#ClimateRideKitty – Pre-ride Prep (Help with gear/advice?)

[Kitty]

Hey all! This might sound like a trick given how this summer has been, but I need to talk to you about the Climate Ride and not ask for money at the same time. 😮 (We’re good there)

Now that my participation is a sure thing, I need to go about the logistical challenges of camping gear, and the strategy of actually doing the ride. I was wondering if I could pick your collective brains and/or closets for either.

Camping/Riding Gear – (Will pay with cookies/beer)
My most pressing challenge at the moment is gear. I’ve purchased a ticket on the shuttle that will get us to Vesuvius, VA, but it departs from Canal Park in Navy Yard next Sat. That means I need to try to get my stuff there by bike (around 5 miles) without the benefit of my commuter rack. To that end, I’d like to see if I can carry it all on my person.

The problem is, my paltry camping gear is less-than compact. So I was wondering if anyone has any of the following items in a lightl-weight/compact form I could borrow?

• Compact Sleeping Bag
• Compact Sleeping Pad
• Compact Camp Chair

If so, I can ride around this weekend and retrieve them. I am willing to exchange for baked or liquid carbohydrates. You can either reply here, PM me, or contact me by other means if you have that info.

Aside from that, I need to figure out an additional storage option while riding (since my rack will be off). I have a small saddle bag that can fit my flat kit, and a top tube bag just big enough for glasses and Gu, but I worry I’ll need something to shove weather gear into. Any suggestions?
My bike frame is pretty small and the two bottle cages take up a lot of real estate… same with my narrow handlebars… but I’m willing to play around with options over the next couple of days; either by borrowing someone’s bike-packing solution, or trying things at the store.

Similarly, I do want to invest in something to recharge my phone as we go so I can Strava and post photos etc. from the ride. What do you guys use to stay juiced?

Advice?
Despite tooling around for the past four months and actively seeking hills, this is going to be a whole new level of riding I haven’t experienced. Any advice out there for Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge or mountains in general? Or for surviving 3 days of long riding? Or for camping in between?

I am open to all intell, wisdom, and the inevitable arguments over advice that will follow! :p

Topic

[TwoWheelsDC]

@Kitty 165325 wrote:

Any advice out there for Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge or mountains in general? Or for surviving 3 days of long riding? Or for camping in between?

I am open to all intell, wisdom, and the inevitable arguments over advice that will follow! :p

Do you know what gearing you have on your bike? Might be worth swapping in a wider range cassette if you can.

[bentbike33]

Why did you take your rack off if you will need to carry gear during the Climate Ride (or am I misinterpreting)?

If you just need to carry stuff to the shuttle, how about a backpack?

[ian74]

Just take the gear you already have and Uber it over to the gear drop off. I seem to recall there are ways to get an Uber with a bike rack on it too. No sense scrambling to find small compact gear just so you can ride it 5 miles to the shuttle. Unless of course you would just prefer to have smaller gear throughout your trip.

Also consider a small, lightweight day pack to ride with. If your just going to stash a lightweight rain jacket/arm warmers/gloves/extra socks, it should be a manageable load to ride with. That would probably be the cheapest option too.

I also recommend you get some chamois cream. I like Enzo’s Buttonhole, it smells like Thin Mint Girlscout cookies! They sell it at Bicycle Space. DO NOT EAT THE CREAM IT DOES NOT TASTE GOOD.

[LhasaCM]

@Kitty 165325 wrote:

Similarly, I do want to invest in something to recharge my phone as we go so I can Strava and post photos etc. from the ride. What do you guys use to stay juiced?

The short answer is “a battery pack.” The longer answer is dependent upon the overall setup/infrastructure/etc. Are you looking for something small/compact that you can keep in your jersey pocket with your phone to maintain its charge during the ride, but that you can plug in at the campsite to recharge each night, something a bit beefier that you’d keep with your camping gear to primarily recharge your phone at night each night, or both? An example of something a bit on the larger side (but not too bad) would be https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-Compact-High-speed-Technology/dp/B0194WDVHI/. https://smile.amazon.com/Jackery-10050mAh-Portable-Charging-External/dp/B071DW9CP5/ is another alternative that comes with built-in cables (USB C and MicroUSB). For something a bit smaller, there’s something like: https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Lipstick-Sized-Generation-Batteries/dp/B005X1Y7I2/ or https://smile.amazon.com/Lauco-Ultra-Compact-High-speed-Flashlight-Smartphones/dp/B01KUVLMPK/ (which looks close to what SteveO showed you Saturday in Takoma).

