Recent pics of an eleven day sea kayaking trip to the Broughton Islands off of Vancouver Island. The Broughtons offer endless small islands to explore, paddle or camp. The biggest trip obstacle is the Johnstone Strait crossing (3km) which you navigate leaving and returning to the Telegraph Cove. We rented a double sea kayak from North Island Kayaks out of Telegraph Cove, British Columbia. Telegraph Cove makes for a very easy putin/takeout location. You can organize out of the Telegraph Cove Resort campground or go luxurious with one of their cabins on the Cove’s boardwalk. Getting yourself and your backpacking gear to Telegraph Cove is really all you need to do logistically to make this trip happen. We flew from Vancouver to Port Hardy, BC, you can get a cab at the airport, we negotiated a 45 minute grocery stop at the IGA in Port McNeill with our driver (Reg, Rainbox Taxi, 250 956 8294). You can buy last minute items at the small dockside store in Telegraph Cove. Many sea kayakers or boaters; short on time, use various water taxis to get shuttled out into the Broughtons. The rates seem to vary greatly, but expect $400 to $600 for any destinations beyond Johnstone Strait.

REI Flash Pack, Bontrager Trunk, Soma bottle, & Relevate Frame Bag

Note… This post and my gear list has been updated. This my bike touring gear list for a self-support bike packing trip. I am riding with a small hydration-shaped pack, a rear rack trunk bag, a top tube frame bag and a Soma water cage container. My new golden threshold for bike touring is no more than 10 pounds (for all gear less your daily bike clothing). If you bring more, your bike will ride funny and you will feel the extra weight going uphill. This gear list includes; a 2-man tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, full bike clothing, 2 sets of evening clothing, electronics, and toiletry. This is the bare minimum setup. It took much shopping and research to find the lightest outdoor and camping gear available. Thanx to Willy and Tara for making me rethink my gear and making it even lighter.

Trunk Bag and Riding/Hiking Pack

-Bontrager Trunk Deluxe (Trek Interchange System)
Note: This model has built-in rain condom.

-Relevate Touring Frame Bag (on top tube)
Note: That this Frame Bag will only fit 54 inch top tube bike frames, if your bike frame is smaller you must request a custom-made shorter bag from Relevate.

-REI Flash Pack (No Hydration bag)

Camping Gear

-ThermaRest Neo Air 3/4 Length Sleeping Pad

-Western Mountaineering Sleeping Bag

-2 man TarpTent Note: that the Cloudburst tent poles are carried in the Relevate Frame Bag

-6 tent alum tent pegs

Bike Clothing

-Pearlizumi X-Road Shoes (Hybrid: bikeSPD/hike)

-Pearlizumi Riding Shorts

-Pearlizumi leggings

-Assos Full Zipper Jersey

-Assos Full Zipper/Sleve Riding Jacket

-Cateye Riding Helmet

-2 pairs riding socks

-1 pair riding gloves

-Pearlizumi glove liners

-Pearlizumi wind vest The Sugoi Rain Jacket works fine as a wind breaker.

-Sugoi Rain Jacket

Evening Clothing

-Bison Belt (nylon webbing/Fastex belt buckle)

-REI Adventure pants

-Pearlizumi Black Nylon Stretch pants

-one dress shirt (optional)

-Mammut Jasper Zip Pull Men

-Nylon Baseball Hat

-Pile Hat

-Ecco Sandals Mens: Crocs Melbourne Slip Ons. I have switched to the Crocs Slip Ons because the pack smaller than the Ecco Scandals. They are very comfortable and my feet don’t get as wet as with scandals. Obviously, evening shoes are very personal. Women seem to like: Lenoras, but women’s shoes are a black hole, so I will stay clear of any recommendations.

-1 pair high socks

-3 synthetic Patagonia underwear

-MontBell Ultra-Light Down Jacket (7 oz.)
This the best piece of evening/morning clothing I bring!

-toliet bag

-ThermaRest Pillow bag

-REI medium Backpacking Towel

-nylon bathing suit

Small Items

-Apple iPhone 4 32GB (unlocked/jailbroken)**, iPhone headphones, & USB Cable/Charger

-Movistar SIM card

-Transcend 64GB Solid State Hard Drive (***work files)

-1GB Flash SSD memory stick

-Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS camera & USB Cable iPhone4 camera is my only camera now.

-Compact nylon grocery bag

-Lexan Spoon

-2 very small plastic bowls

-waterproof Dry-Pak for camera or iPhone.

-Headlight

-Folding reading glasses

-NA to Euro plug adapter

-mini carabiners

Bike Gear

-Richey Breakaway Cross Bike

-Bontrager Rear Rack (Trek Interchange System)

-Soma Gear Storage Rack Bottle (fluids or gear)

This a good place to store the Sugoi Rain jacket, very accessible.

