Re: your worst touring bike

>From Denis Kertz regaurding gear:

"I use my memory of this encounter to remind
myself that the trip is still more important than the best/correct equipment
and that folks are surprisingly adaptable to whatever they have available."

Here here!

So often we spend so many months dreaming of touring we get obsessed with g=
ear.

While I've taken huge inspiration from the backpackinglight.com
community on gear I've noticed that backpackers, particularly of the
ultralight type are ridiculously obsessive about gear.

I guess this is because unlike us they have a larger penalty for
weight, they cannot buy food on the trail or even replace gear or fuel
without well planned mail drops.

The thing is there are an infinite variety of touring styles.

fully loaded

credit card

cargo bike / long tail

baby carrier trailers

bob-trailers

26" mountain bikes for off road

29r mountain bikes

16lb road bikes

the variety of recumbents alone are seemingly infinite.

and what about "fatback" bikes for snow and sand like the Surly
Pugsley? ... I've seen a few sweet backcountry tours done on these.

Then of course there's all the vintage bikes, the randoneering, the
old school touring like rivendell promotes.

The variety is things people ride and how they travel on them is infinite.

The bikes are necessarily as varied as the terrain we ride in around the wo=
rld.

What's more they are as varied as the people who ride them.

Some tourers come from the bicycle racing world, some come from hiking
so 10-20 miles a day is more then enough.

Some carry 150 lbs of gear and make / take their "home on the road".

And some odd people carry a tarp, a quilt, a change of clothes and a ccard.

I'm a little more toward the later, but let me pose this question.

=3D=3D What is the oddest piece of gear you've carried on the road but
will carry again? =3D=3D

Personally, the oddest piece of gear I carried on this last trip was a
40oz bean can.  Litterally a 40oz Bush's baked bean can.

I put a removeable spoke looped handle on it.

Yes it got some rust.

But it fit absolutely superbly on my down tube holding my cook kit
including a white gas fuel bottle, weighed only an ounce or so more
then titanium or aluminum and most importantly was the perfect form
factor for carrying water from a stream or spring and setting right in
the fire.   It has been by far the best functioning touring pot I ever
carried.  What's more I don't think I'll ever find an aluminum or
titanium production made piece of gear that has a similar form factor.

Another favorite favorite piece of gear was my 1.9oz home made wood
splitting knife. I made it out of a heavy duty Red Devil putty knife /
scrapper. Just cut out the shape and used a table mounted belt sander
to put an edge on it.  I broke the blade off my micra leatherman the
second day of my trip and ended up using my DIY knife as my primary
knife for everything from making stakes to making kindling to
preparing food.  It was suprisingly sharp and held an edge for
suprisingly well for unhardened steel. May carry a small sharpening
stone in the future, but this knife will be a staple for future
touring.  pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2/4246247586/   May
need to put some better handle wrap on it if I'm going to use it so
much though.

Peace,

-Mike
flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2
blog.mmeiser.com
mmeiser2 on facebook


On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Denis Kertz <[email protected]> wrote:
>> From: Scott Loveless [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 9:48 AM
>>
>> Just for the sake of conversation, what's the most ill-suited bike
>> you've ever taken on a tour?
>
> Well, it wasn't my bike but when I rode the Southern Tier route in 2004
> starting from San Diego, I met a guy coming in the other direction from
> Florida near the Arizona border. =A0He had an ordinary hard-tail mountain=
 bike
> that was almost certainly what he just happened to have and so it was his
> touring bike. =A0What was unusual wasn't his bike but his pannier "system=
."
> He had a rolled up bedroll strapped to his straight handlebars and two day
> packs swinging freely from each end of his handlebars. =A0I've always
> regretted that I didn't get a photo. =A0The interesting thing was he seem=
ed to
> be perfectly content with his arrangement, contrasted by my "correct"
> front/rear pannier arrangement. =A0I use my memory of this encounter to r=
emind
> myself that the trip is still more important than the best/correct equipm=
ent
> and that folks are surprisingly adaptable to whatever they have available.
>
> Denis
>
>
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