One thing I discovered when I set off on my bicycle tour of the Olympic Peninsula was that I needed to learn more about lightweight bicycle touring.
On that bike trip last month I carried a couple of books, food in cans, a two-person tent (on a solo ride?), extra fuel bottles, yada yada. There were clothes I did not even wear. Just look at that mess of stuff spread out across the picnic table on the first night. I had added 55 pounds to my bicycle touring experience before throwing in a couple of last-minute odds and ends.
The Adventure Cycling Association, descendants of those folks who brought us the Bikecentennial 30 years ago, has come to the rescue of bike touring hogs like me. They have posted a field-tested guide for ultralight cycling.
For many, ultralight touring means carrying 2 or more credit cards and a change of bicycling shorts and jerseys. No. You can get your basic stuff down to 15 pounds, according to the authors of the article, and still not depend on motels or bed-and-breakfast inns to get by.
Packing list
The packing list for 15 pounds of base gear (without food and water) is spartan. But it covers everything you'd need to go bicycle touring for four days across the remote mountains trails of Montana, which the authors did.
The basic strategy is to leave behind the unnecessary and find the lightest possible gear for what you need to take. Look for lightweight tents — 2 1/2 pounds per person. There are sleeping bags out that are rated at 30 or 40 degrees and weigh in at about a pound, ditto for a pad.
As for food, the authors like oatmeal for breakfast (boy, so do I). Also nuts and nut butters pack lots of energy. Unless they've improved, however, I can't vouch for the freeze-dried backpacker food. Give me good old tuna noodle casserole.
A packing list helpfully explains how the authors got down to 15 pounds and companies that sell those products.
I notice a few things from scanning the list: There are no panniers or trailers. Gear is stuffed in bags and lashed to a bike rack or carried in a lightweight backpack. The ultralight tent is left at home, use the fly and ground cloth.
After looking at the list, I decided I'm not interested in getting down to 15 pounds of gear for my next bicycle tour. But I see plenty of places where I can cut corners and still travel and camp very comfortably with half the weight I lugged around before.
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