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Just did the SDW with an overnight camp and my kit weighed about 20lbs (on top of bike at 28lbs). Got quite hard work!
I had a 850g tent, 1.3 kg sleeping bag (obviously too heavy), 500g mat, lights (lezyne mini rear, exposure diablo front), tools and tube, second riding shirt, rain jacket, jersey, casual shirt and trousers, toothbrush and small tube of paste, bottle of water, few cables and small charger thingy, head torch. No cooking kit. Fitted in Ortlieb bar bag and tail pack
what's a realistic weight? i can see i could shed a couple of lbs off sleeping bag and mat, I carry a biggish pump
thanks!
Casual shirt and trousers? Going on a date were you?!
Casual shirt and trousers? Going on a date were you?!
This. The spare jersey maybe, you might need dry stuff to sleep well, but you don't need the shirt and trousers.
so that would have saved 1 lb....... maybe 1 1/2!
What they said, you're sleeping in a hedge, you don't need a change of clothes!
My exception to that is winter Bivi's I take a pair of ronhills and a LS merino type top, which also make a fairly light sleeping bag comfortable sub zero.
I've never weighed my kit, mostly because I can't afford/justify expensive stuff so it would just be masochism.
Start with going through your kit and don't take anything you didn't use this time next time.
Do you need a phone charger? Will the light's not charge your phone?
Do you need lights? At this time of year it's still light for far more hours than most people can possibly ride.
You definitely don't need 2x jerseys and a spare.
Rather than thinking of it as 2x 50mile rides and a nights camping. Think of it as a 100mile ride and 8 hours sleep. So you only need your normal riding kit (you wouldn't change mid way through a normal ride and take casual clothes for the cafe stop) and just enough sleeping kit to keep you comfortable (sleeping bag , mat, and bivi bag/tent).
Also btw I've not weighed my stuff, but I run a bar bag and medium sized day pack for bike packing, with tarp and bivvy bag instead of a tent (tarp plus wheels makes a decent shelter). It doesn't really sound like there's a huge weight saving you could get without getting very expensive, and the shirt and trousers stick out there. I've seen some pretty lightweight trousers and I'm sure you could use a lightweight T shirt if you do want that sort of thing to wear, although I'd go for a base layer or jersey and then it's more flexible, and I'd just wear baggies with some leg warmers in case it was a bit chilly or midgey.
No food? Food can be quite heavy.
lay it all out on the floor/ bed. Pick some items out for the Absolutely Essential pile - 1 set riding kit, lights, rain jacket, tools/pump etc. Everything else is really in the "nice to have" pile and you can think "what's the worst that can happen if I don't have..." for each item: Toothpaste and brush -It's not going to kill you to ski doing your teeth for one night, Charger: if you phone doesn't do you for 2 days, stick it in max power saving mode. For the essential items - do you have a lighter/dual use alternative: eg fit your helmet mount for the diablo and use that as your headtorch.
Each little "nice to have" doesn't add that much weight on its own but, taken as a whole, they can save you a fair bit if you just leave the lot at home. Iy's an easier thing to do when y<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">ou're looking at them together in a non-essential heap. "Nice to have" v "Nnice not to have to pull up 3,500 of vertical climbing"</span>
summary: Take Less Shit, as they say on Bearbones.
so that would have saved 1 lb……. maybe 1 1/2!
Yeah, but you could save it for free.
And then save another 2lb (perhaps) if you spent loads of money on kit.
I'll weight my stuff next time I get a chance/have it out.
Take Less Shit,
Have one before you go - that can easily be half a kilo.
Do you need lights? At this time of year it’s still light for far more hours than most people can possibly ride.
I thought about this. I guess if you're starting early and doing 50 miles, camping before it's dark and setting off when it's light again, you wouldn't need them, but there's always the chance you'll want to get a bit further before you stop, bail to a railway station and home, find a pub to eat/drink in before setting up camp.
If you just stop when it gets dark, you'll need to carry more food and drink, and possibly more clothes for hanging about in, and some entertainment: headtorch/book, podcasts and headphones (then you'll need the charger and lead too). I'd say a Joystick and rear blinker are probably lighter than the alternatives!
my initial thought was - you have a very light tent & quite a heavy sleeping bag, so you could save a bit of weight on that if you spent some cash.
