KIT

Revised November 2011

Just a small page that covers some of the essential equipment that's carried on a touring holiday, and also some of the thought process's behind how I come to these choices.

Here is a spreadsheet of approx the kit I carry, it opens in Excel.

Panniers

As standard my Kawasaki Versys came with the GT extra's which in this case was rebadged Givi V35 Panniers,  aesthetically they really do suit the lines of the bike.

However the shape for storage is rather odd, not deep enough to hold my largest items lacking in length and height to hold my longest items, they also open like a suitcase, not my preferential way of gaining access when by the side of the road. So over the past couple of year's I've been looking at practical alternates.. Something the right shape, weight and more importantly that passes the whisker test (aka width for filtering).

Having always hankered after the practical side of Aluminium panniers, but loathed there un-aerodynamic shape, economy suffers, speed suffers so on and so forth, its a difficult balance to make really. Most of the leading design's/suppliers in the market really do cater for people with deeper pockets than mine.. A Typical pair from a leading manufacturer was +£1000, throw in the frame costs and shipping and you had panniers that were over £1300..... a third of the cost of the bike!!.. So for mine I turned to a supplier in Germany, essentially a one man band.

2mm thick 41 Litre Panniers, Anodised, quality construction, shipped to the UK for under £400, with the fitments in place for a standard Givi Frame, which were switched to from my V35's for under £100, so overall less than half the price of the more expensive brands.

Tried once on my charity run in April 2011, was impressed with the ease of packing, but on the Motorway,  lost 30% of my MPG, and the weight when packed does nothing to inspire confidence on the twisty roads, so have made a point to set aside days on trips, where I can strip off all the kit for at least one days riding with out the weight.

Tried again on my trip to Wales in July, again impressed with storage capacity, again less than impressed with the effect on handling... these wouldn't be my final solution.

Although as a side note, they do make a handy place to rest your coffee en-route.

If I had my time again, I would use soft luggage, lighter on the bike, far far cheaper. Of course fairly easy to remove though, handy when your camping, not so handy for you if a casual thief is passing by.

Nov - 2011, Well having dug about on eBay, discovered Spada Soft Panniers, which were obtained the principally cheap cost of £35.00... Tried them loosely on bike, holding capacity seems to be about the same as my Alum Panniers, but at last!... I pass the whisker test, and of course these panniers weigh just about nothing. Hopefully they will be as waterproof as they seem... I guess the test will be Jan 2012 on the Elephant Rally.

Tent

A standing joke amongst my friends, is my tent purchasing ability, up until June 2010 I had over 6 tents, bought various designs for different situations, I love camping with a real passion and sleep my best in a tent, but of course to ensure a good nights sleep you need the right equipment. Jamie my travelling companion carries the rather excellent REI/MSR Quarter dome, well worth the investment. Myself my needs are slightly different, as I also camp in the UK which means I have to plan for days where I am tent bound due to the weather. Having sold all my remaining tents, I shopped around for something that could accommodate two people with ease, and allow them both to sit up in the tent etc. It also needed a practical storage vestibule or porch, in the end I plumped for the Vango Tempest 300, as I've only erected this tent once, I can't give a review at this stage,  but I will as soon as I've used it.

Some of you might be thinking ooh tunnel tent, that wont be stable in the wind, but uh-hah, Vango have thought to include something called TBD (Tension Band system), which essentially is internal bracing which limits lateral movement on the poles once the tent is up. The tent is also Duke of Edinburgh approved kit, and my previous experience with these products is they are really built for the middle of Dartmoor type trips, so should be fine for my purpose.

Pack size is not flattering, but thanks to my aforementioned giant panniers I am able to pack this without any problems.

Nov -2011 Yes its changed again, a trip to Wales gave me a chance to try the Tempest 300 out and It proved to be as good the reviews said it was, there was however a hankering that I still had, which I had always had since my days of Tentadom.. And that was the Khyam Biker... Huge 3 man tent, quick erection and even easier to take apart.. Giant vestibule for storage... perfect for the worse weather.

But it packs huge, weighs about 5kg, all the things despised about tents.... Still as an element of luxury it cant be beaten, and I just sling the pack on the back seat not a problem really.. In the world of motorcycle touring/camping, lightweight is best.  But November 2010 did teach me that when its pissing down with rain for 24hrs, having a tent you can move around in, sit up in, cook in wins... And I bet at the elephant rally in Jan if the weather turns, then the other guys will be sitting in my porch.

The tempest 300 is still in the loft, will still be used as it fits in one pannier.... when / where Ill use it I  have no idea..

Sleeping Bed

Surely the most important piece of kit of the trip, a good nights sleep, so underrated when your spending your day's in the saddle.

Once again, much like the tents, many solutions tried, from cheap inflatable air beds, to the more expensive Self inflating Thermarest type airbeds.  For ease of setup you cant beat Thermarest type beds, but the trouble found is I was never truly comfortable sleeping on my side, my hip tended to end up being a bit sore.

One of my friends put me on to "Exped" beds, now this is a slightly more unusual type of airbed, yes you have to inflate it by hand, but are slightly novel in that they are goose down lined, so you never suffer from the cold air type affect that cheaper airbeds cause, a point proven in November last year when camping in minus conditions, my airbed surface was warm to the touch compared to the ground sheet in my tent which was very cold, that combined with a Vango -30 rated sleeping bag meant sleep became me...

