Car Less Ohio

I recently obtained my new hydration pack, which made me ready to start testing my plan for packing up the Salsa Fargo for light-n-fast “rack-less” touring.

Here’s a shot of the naked bike with all of the gear before packing:

The weight of the bike as shown is about 27.5 pounds. Included on the bike are:

• Cat Eye Strada Wireless cyclocomputer
• 2 Salsa Anything Cages (mounted on the fork legs)
• Planet Bike Blaze 2-watt headlight
• Planet Bike Superflash Turbo taillight

The weight of the empty bags is about 6 pounds.

Here’s a shot of everything packed and ready to ride:

Here are the details of the bags and contents:

Left unpacked are what I’d be wearing while riding:

• Endura Hummvee Lite 3/4 shorts
• Surly Wool short-sleeve jersey
• Pearl Izumi Sun Sleeves
• wool cycling socks
• cycling gloves
• Pearl Izumi X-Alp Seek shoes
• Buff bandanna
• Bell Sequence helmet
• Road ID

Revelate Designs Viscacha seat bag:

• Pacific Crest synthetic-fill 40-degree sleeping bag
• Big Agnes Diversions Insulated Air Core sleeping pad
• tent poles
• O2 Fluid3 hooded rain jacket (in a stuff sack)
• Showers Pass Storm rain pants (in a stuff sack)
• generic down jacket packed in (in a stuff sack)

Revelate Designs Gas Tank top tube bag:

• sunscreen
• lip balm
• insect repellent
• hand sanitizer

Outdoor Research 10-liter dry sack on left fork leg:

• Big Agnes Seedhouse SL2 tent body, fly, stakes, and ground cloth
• tent stake hammer

Outdoor Research 10-liter dry sack on right fork leg:

• REI titanium cooking pot
• Evernew titanium mug
• Snow Peak titanium bowl
• Light My Fire titanium spork
• Markill stove
• fuel canister
• REI plastic mixing spoon
• salt and pepper shaker
• small pack towel
• scrubbing pad
• waterproof matches
• fire starters
• MSR Miniworks EX water filter pump
• first aid kit

Salsa/Revelate Designs frame bag:

• 2 spare tubes
• tire levers
• patch kit
• tire boots
• hex wrench set
• multi-tip screwdriver
• Pedro’s chain tool with spoke wrenches
• Leatherman multi-tool
• cable cutter
• brake cable
• derailer cable
• spare derailer hanger
• spare small parts: bolts, nuts, washers, chain links, zip ties, cleat bolts, cable tips and ferrules
• small tube of Tri-Flow grease
• small bottle of Tri-Flow chain/component lube
• duct tape
• Tenacious tape
• 12mm coiled cable lock
• 2 Gojo wipes
• 2 shop rags

Osprey Manta 25 hydration pack:

• Large pack towel
• 2 spare pair of socks
• Ibex wool boxer shorts
• lightweight casual shorts
• lightweight long-sleeve shirt (can double as a spare bike jersey)
• SmartWool liner shirt
• SmartWool liner pants
• SmartWool Cuff Beanie
• DeFeet DuraWool liner gloves
• Neoprene socks
• Pearl Izumi Zephrr shell gloves
• Columbia Sportswear booney hat
• multi-purpose camp soap
• toothbrush/paste/floss
• camp mirror
• tweezers
• nail clippers with nail file
• scissors
• travel size deodorant
• 2 rolls backpacker’s toilet paper
• trowel
• smartphone and charger
• GPS and charger
• vitamins
• body wipes
• spare eyeglasses
• wallet (with cash, credit/ATM cards, driver’s license, passport card)
• Princeton Tec Byte headlamp

A couple things that I’ve since thought of that are not included above, but I’ll have to find room for eventually:

• spare batteries: 2032 for cyclocomputer, AA for headlight, AAA for taillight
• small notebook and pen
• route maps

In looking at this list, as well as the photo of the unpacked gear above, it’s hard to believe that it all fit on the bike. I weighed the packed bike, and subtracting the original weight of the bike and the empty bags, it’s about 25 pounds worth of gear, not counting the clothing and other gear that I’d be wearing on my body while on the bike. That’s not too bad, considering that for normal touring with racks and roomy panniers, I’d typically have about 40 pounds of gear.

