What To Pack For A Long Bicycle Tour-Ryan and Ali Bike Across America-ep16

Hi there, my name is Ryan and my name is Allie and we're currently riding bikes across America and this is what we brought. All right, ladies and gentlemen, so you want to go on your first big bike tour or maybe it's just a small bike tour, we are here to help you with what gear you might want to bring, Allie. But remember that the best gear is the gear that you've got. So the important thing is you just get out there and do it. Yes, having fun is the number one goal of a bike tour. It is not meant to be a sufferfest. You want to go out and explore the world at 15 miles an hour. You want to do it comfortably and you want to have some of the right stuff to help you be comfortable. So let's get started. We're going to start off with some of the must-haves and this may seem weird, but butter knife. I've been using a butter knife on every single tour I've done for the past 10 years. What do you use this for? You use this for spreading peanut butter or beans. You might be back there saying, well I have a Leatherman, that's fine. Leathermans are great, but they're really sharp and they get all gunked up in the peanut butter can in the bottle and it just, this is what you want. Blinky lights, even for the daytime so the cars don't hit you and for party time. Party time, party time. No, these are really, really important to have during the day. You might think, oh lights are just for night time. That's not correct. You want to have these on at the daytime so cars coming from behind you can see you because nothing will end a bike tour faster than getting hit by a car. Really, really good puncture-proof tires. I love the Schwable Marathon Plus Tours. I've been using these tires on every single bike ride and they really work. They're worth the money. I average maybe one flat tire for every tour. They are incredible. Get them or some other brand that has Kevlar. You will be thanking yourself because fixing a flat in the middle of nowhere in a rainstorm really sucks. Air mattress. During a bike tour you're working your butt off and you need to give your muscles the time to rest and recover. So get a sleeping pad that works for you. I love this one. It's huge. It's thick. It weighs nothing. This small pile right here is all of the clothing we have for a two and a half month tour and it doesn't really matter if you're going for five days or a year. This is about how much you want and that means not much. Two pairs of chamois so you can wash one and have it drying while you're wearing the other. And if you're new to bike touring, a chamois means padded shorts. You want that because your butt is sitting on a seat the size of this for about eight hours a day. I love riding in wool. Merino wool does not stink like a lot of the synthetic materials. So I have one, two shirts for any ride. If you're like Ali, I keep one clean. The other one's usually dirty and I switch them out usually washing them in hotel sinks. Super lightweight rain jacket just in case. If it's summertime and it's warm out, you can probably just get away with taking your shirt off in the rain and keeping your clothes dry because let's be honest, who wants to wear a rain jacket if you don't have to? But if it's cold, you're going to want to stay dry and stay warm. Merino wool long sleeve. Sometimes at nighttime it can get a little chilly and it's cozy. You can bunch it up and use it as a pillow in your tent. Two pairs of socks. One's always going to be dirty. I like to have a long pair and a short pair. I always have one non-riding shirt for when you're in a town, you have a rest day, and you want to look extra patriotic. Formal wear for rest days. It's a skirt so that your butt can rest because it can get a little bit chafed up from all that riding. And also it looks just fabulous. You go from wearing bike gear all the time to a nice cute little dress and you feel good. In a lot of my previous videos you've probably noticed that I wear a buff even when it's super hot like in the Baja and I wear this mainly to keep sun off my neck. Of course you can wear sunscreen but this works really really well. Also if your hair is getting nasty you can put this up there and nobody needs to know. You're getting very sleepy. Hopefully you're not bored of this video. But these are arm sleeves and I wear them almost every single day again to keep sun off my arms. And when it's really hot out you can dribble water on them and they feel really cool on your arms. Bathing suit because Ryan told me I'm not allowed to skinny dip in public places. Biking sandals. Yes they make them with SPDs on the bottom. These are made by Keen. There are some other brands that make these. I love them because you don't have to pack socks. You're not stinking up socks. It keeps your feet cool and you get awesome tan lines. I also have a lightweight pair of shoes. You could bring sandals but it's nice to have something to change into after you've been riding all day that's a little bit more comfortable than your bike shoes. Bike shoes are very hard and rigid. These