Casual shirt/trousers, extra riding clothes - unnecessary for a 2 day/1 night trip IMO. Just stink a bit on day 2 😂
20lbs is a LOT of kit. I've only done 1 bikpacking trip, but it was 5 days in Wales & I think I carried less weight than that! Including some cooking stuff too. What do you REALLY need? Some tools/spares, MAYBE a small battery charger (or as mentioned above I think you can use more recent Exposure lights to charge things?) Just sleep in your riding kit! Possibly a light fleece or jacket for the evening. Don't need a head torch as you have your Diablo. Do you need "entertainment" for 1 night? Only if you really cannot bear your own thoughts, otherwise just enjoy the quiet & get your head down!
Food can be quite heavy so if you can pick this up just before you need to eat (or just buy a meal in pub, etc) that'll save having to carry extra weight.
my loaded bike is 33lbs.
bike is 21lb.
bivy is 320gram ,
Sleeping bag is 525grams
Mat is 320grams
none of it Patagoochi or PHD.
But thats a sleep system(allbe it a summer season/carefully chosen autumn/spring night) for less than the weight of your sleeping bag.
"Do you need lights? At this time of year it’s still light for far more hours than most people can possibly ride."
dunno . was dark when i started last weekend and it was dark when i went to bed 18hrs later, it was also dark when i got up the following day and was dusk when i finished back at the car......im not that unusual.
you're a bit unusual, trail_rat!
my last overnight SDW ride was on a 36lb loaded bike weight. Bivi kit was my rain jacket - we didn't stop, that would have been enough for half an hour ditch-shivering if needed. other heavy items included single 1L water bottle, mountain morph pump, compact camera, tube, sarnie and a few cliff bars. Not that much, but all on a heavy bike. Would have gladly been on something lighter for the last few hills!
Is that just a bivi bag or bivi and tarp?
tent 1300g
sleeping bag 900g
sleeping mat 400g
tent on bars other stuff in seat pack.
no other luxuries for 1 or 2 nights.
its just a bivy bag , they are not an inseperable unit.
Got that. I was just checking that wasn't both combined as I was amazed if it was. I have alpkit bivi that I thought was lightweight which is about the same as your which was why I was curious if you also had a tarp in at that weight too.
dunno . was dark when i started last weekend and it was dark when i went to bed 18hrs later, it was also dark when i got up the following day and was dusk when i finished back at the car……im not that unusual.
True, but the OP was about riding the SDW over two days, 50miles is ~5 hours even on a loaded bike. Not multi-day ITT'ing against a clock.
My biggest problem with bivi/bikepacking is leaving it late enough in the day to set off and not be knackered long before it's dark! For my ride down to SSUK next week I've already worked out where I'm having brunch, afternoon tea and dinner to kill some time!
I'd always take a light with me, it's not particularly heavy and could make or break a trip (including falling off because you can't see). A Diablo should cover you great for that
Definitely don't need spare clothes as above. However, I take spare clothes on every bivi I do. Spare socks, UA LS base and UA leggings. Means I can get into my quilt/bag having ridden in dirty conditions and not get them filthy, plus I have a dry layer to put on at night. Makes all the difference on a wet/grim trip
I'd go through the little things, they really add up
20lbs isn't THAT heavy, but it's certainly high enough to notice and you should be able to drop some weight without too much drama
admittedly it was meant to be an overnight B&B but a booking cock up lead to a last minute camp...... so an element of grab what I had
so - ditch casual shirt, fair enough, second riding shirt would have done
trousers - would probably have had to substitute leggings in
lighter sleeping bag - alpkit pipedream? anything else out there?
lighter mat
de dupe headtorch and diablo - good call.
Use Diablo as phone / Garmin charger - hadn't thought of that. Although would I drain it doing that?
lights - only used for ride home from train station
book - didn't look at it!
pump is 205g and multi tool is quite meaty, but has everything on it, but a bit could be saved there
took 28lb trail bike but should have used 22 lb rigid probably - but suffering from a lot of numb hands and tennis elbow atm and other guys were on mtb's
so trail-rat's 12 lbs sounds about the minimum, 15 lbs sensible.....
booking cock up
rather than a Cocking book-up?
Depends if I'm "racing" or touring. My racing/ITT bivy kit (summer) where I expect to camp comes to 900g - tarp 140g, pole and pegs 100, bivy bag 130g, sleeping mat 170g, quilt 360g. Touring, my sleeping mat weighs 420g and I'd probably be toting a tarp big enough for the mrs and me at 550g.
If I'm just expecting to get my head down for a couple of hours rest then it's a SOL Escape bivy and a lightweight down jacket, total of 500g or so. That is pushing things however, but it's a useful system just as a backup for when you intend to ride a route in one and might get caught out.
