Touring Equipment

The Klymit Inertia X-lite is unusually comfortable.

Even sleeping on the side provide no issue, I got the X-lite over the X as I don't see any point having cushioning on my feet.

incase people are wondering...you put that inside the sleeping bag btw.
it means that you actually use the insulation in the bottom side of the bag as it isnt just squashed flat under your body. cleaver design.

not used one - interesting to hear some feedback.
i tried a neoair that i borrowed from work the other week. amazing.

Gonna buy a Trangia this week, anyone know of any good sales or cheap places to buy one? Best I've found is £66 for a 27/8 UL HA (2 pots, a pan and a kettle with the hard annodizing, which it seems is probablly a bit better lasting than the non stick)

+1 on the anodizing, a little more work, but no plastic in the pan.

that x-lite is v interesting but also £$£$. There's always another thing to spend money on... -sigh-

Hey everybody, I'm fairly new to touring (built a LHT and toured West Ireland last year and off Scotland this year). I did this blog along the way and started to do it again as I'm getting closer to Scotland. Thought it may be useful to n00bs and open to questions to anyone starting out.

http://one-ugly-mutha-trucker.tumblr.com/

Has anybody done any bikepacking on a long travel hardtail 26er? I'm looking at mine and wondering if it's suitable enough to not need another bike

Why not? the only limitation is merely the framebag but otherwise that it (custom framebag can be made but still end up a lots smaller than a rigid MTB).

My first ever tour was four days in Normandy on a Specialized Rockhopper. Rack, pair of borrowed Orleib panniers and a small bar bag provided enough space for tent and everything else. Was wonderful.

Sports Direct are doing loads of camping stuff super cheap at the mo. Most of its Karrimor so good quality.

Just going back a few posts, are the hard anodized Trangia pans non-stick? I don't mean are they rated as non-stick by Trangia, I mean are they non-stick in practice? I get pissed off cooking something on mine and welding it to the surface.

My cookpots of choice are MSR Titan, which were invested in for mountain marathon purposes. They are fantastic - super light and relatively good in terms of non-stick. Still going strong after 10yrs of good use. Most of my food on tour tends to only need boiling water adding to it. Where you are looking to heat up food, neat trick someone once told me is put the food in a bacofoil bag and cook it in a bit of boiling water. Keeps the pans clean, but not sure about the environmental considerations...

Sports Direct are doing loads of camping stuff super cheap at the mo. Most of its Karrimor so good quality.

The brand karrimor is now meaningless. As with many other well known brands, it has been sold to sports direct who use it to arbitrarily rebadge generic far east products, generally of the very low budget variety.

Gonna buy a Trangia this week, anyone know of any good sales or cheap places to buy one? Best I've found is £66 for a 27/8 UL HA (2 pots, a pan and a kettle with the hard annodizing, which it seems is probablly a bit better lasting than the non stick)

Probably too late but I got mine from Millets where they'd randomly discounted one from 80 quid to 50. They don't seem to have them on the website though so it was possibly a 'let's stop selling these because no-one who goes to Millets wants to buy them' clearout offer.

Also I haven't managed to stick anything to mine yet.

Sad. What other brands have suffered this fate? I have an ancient (50s or 60s) Karrimor rucksack that feels like it's made of suede.

The brand karrimor is now meaningless. As with many other well known brands, it has been sold to sports direct who use it to arbitrarily rebadge generic far east products, generally of the very low budget variety.

Thats a shame. I had no idea. Although the stuff I got seems good. Then again what can go wrong with cutlery and a camping towel?

Shoddy Chinese workmanship that

Sad. What other brands have suffered this fate? I have an ancient (50s or 60s) Karrimor rucksack that feels like it's made of suede.

Well for sports direct specifically; slazenger, dunlop, Lonsdale, Everlast, No Fear, Carlton, Kangol, Goldigga and some more..

But I also know that popular early 90's skate brand airwalk suffered the same fate and late 90's alternative shoe brand 'acupuncture'.

The karrimor stuff in sports direct is decent budget stuff, about the same as the bike/outdoor stuff you get in aldi. But old karrimor was more like carradice, they made top-end stuff, built to last for decades and with oodles of spare parts available.

i.e. like the Karrimor panniers which were very popular and are considerate a worthy alternative to the mighty Ortlieb.

Now they no longer make those, which probably happened when Sports Direct took over.

Touring types, can anyone advise on handlebar bags / frontbags? What I'd like to know is how much they really affect the handling of the bike? Front bag fans seem to suggest that mounting a traditional style bag so that it rests on a front rack is infintely preferable to more modern click fix bar mounted solutions. The suggestion is that keeping the weight lower does not have a particularly big impact on handling where are bar mounting is not ideal. Is anyone with experience able to offer an opinion?

Has anybody done any bikepacking on a long travel hardtail 26er? I'm looking at mine and wondering if it's suitable enough to not need another bike

I did an 11 month "round the world with bike" trip back in 1994. On my 3 month tour of NZ I encountered loads of cyclists (mainly Germans) riding fully laden hardtail MTBs - some *very *heavily laden. They seemed to be managing OK. If they could do it, I don't see any reason why you couldn't. On a bike tour, front suspension is unnecessary, inefficient and just adds weight. Better to hang low-rider racks onto non-suspension forks. Spreads the weight between front and rear and gives the bike more stability as it keeps the centre of gravity lower.

Top tip if your on a budget and after camping gear - Find your local Go Outdoors and get there discount card (cost £5) They have a price match promise open to card holders that is 10% off the cheapest price found online. You can easily save the cost of the card in one purchase. They also have a decent range of stock. Just got a MSR whisperlite internationale stove for £60.

Can anyone recommend the best sub-£30 solar USB charger? Or what to look out for? I imagine there is huge variation with these things. It needs to charge at 2000mA.

It could go up to £50 if there is some giant leap in quality, but I imagine it is all incremental.

Maybe I should post this elsewhere as well, but I will be using it for touring so this sort of makes sense... Thank you

Not worth it, battery pack last longer and hold a better charge than solar.

it take a whole bright day to charge it 2/3rd, and you can't charge your phone while it's being charged by the sun.

thanks, so, which battery pack?

I thought that normally you got a battery pack (which you charge fully at home before leaving) together with a solar charger (which charges the battery pack once you have used the battery pack to charge your usb device)?

Thank you!