nice and soft. One of my favorite parts about bike touring is sleeping under the stars and camping out. And this is our camping gear. Allie let's start off with the tent. Tent. This is a little two-person one. It's so light. We love it. And you know what? Always bring extra tent stakes because there's some kind of a vortex that sucks these in and you're gonna lose them. Bring a couple extras. For this trip we brought along a coupler and it makes our two sleeping pads into one so that we can be cozy. Lightweight sleeping bag that can be scrunched down to the size of a football. We love this thing. At the beginning of the ride we had two of these and we zipped them together to make one gigantic sleeping bag that we could be all cozy in. As it got warmer as we went through the midwest we sent one home and we just have this one bag. We unzip it so it's like a big blanket and it is perfect. Water filter. This is important only if you're going to areas where you're going to have to pump your water. If you're going town to town and you're able to refill frequently you probably don't need one of these but if you're going into the backcountry it's a good idea. You probably want some sort of light in camp. It could be a headlamp, could just be your phone. I love these Lucy lights. They're solar powered, they last a long time, they're inflatable, they scrunch down to nothing, and you can hang them up from trees and have cozy little camp situations. Stuff sacks. This one is waterproof. Ryan has different solutions. I like my stuff sacks. I bring lots of them and put everything in its own bag so I never lose things. I get really high tech with my stuff sacks and I use Ziploc bags. Works pretty much just as good. Toiletries. There's a lot of stuff in here. Some people might think it's too much. I think it's just the right amount and it's really a personal decision what you need to stay comfortable and feeling fresh. And this is how I feel fresh. It may seem silly to bring an electric shaver. I use it every single morning. I keep my face nice and smooth. It makes it a lot easier to put on sunscreen and to kiss Allie. Camera gear. You probably want to document your ride in some way. It might be as simple as just using a cell phone. We obviously are making YouTube videos so we have a lot of stuff and this is what we have. Drone. Waterproof stuff sack full of cords. Small camera for your helmet. I love this little USB block because sometimes you can only find one place to plug in in the restaurant or rest stop that you're approaching power from. This gives you three little holes to charge things off of. Lots of extra SD cards. Lacy rugged 4 terabyte raid drive. These things are awesome. They're so fast. It's got the thunderbolt. Also it can really take a bit of a banging. Hey be careful with that. And it still keeps on chugging so good thing to invest in a good hard drive because you don't want this to fail. It's got your stuff on it. But also bring a backup. Here's the backup drive. Laptop for on the fly video editing. This is totally unnecessary but it is a Kindle for nighttime entertainment. Right here. Your phone. Super important. We love these. They're good for taking photos and videos and most importantly Google Maps. We're not following a set route on this ride and essentially every day we pick A to B on Google Maps. We hit the little bicycle function here. It gives you the safest roads to ride and for the most part Google Maps knows what it's talking about. It sent us on a lot of really amazing low traffic roads. Keeping all of this stuff charged is kind of difficult and there's a process to it and we usually go to cafes or restaurants for lunch and we find all of the open plugs and we plug everything in every single day. So you just got to stay on top of this stuff. You want to bring some extra batteries and usually it'll be fine. Bring extra cords too because you need those cords to charge with and they're going to break. Now if this was a more backcountry adventure we might bring a solar setup but those are also fallible and they're a little bit more weight so if you can avoid it just plan on poaching power where you can get it. Charge box for your phone or whatever. If you run out of juice it's good to have a couple of these handy. You're going to get sore muscles. It can't be avoided. Everyone's got their favorite tools for self-massage. Mine happens to be very tiny and easily replaceable for 25 cents. You can hold this and like press it into any kind of a point that's not letting go. You can roll it on your muscles. If you find a good wall you can just kind of like roll yourself against it with the ball. They're great and they're also fun for entertainment purposes. You can bounce it. Who doesn't love a bouncy ball? You can give it to a small child. Cats love them. This looks like some sort of martial art tool. It is not. It is a massage stick and it's light and you just roll it on your muscles and it makes everything all better. We don't bring much of a first aid kit but some ibuprofen and some Rolaids isn't a bad idea and the Rolaids are delicious