For a two day ride there's no need for spare anything. Add a lightweight rain jacket, arm warmers if the morning is likely to be cool, buff. Thin thermal top for sleeping. Exposure Joystick light, small LED rear light. Minimal tools and spares, making sure your bike is serviced before setting off saves a lot of hassle. Hip flask with whiskey.
If you need to cook/make a brew then a titanium mug and alcohol stove will come to 50g with fuel.
Before food and water I'd expect to have around 3kg of kit.
If you want a camp light look up DROK lights - plug into any USB-A socket - weigh about 5g and cost six quid for five!
Use Diablo as phone / Garmin charger – hadn’t thought of that. Although would I drain it doing that?
lights – only used for ride home from train station
We ll if you don't use the lights you don't need them to last too long. I'd argue that if you ride all day and then need to ride at night for some reason then not being able to STRAVA your next days ride is a reasonable compromise to save a few hundred grams. And if the emergency was having to ride to the station and abort (most likely scenario?) it's presumably not needed anyway.
You could also turn your phone off as it's unlikely to have reception for long periods anyway. Just turn it on when you stop for lunch to pick up messages.
Battery packs are quite heavy, stick your phone on airplane mode and it'll last for ages. Garmin battery is annoying, not many options there. Most of the bikepackers use a walking GPS like the oregon/dakota/etrex. Takes AAs, up to one set of AAs per day, depends on use though
This was the pack list for my last bivy trip (only because I happen to have the spreadsheet open), only had a seat pack and a evoc pack on
Saddle pack (Revelate Terrapin)
Borah Bivy bag
Thermarest neoair xtherm
EE quilt
thermarest neoair pump sack
Exped pillow
On bike
Water bottle x 2
garmin oregon 550t
Exposure Strada
Smart R2
EVOC pack
Main section
Columbia outdry jacket
Berghaus hypertherm
Spare clothes (top, leggings, socks)
Buff
Brew kit - SP450, meths bottle, 8g stove, windscreen, kenco millicano
Aloksak with sleep kit (ear plugs, eye mask, talc, tissue, exposure diffuser, folding spoon, E+lite)
BB Carbon poles (1 x 110cm and 1 x 100cm)
Snacks
Lighter
Baccy tin
Bearbones gilet
Arm warmers
Side pockets
Alpkit Rig 3.5 tarp
Inner tube
Tool compartment
Lezyne pump
Spares bag - powerlink x 2, tubeless repair kit, patches, spare bolts
Pedros tyre levers x 2
Leatherman skeletool
Crank Brother M19 multitool
Cafe stop lock
Spare AA batteries
Fuel
FAK (in Mount Skidmore bag)
Oakley clear lenses
Helmet holder
Sit mat
Top pocket
Wallet, keys
benp1, i dont take that much on a 3 week tour........... ;o)
Ortlieb bags are pretty thick and durable, which probably makes them pretty heavy no?
Ortlieb bags are pretty thick and durable, which probably makes them pretty heavy no?
Greg May used them on the Tour Divide, see here http://www.gregorymay.ie/?p=2998 and here http://www.gregorymay.ie/?p=2898
I prefer the harness+dry bag setup rather than the all-in-one for two reasons: 1. If the dry bag wears out you just replace that, the harness is still good. 2. You can fit different sized dry bags depending on the amount of kit you are taking on any given trip.
Ben's list looks a lot but a lot of the items are small, spares and the like. My list for the French Divide was similar but didn't have stove/cooking kit. I did have a couple of powerbank batteries to charge my Garmin and phone. This is what the bike looked like - the seat pack is big (10L) as I also needed clothes for getting to and from the event.
This was my setup for this year's Highland Trail - the bag under the bars is a 3 litre Alpkit Gnaro, the saddle bag is a Wildcat 6L tapered bag. Two Revelate Feedbags and a Wildcat custom frame bag. That lot held bivy kit, clothes, tools and spares for five to six days.
I lied, I forgot that I took some carbon pegs and some guylines too. Although I didn't actually use the tarp in the end. Pegs got used to peg the bivi and I was on a very sleight slope and didn't want to slide down it...
Ton - prove it! [insert smiley-face-smiley and sticky-out-tongue-smiley] (don't know how to do smileys!)
The format of the list didn't quite paste right as it also includes the location of every item. As Bob/Whitestone says it's a pretty minimalist list, I could lose stuff from it if I had to - but I used everything apart from
- tarp/poles/pegs
- tool kit (although I used the knife on my leatherman and the cafe stop lock)
- talc from my sleep kit (to dry wet feet, it's in a tiny little plastic pot, c. 5ml) and the exposure diffuser (it was a last minute bivy so I just grabbed the bag, I couldn't have used it anyway as I have the wrong expoure light with me!)
