Cycling4Steemit: Changes to my travel setup for the big steemit tour!
Thanks for joining me in my preparations for my great steemit tour!
Equipment is one of those decisions that can make or break your travel. Some people seem to bring their whole house with them on their bikes, having a mountain behind them of stuff i didn't even know existed. For myself i have been quite disciplined and even from my first tour i was considered to be going very light compared to fellow tour bikers i met on the way.
Learning from the past
As seen at the picture all i had was a handlebar bag, my tent and 2x 40 liters bags, but both only a bit more than half-full. All this was completely self-sustained and i could easily carry my own food and had my own primitive cooking setup to make warm food or coffee on the go, i even had a light chair in one of my bags. Beside that my bike carried 3 water bottles, allowing me to carry a little 3 liters of water.
Things i'm gonna leave behind
My cooking equipment and food
A mentality i had from my many hikes i did before the cycling tour where you had to carry your own food. For some reason i saw it as essential in bike touring as well. But truth be told cooking equipment (pot, gas, plate ) and everything else included is heavy and takes up a lot of space, ALSO forcing you to carry all the food you wanna cook, like spaghetti and rice. While it can be convenient to have in some truly remote places it seems you can bike in most parts of the world carrying and eating raw food. Not only you skip the weight of the cooking equipment and all the everlasting "dry food", but also allows yourself to try all kind of local food along the way.
From Tent to Hammock
Bringing a hammock instead of a tent sounds like madness for a lot of people. But in our recent times it have been a huge discussion if hammocks or tents are the better choice to take with you. So i'm gonna test the hammock this time, since my tent was eaten by a dog anyways(yes really).
A quality sleeping Hammock with mosquito net brings something to the table that a tent just cannot match, here's some pros and cons for choosing a hammock:
The pros of a hammock:
If setup in a proper way you will sleep like a baby.
Flexibility! It does not matter if you are on a hill or what's on the ground since you will be hanging in the air. Also in warm climates the great air circulation in a hammock is just ideal. If cold you can be sleeping in freezing temperatures without any trouble with the right equipment. (my current setup allows me to go down to -7 degrees.
A lot of possibilities to become creative with your hammock setup. It can be used as a quick tool to take a nap, it can be used as a chair. You can put your tarp above in all kind of ways, "balcony mode" giving you a cool feeling of being outside while still actually being protected from the rain. Removing the feeling of being trapped inside the tent.
combined with a bike I have learned to setup the tarp as a shelter on the ground and hammock as a shell against mosquitoes. Not ideal but good in case you find yourself without trees.
It's a hammock, really.
The cons of a hammock:
High learning curve to set it up in a proper way, but once learned it's not a big deal anymore.
If you dont do your research you might be a victim to experience the "cold but syndrome". (really look it up if you thinking of buying a hammock to sleep in outside of summer.
No trees, no hang.
From panniers to frame bags
AKA bikepacking. Fast is fun and framebags brings a lot of speed to the table. Not only are they very light but also aerodynamic, some test have proven that it almost is providing 10% faster movement than usual panniers. Also since you can carry less it goes well with my goal to go light on equipment. Yep, you will be seeing me in television bypassing all the riders in tour de France, just wait!
Last but not least, i will be adding "steem flyers" to my load
I will literally be carrying steemit( sounds more heroic than it is, since it's just a bunch of half papers lol). The flyers are still work in progress but they are starting to take shape, you can see some of my examples in my previous posts.
It's gonna be fun to see if i somehow can measure if actually people will pick the flyers up and use them. I am crossing my fingers that the easy sign up for steemit will be launching before i start my trip. (In April). Otherwise i will probably be cycling around even if it comes later in the months.
Thanks for stopping by and until next time
-Holm
All pictures are made by me and taken with my oneplus android phone.
Sounds like a very good setup to me and I'm sure you learnt a lot from your previous trip. The hammock is a bit risky though! maybe it will be hard to sleep in or at least a bit cold!? Will your face have to be covered at night to stay warm and if so won't that make it a bit less comfortable and harder to breathe? I suppose an important point is that with a bikepacking trip you can always throw things away or buy new things along the way. Just make sure you get some decent frame bags because they are a specialty item that can be hard to replace if broken, unless you are in a big city.
The warmth of a hammock actually not that different from a tent, unless you have a 4-season tent. You will be a bit more exposed to wind but the tarp will take most of it and with proper isolation from below you will be nice and warm. Of course my face would have had to be covered if i was to sleep in the winter period but I dont intend that just yet. But from early spring and onwards a hammock is superb. I have slept in it down to 0 degrees without much trouble and back then I didn't even have proper gear. I have seen ortlieb are now selling frame bags, they look solid!
With the gear I took on my trip it was very cold at night when the temperature dropped below 10 degrees but maybe that's just because I didn't have warm enough equipment. It also probably didn't help that I was in Belgium and northern France. Where are you thinking of going on your next trip?
I was in Norway so that's as north as it gets almost, haha. It's all about equipment in the end. For example my underquilt(a thing you hang below hammock for warmth) got a comfort temperature at - 7. Probably starting out to take eastern Europe, maybe from Denmark to Romania to start out with!
awesome keep going ;)
Never to stop!
Upvoted! really enjoyed all your posts when you were on the road, you even made it to mine Travel Dream Team
https://steemit.com/travel/@heyitshaas/my-travel-dream-team-introduction
Good to see the post doing so well, enjoy Romania
Ohhh I'm honored! Always awesome to have you around @heyitshaas! Gonna check it out for others like me!
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Hope you can join in the fun! Though you are on the way cycling, you can start the series post anytime! Good luck!
https://steemit.com/photo/@floatinglin/black-and-white-challenge-6-day-6
I am very happy to see your posts. ..
Because they have many information in the post....
I wish you a happy journey, for the April trip @holm
& i resteemed your post @holm
Outstanding post and narrative. Thank you for sharing!
i like the hammock, excellent tour on bycycle, amazing!
Thanks man!
Thanks for sharing your experience looks awesome :)
Thanks a lot!
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