stand and thirty fuel bars sit at $9.99 for almost five days. I figured these were mine. Today I open My eBay to discover someone bid on them and realized it was Jayme. Mine would have to be the next set. It is amazing thousands of miles apart, all sorts of different types of research and some how we end up buying the same thing with out it every being mentioned to each other. These are the items that no one should doubt as being almost perfect for the job.
There are some things that we will always disagree on. The tent verses the tarp probably will be the greatest one. I am going to use the tent. They more than likely are going to use a tarp, and good luck to them. In the end I hope it rains on us while I am with the, that way when it is all over we can get a good comparison for the next time. Who knows what I will use then? This tour is doing more for me than just riding on the road in the middle of ND. I am learning a whole new side of bicycling, finally finding a true motivation for losing that 30lbs I need to. My upcoming wedding is another plus for the weight loss. No one likes to see an over stuffed penguin. No matter what comes of this tour it is already making us better in many ways. I for one say bring on the road, heat, bugs and rain we will show it what we are made of.
This is the first of many articles I will post. I would defend my point on the tent verses the tarp more, but I for one say go with the tent and I didn’t want to repeat what you will already find on MountainbikingX.com.
Stop by and check it out.