TransAm 2016 - www.transambikerace.com

Starting to come together, bike is finished bar a few minor set up issues, so will ironing these out over the next 5 weeks. Next up is sorting out a bike box and bike luggage. I'm not going to use my Alpkit Koala, the Apidura looks better, with more features (cargo net, rear light holder, sits up better on the bike- so more stable). Also going for a decent down sleeping bag, Colarado will be cold and I know from the Spine race that when I'm tired it's harder to regulate temperature. Having the comfort of being nice and toasty will be a big psychological boost.

Mine is a frame in a bag still. Need to find a DT Swiss hub.

Slept in a bivvy on Sat, no bag, no pad. It got down to 0. I was cold, very, very, very fucking cold.

Condor can source the DT 350 via Madison, I feel for you dude, NB even with a sleeping bag you would have suffered unless you also had a mat, the ground acts as a heat sink.

I'm going for a 4 season bag with zip so I can release a bit of heat if necessary. Down bags are lighter and pack smaller, but are pricier.

Yeah, I'm waiting on a new down bag.

Good call they compress down to nothing- but store it uncompressed prior in its "lofting" bag

LOL. Need some more insulation.
Or a hotel.

I made that mistake with my current bag. Not that I can tell if there's any performance degradation.

Who'd have thunk it. I'm too skinny, skinny.

Slept in a bivvy on Sat, no bag, no pad. It got down to 0. I was cold, very, very, very fucking cold.

Sounds like a pretty clear result from that test!

I left the HQ after finishing on Saturday and the sun was just going down. It was a lot colder than when I'd finished riding half an hour before.

Garmin said 0.3degC at 4:30am. Not sure about ground temp. Not sure I slept.

Still, you only live once, try shit!

Why were you on the ground with no matt?
Get onto a bench or something. Then find somewhere out the wind.

Because I didn't carry one and because that's where I was.

I remember the morning I woke up once, everything was covered in frost and my water had frozen.
I zipped my bivi back up and went back to sleep. Garmin was reading -5.

Nice!

My PHD stuff turned up this week, it's great. So you're bag should be nice. Good quality.

You have a nice bivvy though and a sleeping bag. I only took the bivvy with me as an afterthought and thought "hmm I've carried it maybe I'll just try it out". If anything it got me thinking about bivvy locations and what's good/bad. The spot I picked would probably be fine with a sleeping pad and sleeping bag. I also thought about using a dark corner of a public park but didn't want the local drunk pissing on me on his way home so went for farm first. Those 20p, single occupant public loos might be another option as are the more enclosed bus shelters. Depends how many people are up and about.

PHD is really good kit.

For sure, that was just an example. I'd never take that bivi and sleeping bag when racing. It's 1.5kg together.

I alos remember waking up on a bosnian petrol station concrete floor, shivering and wet. Plus that time I climbed behind a vending machine, nearly hypothermic.

Bus stops are my go too. Off the floor, and enclosed.

Need to sort my iPod out otherwise I'm going to be singing "Lions, Tigers and Bears" all through Kansas.

I think my current sleeping bag weighs 1.5kg alone...

waking up on a bosnian petrol station concrete floor, shivering and wet

We've all been there. What a fucking night though! Reach for the lasers!

Bus stop = audax hotel

ipod? bloody luxury!

I plugged in my mp3 player on this weekend's ride and about 5min later it pissed down and I had to scramble to unplug it all. #fml

I'm still very tempted to use a water-proof mobile phone on my bars and run tunes and backup maps from it.

In terms of MP3 players is there a better non-Apple option now than SanDisk Clip?

Yeah, you'll be there soon.

My new phone takes a SD card. And has a huge battery. Plus it's got turbo charge! So I think o might forgo my trust iPod nano (clip on one) for just my phone this year. I dunno though. Probs both as iPod weighs nothing.
If you find a good option for mp3 player let me know.

My main prerequisites are that it has to have a screen and a radio- bought the Sony version of the Nano in January and its broken already- it was a pain in the hole trying to put my ITunes stuff on it in any case. More dosh to apple :(

What phone do you have now? Is it waterproof/durable?

The Sony phones look good. You didn't like the Moto though right, scratched up too easy?

No it's not waterproof (broken one already that way). It's a little durable.

I broke my moto force, they said it was water resistant. I disagree.
I bought a moto style, because it was cheap and good enough. I just won't treat it as water resistant.

I arrived in the UK with only my ipod. The trouble I went through to extract all the music off it! Never going back to anything with proprietary file structure, I don't care how good its UI is.