Depending on your phone, you also can get a battery “case” to make it more of an all-in-one package, which has its uses. I had one of those for my Note 5 that worked very well on longer rides, but the tradeoff for something more integrated and specialized tends to be a higher price for a given battery capacity. For example – for a Pixel XL, something like https://smile.amazon.com/Pixel-XL-Battery-Case-ZeroLemon/dp/B01MQIO6DA/ would work.

Basically – whatever form factor/size/capacity you want, you can find something. For a price…

[reji]

@Kitty 165325 wrote:

The problem is, my paltry camping gear is less-than compact. So I was wondering if anyone has any of the following items in a lightl-weight/compact form I could borrow?

• Compact Sleeping Bag
• Compact Sleeping Pad
• Compact Camp Chair

:p

I have a lot of backpacking stuff, including all of the above, you can borrow. PM’d you.

[Emm]

@Kitty 165325 wrote:

My most pressing challenge at the moment is gear. I’ve purchased a ticket on the shuttle that will get us to Vesuvius, VA, but it departs from Canal Park in Navy Yard next Sat. That means I need to try to get my stuff there by bike (around 5 miles) without the benefit of my commuter rack. To that end, I’d like to see if I can carry it all on my person.

If you can’t find the compact gear, many of us* on the forum have cars with bike racks, and would happily pick you, your bike, and your gear up and get you to Navy Yard next Saturday morning. I’m sure someone could also get you home at the end of the ride if needed.

*myself included

[Sunyata]

Kitty, I will PM you also, but you should just come to my house and go “shopping”. I have pretty much everything that you will need. 😎

[Kitty]

Thanks guys! I unfortunately feel like I did not get nearly enough stuff done over the weekend to prepare, but I suppose a bike fit and a combined 110 miles of riding should count for something..

@bentbike33 165331 wrote:

Why did you take your rack off if you will need to carry gear during the Climate Ride (or am I misinterpreting)?

Thankfully they are carrying our gear while we ride each day. The trick is getting things to the start point and then back. I want to be macho and ride my bike there (opposed to putting it on a bus) but that’s where carrying comes into consideration.

@TwoWheelsDC 165328 wrote:

Do you know what gearing you have on your bike? Might be worth swapping in a wider range cassette if you can.

On the 2016 Crossrips Trek went from a 3x to a compact cassette (50/34). While I no longer have my extra climbing gear, they do give me 10 in the back, so at least I’ll have options. Not ideal, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to make do.

@ian74 165334 wrote:

Also consider a small, lightweight day pack to ride with. If your just going to stash a lightweight rain jacket/arm warmers/gloves/extra socks, it should be a manageable load to ride with. That would probably be the cheapest option too.

I also recommend you get some chamois cream.

I did manage to find a nice undersaddle bag at Contes’ that has room enough for my rainjacket, tools, and maybe a few other things. If the forecast looks grim though, you’re onto something with the daypack idea.

Also, thank you for reminding me. I’m almost out of Butt’r.

@LhasaCM 165335 wrote:

The short answer is “a battery pack.” https://smile.amazon.com/Jackery-10050mAh-Portable-Charging-External/dp/B071DW9CP5/ is another alternative that comes with built-in cables (USB C and MicroUSB). Basically – whatever form factor/size/capacity you want, you can find something. For a price…

Thank so you much for this! There are so many options on the market, your sampling really helped. I love the idea of the options with the built-in cables, but my phone uses USB-C, so not many accessories accommodate it yet. Your suggestion is even better because I’d be able to charge both my phone and my headlights with it!

@Emm 165340 wrote:

If you can’t find the compact gear, many of us* on the forum have cars with bike racks, and would happily pick you, your bike, and your gear up and get you to Navy Yard next Saturday morning. I’m sure someone could also get you home at the end of the ride if needed.
*myself included

Aw, gee, thanks so much! I consider driving motor vehicles into the city as penance for past sins, so that means a lot to me.

Here is my current plan suite:

• Plan A: Pack backpack and attach sleeping etc. to it, ride to the start, ride home.
• Plan B: Pack as much as I can as in Plan A, back the rest in an Ortlieb and see if I can recruit Adam to ride along on Sat. and then home on Tuesday (or if not him, someone else with a nice rack
• Plan C: Last resort Have Adam drop me off with the car on Saturday, and see if I can beg a ride home off someone else on Tuesday

Now that my dryer has buzzed, I’ll be able to do a packing dry run tomorrow and hopefully have an idea of whether I need to fall back to B or C by mid-week.

[Author]

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