What's in your pack?

[Veronica]

He says sure and I say someday. Custom ones are wicked expensive.

V.

[cyclingnewbie]

I started out with just some water and a cell phone for rides through the neighborhood. Then I needed a small bag for keys, id, etc. Then I needed a little bigger bag for repair stuff (until then I was happily ignorant about the possibility of a breakdown!). Now I have a much bigger trunk bag on a rack, which I think looks kinda silly. But for a long time it seemed like every time I needed something, I didn't have it with me. So I have the usual repair stuff (I'm a new tube girl, not a patch-it girl), snacks, more water than I need, keys, id, money, phone, extra gloves (I hate it when my gloves get wet from sweat!), a jacket or something if the weather is questionable, Tylenol, chap stick (no lipstick), and always a hat for when I take off my helmet and my sweaty, wet hair is stuck to my head!

[pedalfaster]

and custom tandems...Oh my!

I used to paint my nails before races...to match my bike. Luckily my bike at the time was blue. I like those funky colors.

I have 4 solitaire diamond studs. Solitary solitaires to be precise. None of them match. I finally gave up wearing earrings at a very muddy, verry cold 24 hour race. My earlobes were freezing so I stopped to to remove my studs. I lost one in ~2ft of mud and said "the heck with that!".

Custom tandems...oh yeah! I'd take a custom tandem over a useless ring any day!. I'd have a hard time choosing between a custom Calfee or the Seven Ti tho'....

[nuthatch]

A ratty old tea towel (I have to blow my nose alot) and homemade peanut butter balls! Hmm, lipstick, huh?

[Trek420]

Veronica says "Custom ones are wicked expensive."

I thought all Tandems were custom. There are stock tandems? Shows what I know. I thought there were too many variables like "short captain, tall stoker, tall captain and stoker, short both...". Who knew?

Back to the bags. My theory is two kinds or riders; the cool ones who carry little to nothing, just what's in the rear pocket and snear at us with even an under the seat bag and then there's the riders with everything but the kitchen sink ...oh look! She DOES have the kitchen sink in the rear trunk!

And we may think it looks geeky to carry that much but my oh my are we glad you are there ;-)

Like on a recent ride (see "bonehead move of the day" thread) where a rider fell and broke her wrist one of our members had a rear rack with one of those square trunk'y bags. I thought "30 miles? With a bakery in the middle? You won't need all that".

But when she pulled up to the scene, I had 2 bandaids, those handi wipes and Aleve with me but she had a full professional first aid kit....

[jobob]

oh look! She DOES have the kitchen sink in the rear trunk

I resemble that remark

[Trek420]

but jobob, Trek420 also said "my oh my are we glad you are there ;-)"

because I believe it was you who came to my aid on the Diablo ride "oh look, I just happen to have an extra pair of full finger gloves"

OT again, I've often thought this, I believe there's a book in this forum, "the wit and wisdom of the TE women". You'd have to get permission to quote, and TE permission to use the name but Spazz, you write. How about it? There's nothing better out there for information

[fasteryet]

I go for the combined lipstick and SPF chapstick - Almay tinted chapstick. It has just a little color, and feels good. But it does leave a little color on the water bottle, so I only use it on special occasions. As for the pack, I have an under saddle bag that has a spare tube, plus a few instant patches, a small multi-tool, a little baggie with first aid stuff, a latex glove, a Clif or Luna bar, a handiwipe, and my Epipen. Cell phone and tiny wallet with ID and money go in my jersey pocket.

[annie]

Back to the bags. My theory is two kinds or riders; the cool ones who carry little to nothing, just what's in the rear pocket and snear at us with even an under the seat bag and then there's the riders with everything but the kitchen sink ...oh look! She DOES have the kitchen sink in the rear trunk!

I've witnessed a kitchen sink being pulled on a trailer behind a bike, and a barbeque grill ( a large one!) and a portable bar, complete with beverages, a canoe, (NOT all on the same bike) plus more weird things that I can't think of now. There's a group that ride RAGBRAI every year and they haul everything with them. Just amazing. They do it partly for the spectacle............ they must be the most photographed bunch there. Still, they actually ride with all that stuff......... when they were younger they used to ride from Colorado to Iowa before RAGBRAi and then ride RAGBRAI. They don't do that anymore.

Back to the lipstick...after seeing just what some people carry with them, a little lipstick doesn't seem like much. We - the women I ride with - have a little quote. "You can always do lips." Doesn't matter how sweaty or dirty or helmet-haired you are, throw on a little lipstick and you're set. Vanity, yep, but all in fun.

annie

[lkrider]

Oh yeah, RAGBRAI! Isn't the whole thing a spectacle...that's how our family got into cycling. We went to visit family in Craig, IA and the whole thing passed through town. WOW! we went back home to Oregon determined to join the fun the next year--and did!(1999) What a hoot! My son liked the bikes pulling stereos with full sized speakers best! My sister and I enjoyed the minimalist riders - two guys with nothing but a different colored pair of clean underwear for each day of the ride!