“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light."  ~ G. K. Chesterton

Bike Shoes – Pearl Izumi X-Alp Low  I like these shoes!  I bought them about a month before leaving and they are still together now.  Not as rigid as my SIDIs but super good for this trip as the only other footwear I had was my Teva flip-flops.  No blisters the entire trip!

Helmet – Giro Animas   I have been wearing a prAna headband under my helmet for a year or so and won’t ride without it.  I brought two on the trip.  I also cut up an old white Nike Dri-Fit t-shirt to use as a lightweight “turban” during intense sun exposure times.  The turban was used more than I thought it would be.

Lightweight Sandals – Teva Strapped these on the outside of the back compression sack, nice to have when its your only other footwear option.

Stove – Mini Trangia Denatured Alcohol Stove (stove and windscreen only)  This is the Swedish military stove major outdoor equipment companies don’t want you to know exists.  Very simple, very light, and very effective.  You can get the fuel (denatured alcohol) in most any hardware store in the paint solvents section.  Basically a manufactured version of the ‘tin can stove.’  I like it, no moving parts, simple to operate.  The trick is to learn how much fuel you need to heat 2 cups of water at variable altitudes.

Cookware –Montbell Titanium Cooker #1D 1 SnoPeak Titanium Spork  superlight, durable and just the right size to fit the above mentioned stove in the inside, so the whole cooking assembly was packed to the size of the pot and lid with the sport bent to fit.  I went with the MontBell pot after I realized the lid capacity was exactly one cup

Fuel Cannister – MSR Small  I carried this in the bottom water bottle cage on the bike, this location gets more mud and crud than anywhere else on the bike…better to have a dirty fuel can (the Mini Triangia has no need for a fuel filter) than a water bottle.  I wrapped the can in 100 mph tape to eliminate metal to metal noise and secured it with a small bungee.

Dry Bags – Sea To Summit - Event Compression Dry Sack LG rear, Small front.  I was able to fit all my back gear (tight) into the medium bag, but it turned into too much Tetris every morning, so I switched to the large size (already purchased, in my bounce box) in Whitefish.  Small front bag was the food and cooking gear bag and I never maxed out its capacity.  The back bag developed a small hole in it from the sharp edge of one of the bungees, so I just patched it with some 100 mph tape.  Through several hard rainstorms, even riding in hard rainstorms, the gear inside these bags never came out wet.   See Soft Gear Strategy section for more details.

Bungees – OD green superlight and long bungees and small Coughlans camping bungees.  I used some OD green cords left over from when carried a big green rucksack and a rifle around for a living and they survived this trip just fine.  These are hard to find, but you can buy the here.  I used these to secure the dry bags to the OMM racks.  For attaching smaller items, like the tent pole bags to the back rack and the fuel canister to the bottom water bottle cage, I used small and short Coughlans camping bungees that you can find almost anywhere.

Backpack – Salomon Raid Race 300 large (they don’t make this one any more)  Weight: 1 lb 8 oz / 680g Size: 31 liters / 1892 ci See why I went with this pack in Gear Strategy

Hydration Bladder – Ultimate Direction 128oz   A 128 oz bladder sounded really good in theory, but when testing the system I realized that if you put more than about 100 oz in it, even in a lose, empty pack, it would leak out the dry-bag style top roll.  Once you got down to about 100 oz, the leaking would stop.  The tubing and fittings are a larger diameter than Camelback’s, so I appropriated some extra tubing and put it in my bounce box but never used it (most outdoor stores don’t stock Ultimate Direction accessories.) I decided to go with this bladder over a 100oz camelback bladder simply because I really like the UD big saucer, no-leak drink fitting and detest Camelbacks newer, carpal tunnel inducing, hard-as-hell to open when cold, wide mouth fill openings.  I keep a set of channel locks handy at home to open my camelbak bladders and wasn’t real hip to carrying channel locks on the Divide.  The leaking bag is annoying though, and every time I stopped to re-roll and re-seal, it still found a way to leak and allow water to find its way into my chamois.  I learned not to carry anything wet-sensitive in the bottom of the pack, either…which wasn’t hard as I got to a point where I didn’t want anything in my pack.  So it goes.

Headlamp – Black Diamond Zenix IQ Hyperbright LED Headlamp  There are many lighter options for headlamps, but this particular Xenon uses AA batteries (see electric gear strategy) and has a sweet little blinking light on the side so you can find it in your tent at night (or on the ground at night if you are fumbling around half asleep.) 

Bike Lights – Cateye HL-EL530 LED Headlight, small Cateye Magnet Blinker in the rear I used the small rear blinker anytime I rode in low light to night conditions (for traffic coming from behind,) this one is small, light, and does the job.  It just hung out on one of the back straps on my pack the whole trip.  The big front light, the CatEye HL-EL530, was pulled out of my bounce box in Pinedale, WY for the Divide Basin section ONLY and put it back in when I met the bounce boxes again in Salida, Colorado.  I could have easily used my headlamp when I rode at night in the basin, as I had done several other times when I rode late in the evening for whatever reason.  Unless one is really weird about riding at night, I wouldn’t even bother with the weight of it.

Bike Lock – 3 foot small, lightweight insulated cable with PacSafe luggage combo lock  I combined the philosophies of “if somebody wants the bike, they will take it regardless of how burly your lock is” and the military-esque  "If it wasn’t for idiots like you, there wouldn’t be any thievery in this world.” 

I designed the lock system to deter the ‘opportunity thief’ and that’s about it.  I used a super light, skinny cable and one of the two lightweight combo locks that I secured my bike box with for the flight.  These locks have the TSA cam-key bypass that is recommended for air travel. 

I kept the lock and cable in my handlebar bag and locked the bike up anytime it was more than ten feet away and out of eyeshot.  This included camping in remote areas in the woods.  A GDR racer had his bike stolen (a single speed fixie no less) while napping in Montana a few years ago, so one can never be too careful.  As far as I was concerned, a couple extra thirty seconds of effort is better than walking out and going home like a chump.  See more in Rest Day Strategies. 

Reflective Vest – cut up road guard vest  I had a lightweight road guard vest left over from a previous life, so I cut the back panel off of it (why would you need the front panel on a bike?) and tied it to my pack when necessary…mostly in areas where it was obvious that folks were not real keen on sharing road space with bikes.

First Aid Kit – Adventure Medical Ultralight .3  Bare basics first aid kit that I went through and eliminated redundancy with other items I was carrying…I never even broke it open.  I never needed or used any medication, aspirin, electrolyte tabs, or anything like that, but I had a small supply JIC.  I carried a Leatherman Micra in my pack, which has a small set of tweezers, a cutting blade, scissors, etc.

“Shaving” Kit – Minimalist Approach  See Health Strategy for more details about “why.”

1 ‘Toobs’ toothpaste/toothbrush combo, 1 small container of Dr. Bronners Peppermint liquid soap (refilled at bounce box) 1 MSR packTowel cut in half, one small nail clipper, 1 small tube of Gold Bond Medicated ointment (um, crotch maintenance,) an adequate supply of Chamois Butt'r or AssMaster for the Chamois pad.

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