and minty flavored. Good for your breath anyway. Fire. The evolution of man began with fire. Always have some in your pocket. I'm as committed to my pocket knife as Ryan is to his butter knife. You never know when you're gonna have to open a chip bag or zip tie or whittle a stick or open up some avocado or other fruit. Cut it into nice little pieces. At the beginning of the video I talked about how important it is to go lightweight. I promise you it will make your life so much happier. We fit all of that stuff into two rear panniers. Panniers. Panniers. However you want to say it and we keep one up front for both of us. Mostly just photographic supplies and the occasional other little thing. These guys right here are completely waterproof and they're pretty lightweight. On all of my rides I keep all of my food in a separate bag. This is where the beans go, the cans of peanut butter, the Nutella, the tortillas. What else goes in here? Sometimes candy, cliff bars. Fritos. Fritos. You pack this thing full, you lock it down and you know when you unpack for lunch you just pull this out and your food is all in one place and easy to find. Helmet. You want to choose one that you're going to want to wear. This one is super lightweight, it's comfortable, it's white. That means my head doesn't bake when it's hot out. It's really breathable and it's fashionable with its little brim. So I just want to wear it all the time. A little bag back here is handy for holding tools. I like having a bag up here so you can grab and get stuff while you're riding. Nice little bag right there is always handy and lots of water bottle cages on the bike. Allie, why do we like that? So you can carry your water on your back in a camelback but you know what? That is going to give you such a neck ache and a back ache. Inside the seat bag is some tire irons, spare tube, chain, oil, grease. Extra toilet paper is really handy because you never know. And of course a multi-tool and a small pump. This is my favorite one and I like to roll it up with some duct tape in case you need duct tape. Seat. Your bum is going to be on this all day so you want to pick one that's really comfortable. They make ones that are women and male specific that have nice little places cut out for the private parts. Some people are into the leather brook seats that take a while to break in. Remember choose one that's going to work for you and ride in it for a little while before you go on tour with it. And don't forget the most important thing to a bike tour is indeed your bicycle. Pick a bike that you've had for a while that's comfortable for you and is right for the terrain that you are going to ride on. On this ride we've been riding Trek Checkpoint. It's a gravel bike. It's great for mild off-roading. I will do a complete review of this bike in another video. It deserves its own video because this bike is awesome. It's good to have an official trip mascot. Maybe it's a Chihuahua. Maybe it's a love bug. Ours was gifted to us by our friend Sarge. We met at the motorcycle rodeo in Idaho and he has come with us all the way across the country and he keeps us grounded. Reminds us that we're on the same team, love bug. Gear is a funny thing. You can definitely go down a rabbit hole of gear and spend tons of money on this stuff. But let me tell you my very first bike tours, like the first five tours I ever did, I had hand-me-down stuff and nothing expensive at all and I was just fine. Yeah don't ever let gear or lack of it stop you from getting outdoor. Just put your backpack on, get on your cruiser, and ride if that's what it takes to go on that that tour. It really doesn't matter. You can spend all the money in the world on fancy gear. There's always going to be something newer and fancier so why try to keep up? We are very fortunate that a lot of these brands give us the stuff because they're in the videos and blah blah blah blah blah and we appreciate all their support. I'm putting a list of a lot of the items that we've been talking about in the description of the video so if you want to go to the specifics and find out where to buy this stuff go into the description of this video. The most important thing is get on your bike ride it and have fun and smile and splash in water and eat peanut butter and beans and sleep under the stars. What else? Just have fun. Just have fun. Get out there and ride. Get out there and explore. Yeah get out there and explore. When you're a kid some of your best memories are probably when you learn how to ride a bike. Yeah it's really not about the stuff that you carry it's about the places that you go. Yeah and the beans that you eat. If you want to watch the videos from our entire tour across America they will also be linked down below. Thank you for watching. Thank you. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Seriously if you subscribe I guarantee you're going to have a lot of fun. I have videos from all over the world. Bike tours and running and trekking in the Himalayas and all sorts of good stuff. You forgot to buckle your helmet. Oh thank you. Safety first.