-Rear Rack light

-Knog Front light

-Lightweight bike lock

-Slime Skabs patches

-Blackburn AirStix pump 58 grams

-pant leg straps/reflectors

-water bottle

**Digitally Stored on iPhone
-Books (iPhone Kindle format) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
-Music
-Michelin Road Atlas (Portugal, Spain, France) as photos

***Adobe Web Studio, Mac SnowLeopard OS, Microsoft Office Suite (Mac), Client sites (24GB)

Tangle Frame Bag on a 54 inch frame

The hotter mountain bike rider and version

Just got my upgraded and longer bike frame bag from Revelate out of Alaska. The good news is that my Cloudburst Tarptent poles fit in this frame bag (as well as the two-man tent). I no longer need to stuff the tent poles out of the top of my hydration-like pack (REI Flash Pack) and I no longer will be carrying anything slashed to my handlebars. This frame pack is much larger and longer than the Jandd frame pack. Check out the Revelate site, plenty of core bikepackers doing their thing world-wide. Eric from Revelate seems like a kewl dude and I like his WordPress site. I just need him as client now for the pro form deals

FYI… This frame bag will not fit a top tube less than 54″ without a customization request; which I think Eric can do.

The Sickbird event officially happened last week thanxs to the raptor closing being lifted in Eldorado State Park this spring. The Sickbird was dreamed up to make the most of the park’s sports in a single day; climbing, cycling, and kayaking. Basically, you bring all your favorite toys to Eldo, and go-all-day-long.

Starting in the lower Eldorado State Park parking lot, we started with an ascent of the Naked Edge. Afterwards, returning to our vehicles and toys, we suited up for a road-bike ride to Pinecliff, Colorado, up Coal Creek Canyon (Hwy 72). At Pinecliff, we exchanged bikes for boats (shuttled up by a friend) and boated back down South Boulder Creek to the park running the USBC and LSBC kayak runs.

This year we met at Eldo at 4:30am and finished the boating just before 9pm. The weather, the raptors, and water levels (dam controlled) all cooperated with us year, making it possible to complete each stage.

Success with the Sickbird really boils down to logistics and support. You have to have a team that moves quickly together to complete the Sickbird itinerary. Thanx to Graeson, Andy, Meli, and Erik for helping support our logistics throughout the day.

I was on this tour exactly a month. I rode 27 of 30 days, probably over 2000km. About half the day, I rode, and the rest of the day, I would sight-see or do work related tasks online. As hotels are fairly cheap in this area, about half the nights were spent in hotels, but I carried camping gear (tent, pad, bag) on my bike, the remaining nights were spent at euro camp grounds. It’s nice to have your own choice at each destination; camp or hotel, depending on your current mood, needs, and the weather.

I carried only only a latex spoon, so all my meals were taken out. I don’t have accurate bookeeping of my trip expenses, but I estimate approximately two grand for a month, this includes my $800 RT airfare; Denver-Madrid-Denver. I probably spent $100 on prepaid Internet data charges with Vodaphone.

There have been a number of posts about keeping my gear lite. I have a rear trunk bag on my Richey Breakaway bike and I wear a small hydration-like REI Flash pack, no panniers for me. All my gear weighed 11 pounds total. This is light enough to ride comfortably in the mountains. I have decided that 10 pounds is the golden threshold for comfort and speed. Reaching this threshold weight does require a lot of gear research. Almost all touring riders I met had too much gear. Everything needs to be light-weight, multi-purposed and compact.

Next trip I think I can eliminate my Canon Powershot camera, camera battery charger, and USB upload cable with the new iPhone 4 (half pound lightened?). The iPhone 4G camera has a 5 mega pixel camera with a 5x zoom which is probably good enough for most trip photography. Many of the panorama shots were taken with the Pano iPhone app which stitches together multiple lined-up photos. This app really helps with the limitations of the cell phone’s crappy lens allowing you to capture wide angle vistas.

The biggest technical problem with my bike tour camping is not being able to recharge electrical devices from a tent site. In my case this means my iPhone; my only electrical device. I have been researching small camping solar panels. There are some promising solutions that would allow recharging while riding or from panels connected to your tent’s roof.

The second biggest challenge is finding a place to leave your bike box if you are traveling overseas. Upon landing, I had my bike tuned at the Bike Room in Madrid, they allowed me to leave my box at their shop, super friendly too.

The Google map below shows my route. The white placemarks show my overnights in hotels/pensions. The green placemarks designate campground overnights. I traveled from Madrid to Talavera and Bilbao to Madrid with my bike on the bus.

The kewlest phenomena about euro bike packing/touring is going lite and being able to be spontaneous and mobile.

Related links:
Gear list
Camping Souvage
Digital Michelin Maps
Virtual Travel Laptop
iPhone Data Plan Spain
iPhone Travel Blogging
Only Digital Travel Books
Travel with Google Voice
Goal0 – Portable Solar Products
Bikepacking.net