From Helsinki to Singapore

a well deserved retirement. Well, here’s a few items we have carried halfway around the world which are worth mentioning and might give you some ideas for that upcoming trip.

First of all, and simply because nowadays we all pack at least two or three electronic gadgets when cycling about; power. Obviously, these days, the first thing that comes to mind is a power bank and yes, we do have a biggy; 22.000mAh is no joke! So far on our trip it has never let us down, even though we were pretty close a couple of times, but the point is that if you’re thinking about literally going off the grid for a while, you’ll need to carry some sort of power storage or something really reliable with which to recharge those batteries and in our case it’s a solar panel.

Ok, small parentheses here; both power bank and solar panel? That’s a question we asked ourselves a lot before leaving and now, after almost a year and 10.000 miles we are mega happy to be carrying that weight. We are not technology addicts but we do, for example, love music so having a full green battery on our iPod is a must at any time.

Back to the hardware. Both our solar panel and power bank are RAV Power and there’s not much to declare; they shipped fast and do exactly what they say on the tin. When folded the panel is smaller than an A4 and open it lays comfortably on top of the tent in between the rear panniers and, with a max power output of…, on a sunny day it charges as well as having the mobile plugged in the mains. to be the tent. The tent will be your home for however long you’re planning to travel (and hopefully future endeavours too) so it’s not something you buy lightly. There are endless manufacturers, types, materials, shapes and prices to choose from and making a bad choice could have nefast results on your journey.

Having said this, and hopefully haven’t put anyone off, we went with a 3 people’s tent for a bit more comfort on those rainy days when cycling is the bad option and staying dry, drinking coffee and reading a book is the obvious one. A bigger tent means more weight but when everything-but-the-bike is safe, dry and only a few inches away from you, you kind of forget about those few extra pounds.

After many hours spent in front of the screen we finally bought a Vango Halo 300 Pro and, unfortunately, it hasn’t been plain sailing all the way; there seems to be an issue with the fiberglass poles which started to mis-shape straight away and we have not been able to solve this issue with the manufacturer. Having said that,

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we still believe that it’s pretty good value for money and are impressed by the packdown size of it every morning.

While on the subject of sleeping, we think our mats are also spot on! Sea to Summit is well-known for quality and reliability and for the first time in our lives we put our rest in the hands of the Irish brand and haven’t regretted it since. Their Neo Air is comfortable and insulates incredibly well against cold and humidity. The cherry on top is the amazing repair kit that comes with this mat which has, kind of, saved our lives once already. Maybe the only downside to this otherwise amazing product is the type of valve used which makes finding a pump a bit of a challenge (we adapted our old one using 2 inches of watering hose).

And, if like us, you’ve reached that age where resting your head on a folded sweater is no longer appealing, let me introduce you to our best pillow so far, the…… We were really surprised to actually like this pillow as much as we do and if anything happened to our current one we would definitely try to acquire another asap. It packs down really small, it’s very easy and quick to inflate, it’s big enough to hold your head adequately so that it doesn’t roll off the sides and it even has a few millimetres of viscoelastic to make you forget that this is just a mini lilo!

Apart from cycling and camping, something we really love doing is cooking. Again, if you think about going off the trail for a few days, it’s unthinkable, at least for an Italo-French couple such as ourselves, to eat just power bars or warmed up canned food for various days. In the past we used simple propane stoves but for our long-haul trip to Southeast Asia we decided to change gas canisters for liquid fuel (ethanol to be concrete) and we love it!

Just like anything else, there are a number of pros and cons to consider, but ultimately what really tipped the balance was the fact that, in 95% of the cases, we are not in a hurry when it comes to eating. Our Trangia burner is probably slower than any other type on the market but it’s also the quieter, making absolutely zero noise, and we have come to really appreciate that; we were never really big fans of our previous burners sounding like jet planes taking off while making coffee in the morning. You can build your own set yourself depending on needs and budget. We have the Teflon pans model and are more than satisfied with the buy.

And to finish the camping section of this article, something that we really missed on our previous bikepacking trips across Europe was a common light so that we didn’t have to feel like miners wearing our headlights.

We just tried our luck with a portable camping lantern by LE (Lighting Ever) and we loved it from the second we took it out of the box. Long-lasting battery which doubles up as a power bank, 4 light modes with battery indicator, foldable stand, hooks and, last but not least, a mega powerful spot light which will light the way up to 1 kilometre away.

Moving over to a more practical need while touring: communicating with the locals. We knew that our European languages would have their limitations and having to cross about 27 countries on our current trip, we didn’t really feel like learning all those tongues. With Internet not readily available all over the world we often posed ourselves the problem of the good old language barrier. Then one day we stumbled across “The Wordless Travel Book”

on Amazon. It’s simply an A5 (perfect for the handlebar bag) booklet full of images of everyday objects, foodstuff and lots more. It has already taken us out of a couple of sticky situations (we were glad to have it while in Russia) so we have laminated it just in case. A great way to spend 6€ if you ask me!

And finally, to help us through the twisting labyrinth of tarmac (if we’re lucky) from here to there, just a few quick words about our navigator; after all, we are supposed to talk a little about cycling! Our biggest concerns from the very beginning were the duration of the battery and satellite reception and we think we have found a very good compromise in the Garmin Touring Edge. It’s compact, it charges pretty quickly and its battery lasts all day and it has, so far, never left us stranded anywhere because of poor connection. It’s just an easy to use and no frills bike navigator whose only shortfall is the lack of a thermometer.

Inevitably, whatever gear you have, you’ll end up having a great time out there because travelling by bike is not about what you have in your panniers but all those things that cannot be put in any place, apart from your memory. So, our best advice is not to worry about it too much really, things will work out in the end and if they don’t, at least you will have learnt a valuable lesson about how to choose your gear better next time!