A trick with the Exped is not to inflate it fully, in fact don't inflate it anymore than half way, and yes it looks very limp like that, but as soon as you lie on it, it tensions, and makes perfect sense. Another friend recently showed me this trick on a weekend away, inflation now normally takes me under 5 minutes.

I got mine from these guys, recommended for the service they provide, yes it was expensive at £130, but in my opinion the single most important piece of kit on multi stop camping trips.

Stove

In Alan's world a camping stove is also highly rated, if he sleeps well, can have a cup of tea in the morning, evening and cook the occasional meal then he is happy.

Originally using the rather excellent and compact Trangia set with gas burner, but soon realised its limitation outside of the UK with almost impossible to purchase Gas Cylinders in Europe. This is a shame as the whole lot pots, pans, pack down into a very neat pack.

So I looked around for other solutions, if travelling on my then wild camping would be done where possible and for this would make my own fire, using some of the Billy/hobo fire designs that you see on YouTube, easy to make, and of course means you don't have to carry a stove around with you. Most of my trips at this current time are in mainland Europe, so needed a more practical form of cooking, but also needed a solution that provided an almost unlimited supply of fuel so for this I turned to Coleman and purchased the Sportster Unleaded II, oh the irony considering Coleman are the main suppliers of Gas for my previous Trangia.

Fuel comes from the motorbike, via bulb pump siphon tube... end result tea on the go...

Chair

If I am honest this isn't "Essential" Kit, but a decent chair at the end of the day does afford some increased comfort levels. Normally on a solo trip I'd take a little stool as below.

This will fit in my top box, quite nicely,  less things strapped to the bike. But its not really a comfortable item for me to sit on. On solo trips once camp is set up, my preference is to either have a lie down somewhere or go for a walk and check out the surroundings, sometimes its hard for me to sit still for too long.

However on trips where with one other person or more, my preference is to take a proper camping chair, such as below.

Nov - 2011, Yes another kit revision. easily my best of the year though, Exped chair kit. Essentially its a small pack containing a sleeve and some stiffening poles (ooh err missues). My Exped air bed is slid into the sleeve and the poles are used to stiffen the pack, along with tensioning bands.  The result is a very comfortable lightweight chair formed from your bed. The perfect definition of 1 items two uses in my world!...

The chair pack sits in my tent pack, and barely takes up any room.. You can in theory leave it assembled to the bed and roll the whole lot up in one go. As another bonus when you flatten the chair down to a bed again, the cover acts as an additional sheet. Very impressive set up.

Table

Yes you read it correctly, table, Ha Ha. Still a little unsure about this one, but as self catering is my bag, then having a table to prepare/cook on is a useful addition. To be honest the market affords some neat little solutions, you can pick up a full size roll top table that packs down to nothing bigger or much heavier than the chair pack.

The other idea was to get a small sheet of Aluminium and slide it down inside one pannier, then when on site remove both panniers and use the sheet as a table top on top of the panniers.  Somehow though i'm suspecting I wouldn't be bothered to use this solution, simply because it would mean removing the panniers from the bike every day, and then on top of that, my panniers are "Canyon Cut" which wouldn't offer much stabilty.

So I was in a quandary to take a table or not, until one day wandering around Canvey Island camping I stumbled on this little beaut.

It's essentially a "table top" table, but it packs down to under 1kg, will fit in my pannier, and good enough to prepare food on or somewhere to rest my mug of tea. I was more impressed with its design, bought it without even deciding if it would be used, £9.99.

Still unsure, If short of space after packing, then this will be the one item to be left out!.

Electronic Items

Anyone that's followed my tours will know I like to make the odd video or two. On a typical trip in the past I've carried as follows.

Small compact Stills/Video camera (powered by AA Rechargeable)

Drift X170 HD (and rechargeable battery)

Mobile smart phone

Small Net book.

Amazon Kindle book reader.

Miniature veho spy camera (for alternative camera views on bike).

Scala Bike comm. (to talk to other rider/pillion and listen to Sat Nav)

Tom Tom Rider 2.

IPod + Small amp for on bike music.

Spare Rechargeable AA Batteries

Spare Rechargeable Drift Camera battery.

Pebble universal battery pack.

Approx 6 x 16gb SD cards

Assorted charging cables etc.

Being honest that's a fair amount of crap to carry round with me, it's all charged on the bike with exception to the Net book and I carry a spare battery for that and recharge off mains when possible.

Also it resulted in a fair amount of "Faffing" when wanting to take a photo, or make a video, so for future tours I've revised the kit. I no longer carry a net book, its simply too big and bulky. I also junked the spy camera's.

Of course "backing up" videos is a concern, but I've realised that if space is needed then an internet cafe and backup from the camera's via a pc on the IPOD which has some 60gb spare on its disk will suffice. In the past at the end of the holiday I have shot some 50gb of footage. My future tours I intend to keep that under 20gb, no mean feat when you think I am shooting in HD.

In my top box is a wired in car type cigarette light adaptor, during the course of a typical days ride ill be charging my pebble battery booster and the spare HD Drift camera (it has its own charger).

Once camp is set up all remaining devices can be charged via the Pebble.

I now plan to take most of my pictures and videos using my Galaxy SII smart phone, this has a remarkable picture quality for its size and a capacious 16gb of storage space, plenty for two weeks of Video diaries and photographs. My small stills/video camera will be virtually redundant, with the exception of occasionally leaving it by the hard shoulder for footage of me riding past to add a third party perspective angle.

The Drift Camera is an excellent little on bike camera, I have a helmet mount and a custom mount on the front forks for "action" style footage, details of which can be found on the "Projects" section of this website.