- spare AAs
That load was light enough and comfy enough for a 98 mile trip over 20 hours (not much climbing though, lots of canal path!)
I took
Bivvybag gen 1 Rab survival (when they were waterproof)
Sleeping bag pipedream 200
Neoair
Outdry
El cheapo Light down jacket
SKS 16 multitool
2 tubes
Topeak mini morph
Spare socks and a spare pair of gloves so I could double in the night if temps got cold while riding.
I run exposure Revo and red eye plus Dyno and igaro.
A small 2400mah battery pack runs my etrex and is charged off my igaro.
A baggy of torq and a single water bottle
My bank card.
Turned phone off. Lasts forever that way.
The rest was food - first time experimenting with purposefully taking fatty foods on long stuff instead of relying on sugar, carbs and protien bars It worked well for me i may have looked a bit odd at ruigh aitchechan chopping into a whole chorizo ring and baby bells.
first time experimenting with purposefully taking fatty foods on long stuff
works well for me! I don't do that well on really sugary stuff - I need to keep eating to stay the right side of the sugar dip, but a packed ham and cheese sarnie with loads of mayo does me for hours and hours.
Sometimes when you list everything out it seems like a lot of kit but especially with things like tools and spares they tend to be small and pack well. I can get the following into a medium Alpkit top tube bag for example:
spare inner tube
multitool
2x tyre levers
tubeless plug kit
small tin with spare bolts, power link
Leatherman squirt
spare brake pads (shouldn't need these on an overnighter if you've check the bike beforehand)
Tyre boot
Puncture repair kit (works on the inflatable sleeping mat as well)
Expedition sewing kit (useful for sewing sidewall splits)
Small tube of chain lube
Pump is mounted next to bottle cage.
That's quite a lot of stuff that is basically insurance but they are very much "when you need it you need it" type items. I've had the sewing kit (Black Diamond Expedition Sewing kit) for over thirty years from back in my climbing days and used it for the first time this year when we came across a rider on the Welsh Ride Thing whose rear tyre had split, he sewed it up as best he could and he got to the next town with a bike shop.
Again, making sure your bike is in good order before setting off will negate the need for a lot of stuff but accidents will happen. On the French Divide there was no guarantee of bike shops having spares for my bike so I added items like a spare mech hanger.
The comment by @nedrapier about putting things in to piles: essential; nice to have; etc. is a good one. Of course if you've not done it before your idea of "essential" would be different to mine. Again it's whether your bivy is just to get a bit of kip or something a bit more comfortable. Once you've done a trip you can sort your gear into "used" and "didn't use" which will give you a better idea of what really were your "nice to haves".
Having dry clothes to get in to for your bivy helps, while I don't take spare cycling kit like Ben I will take a light set of thermals for sleeping in as it keeps your sleeping bag clean. Getting out of sweaty or wet clothing will instantly make you feel warmer. If the shirt at least is reasonably smart then it could be your "casual wear".
The other "trick" is to try and take items that can do two or more jobs. I use the dry bag from the saddle harness as my pillow, I'll stuff it with my riding clothes, the buff goes over this to give a fabric feel to it.
You asked about sleeping bags. The Alpkit down bags (and jackets) used to be excellent value but not so much these days, they are much closer in price to the quality(?) end of the market. Look at Cumulus/Criterion, their 3C rated bag is the same price as the Alpkit Pipedream 7C rated model but a little heavier. If you get on with quilts then the Cumulus 150 is sub 400g. (both links are to Backcountry.scot because they now import Cumulus - you used to have to buy from Europe). Then of course there's PHD, great kit but at a price.
Good tips above
I see now that my description above was poor. I say 'spare' clothes because they're in addition to what I'm wearing. I've tried wearing my day clothes at night but I don't like wearing wet/muddy clothes in my nice down quilt/sleeping bag and I get cold easily at night.
In reality it's a very thin Under Armour base layer set and socks (thin synthetic ones normally, heat holders when it's winter). They're actually the smallest packing base layers I have (from quite a range now...).
I suppose I could wear these for riding but normally stick on my cold/wet/muddy clothes first thing, which is always a bit grim but keeps the bed clothes dry and clean.
Some folks prefer a bag liner instead but I've avoided these because it's then more faff to get in my quilt and I can't wear them 'around camp', so I'd still be in my wet clothes