Touring Equipment

Lucky you. Well I haven't much experience with different mats, so from personal experience Exped do a very good price/quality/weight ratio. Thermarest could be better. Guess you can't go wrong with either really.

I ended up with a Basic Ultralite Exped. Rode to my camp two weekends ago, it did the job nicely, and small to carry on the bike.

Hoping to ride to my next camp too, this weekend.

Cheap and mechanically simple if anything goes wrong. Friction shifting makes for a nicer ride too IMO. Action of shifting gears doesn't interfere with any front mounted luggage even if the cable routing sometimes needs to be a bit creative.

It's also relatively modular - you don't lose brakes AND gears if something happens to the lever or shifter.

Wish I'd stayed with friction for the front rings, switched to RSX brifter things recently and the front is tricky to shift/trim.