The breathless marketing of Trek's new chainless bicycle will no doubt capture bike industry news in coming weeks as the next new thing in bicycling.
But since I sometimes follow different trails, I'm going to report on something that I discovered this morning that could revolutionize and improve your sag-supported bicycle touring experience — the Luggage Locator.
I've been on many across-state bicycle tours and have never had to repair a broken bike chain (I always carry a chain tool though), nor have I got my pants leg caught in a bike chain. But I have spent countless hours of my life searching for my black duffel bag amidst a pile of hundreds of other black or green duffel bags at the end of a bicycle tour stage.
Luggage
It doesn't matter if the tour operators use volunteer gorillas to throw the bags off the back of a truck or use a numbering system to sort the luggage; it always takes too long to find my bag so I can stake out a camp site and head to the showers.
Maybe it's because I show up all hot, sweaty, and dehydrated, with salt stinging my eyes as I roll bags over in search of my own black, duct-tape decorated duffel.
About 10 or 15 years ago, after my friend and I found the bags that we put on a truck together separated by about 100 feet, we talked about how cool it would be to have a “beeper” in the bags like those the automakers were putting in cars.
Newspaper ad
Then this morning I spotted an ad for the Luggage Locator in a circular in the newspaper. The device locates your luggage from a distance of 60 feet with beep activated by a small remote.
This thing may have been around for awhile; I'm not in the habit of leafing through newspaper inserts from department stores. I have not field-tested it, but plan to do so at the next mass bicycle ride I attend.
It costs $20 and also can be used when waiting for your luggage at the baggage carrosel at the airport.
Just so you know the type of items I seek out to “revolutionize” my bicycle camping experience — the last “high tech” device I bought for a bike tour was a tiny battery-operated fan.
As for Trek's chainless bike, I'll be interested to read the reviews when they start coming in.
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