Personal setups » Goatrak’s “Making do with Existing Stuff” Setup

This was the setup we used for our shakedown cruise on a portion of the CT. It consisted of scavenging for the most part from what we had on hand from all our other sports passions. There’s defintely room for lightening the load, but overall it will just be a fine tuning process. This is also geared for more moderate daily mileage, some comfort in the camp, and two people. For the 3 night/4 day trip we carried about 25 lbs each, 10 on the bike, 15 on the back, including food and water.

Tent-(spousal incentive) Sierra Designs Clip Flashlight. Possibly shave a few pounds by upgrading this with a Henry Shires tent.

Stove/cook gear – Homemade penny alcohol setup. Worked great, will use it again. One pot, one bowl, french press coffee mug, sporks.

Sleeping Pad/bags – Old 3/4 thermarest, strapped to handlebars. Old REI bags, 2-3 lb range, ~40 deg.

Water filter – Katadyn pump with a extra water bag for camp. Might look into the steripen method, or drops.

Packs – Camelback transalps. These have always been very comfortable for us, not the lightest, but lots of space to store stuff. 100oz bladder

Bike rack/bag – JanDD stock frame bag (they more or less fit), and a Zefal seatpost rear rack. No complaints on either. (the tent strapped on my rear rack).

Miscellaneous – For an early fall alpine trip we carried a down jacket, long underwear, biking shirt and shorts/zip off pants, light rain pants/jacket, spare socks, undies, balaclava, warm gloves. GPS unit, camera, SPOT unit (another spousal incentive), bike tools, pumps, spare zip ties, straps, spokes, plastic bags, tubes, sunblock, chainlube, first aid kit, toiletries, and I’m sure some other stuff that I don’t recall offhand.

Learning points – Overall not too many,…. butane lighters don’t work above 10k ft, check old matches to make sure they still work before hitting the trail, don’t skip on chainlube and have the appropriate chain lube for the worst conditions you might encounter, i.e., the dry lube I normally use (and brought with) didn’t do much for chainsuck on our last day of riding in the mud, the SPOT GPS units really do give you piece of mind and it’s kind of fun to connect with friends/family on where you are (and that you’re ok), …and most importantly, counting the ounces before the trip really does make a difference once on the trail.