What are your "must haves"?

[smurfalicious]

On a womanly note, if you have any sporadiac cycle issue, a compact size tampon is nice to have in the saddle bag.

Tee hee! <sarcasm> as a stick up my butt, elitist, spandex wearing, "you are not worthy to polish my carbon fiber with your ExOfficio panties" racer snob I've found that my IUD is a much better solution. Not only is it incredibly lightweight, but I don't have periods anymore. I find this to be insanely beneficial to my rigorous training schedule of "Hmmm, today looks like a good day for a ride," and my strenuous weight lifting program of long neck bottle lifts (6 reps thankyouverymuch!). </sarcasm>

Kitchen sink bringers might do well to avoid looking at this. I got this bag from the Topeak rep and I love it!

http://www.topeak.com/products/Bags/ProPackMicro

It holds a tube, my Park MT-1 "multi-tool," CO2 cartridge and levers. If I really beat on it I can get some chapstick in there. I suppose for anything above 50 miles I might switch to my slightly larger bag and take two tubes, two CO2 just in case.

Otherwise I throw my Jimi wallet in my back pocket with my phone, some grub in said pockets and call it good.

I can empathize with those who bring what seems to others as a lot of stuff. I was very much the same way for a long time and then inevitably I'd regularly forget something, or it would get taken out of the pack and a few rides would go by and I'd realize I didn't need it.

I took an outdoor living skills/survival class a while back and one of our outings was to simulate being lost on a day hike. We had to have our packs weighed beforehand, couldn't be over ten pounds. Essentially an extra layer or two and snacks was all we could bring. So we had to build and sleep in emergency shelters in November, at 3500 feet.

Perhaps that has an impact on my minimalist packing. Sure I could bring a boo boo kit, but is a bandaid going to really make my scraped up palms feel any better riding home? Probably not. Major flesh wounds will be addressed with whatever piece of apparel fits the bill, and in that case my phone will do lots more good.

And to this day whenever I travel I bring oh, about ten pairs more socks and underwear than I could possibly need. Why? Because once when I was young I had to spend a week at my dad's and forgot underwear. It was awful and despite only being 15-20 miles from my mom's I didn't dare say anything to my dad because uh, well I haven't talked to him in 8 years if that says anything. Inside out underwear, not too terribly uncomfortable though.