The problem, however, is the bulk of the gear. With everything packed in as I described above, it leaves hardly any room for a food supply. The Gas Tank bag has room for a few energy bars and gels; a few small items might still be stuffed into the frame bag, and the OR dry sacks might fit a few more things.

Either way, though, I’ll have to put my gear list on a diet and make some adjustments to where stuff is packed.

I also need to think about how to plan for extended periods without a water source. Possibilities include an MSR Dromedary bag lashed to the seat bag, water bottles in the side pockets of the hydration pack, and a bottle cage mounted on the bottom of the bike’s down tube.

This past Sunday, I put this packing scheme to the test by riding it to work, and then taking it on a Sub-24-Hour Overnight trip with my friend Brent to our usual destination of West Branch State Park.

The full gear list above takes into account the full range of weather that might be encountered on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, including cold and wet. Being that it’s now July in Northeast Ohio, and there was only a small chance of rain this particular evening, I was able to ditch quite a bit of gear to free up space. I removed the down jacket, wool liner shirt and pants, wool liner gloves, wool hat, neoprene socks, shell gloves, and booney hat. I also would not be needing the water filter, since fresh water at the West Branch campground is readily available. I left out the trowel and toilet paper, since there are also restrooms. I kept the Ibex boxers, used the outer layer of the Endura shorts as my in-camp casual shorts, and packed a t-shirt to wear around the camp. I wore the same pair of socks through the whole trip. I meant to leave the rain jacket and pants behind, but only realized later at the camp site that I still had them in the seat bag.

I packed a few food items in the hydration pack. For dinner, I took a box of macaroni & cheese, packet of tuna, and a pack of instant mashed potatoes. For breakfast, I took two packets of instant oatmeal. I also took a few cookies to snack on.

On the way to work, the dry sacks on the fork came loose a bit. I stopped to tighten up the Velcro straps I was using to hold them in place, and that seemed to do the trick for the time being. Once I got to work, I found a couple of extra bungee cords and used them for extra support around the Salsa Anything Cages, just to be safe. I’ve concluded, however, that the Anything Cage works best with soft goods, like my tent on the left side. It doesn’t work so well with hard goods like my cooking gear on the right side, because this kind of stuff tends to shift around too easily, and thus the straps holding it in place come loose more easily. So this is one area where I can adjust the location of where I pack stuff.

I started thinking that I should just ditch the whole concept of bike-packing, and go back to traditional racks and panniers. Back at home a few days earlier, I weighed my panniers, front rack, and rear rack. If I used these instead of all of the frame bags, the gain in weight is about 4 pounds.

However, after getting everything situated, making the ride to West Branch, setting up camp, and then breaking down camp the next morning, I got used to the bike-packing scheme. The way I had all of the items organized lent itself quite well to easily unpacking and re-packing, and finding stuff when I needed it. I guess like any new idea, it has to grow on you a bit. I’ve already got a few ideas for changes to pare down the bulk of the gear, so stay tuned for version 2.0 of the bike-packing gear list.

Brent and I did a little route exploring on the way to West Branch. We usually hop on the Portage Bike and Hike Trail near Towners Woods park. The last time we made this trip, the trail ended near downtown Ravenna. It’s been extended since then, so it now ends on Peck Road east of town. We made a right onto Peck, then a right onto Newton Falls Road, very near where it meets the intersection of State Routes 14 and 59. Normally, one would take Rt 59 east to where it meets State Route 5, then turn right onto Rock Spring Road into West Branch State Park. The campground entrance is just past the railroad overpass bridge.

This bridge is being rebuilt, so the detour involves taking Rt 14 south for a few miles to Booth Road, which meets Rock Spring Road from the other end. Cable Line Road would provide a similar, but shorter, detour, but it, too, is closed. We decided to head up Cable Line Road anyway to see if the closed section were passable by bike or on foot.

Not quite a mile from Rt 14, we got to the closed section:

There was no gap in the guard rail to cut around, so we had to hop over and lift our bikes over. We finally saw the reason for the road closing:

As you can see, a wide section of road has washed out, leaving a chasm about 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep.

Carrying our bikes and shuffling a little at a time to avoid losing our footing, we made our way down, through, and up out of the chasm. So, Cable Line Road is passable via an extreme hike-a-bike. But, for the extra time and effort it takes, taking the Booth Road detour is a better option, which we did for the ride home on Monday morning.