Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Gear purchases for the AML

     Decisions have been made. Websites have been visited. Paypal has been remunerated. Gear has been ordered. I settled on Revelate for bags. I liked Ollie's TD setup so I stole it. A Viscacha, Tangle, and Gas Tank are en route from Alaska as I type this. For not-getting-lost I chose the Garmin eTrex 20. Again, this appears to be a popular choice amongst the Dividerati. I am a little puzzled as it appears at first blush as if you can attach a bike mount OR a carabiner as a tether, but not both. I need to give it a closer look this evening.

     As I've stated in a previous post, I am going with the RayWay Quilt, Tarp, and Net-Tent. This choice necessitates a sleeping pad as the quilt has no bottom. For that I chose a ProLite Gear EvoPad 1/8. It's 7' long and weighs 3.5 ounces! Pretty cool. Hopefully it's comfortable. I'll cut it down once I've figured out my sleep position and how warm my legs need to be. One final, small purchase that I expect to be very important is a Halo Headband. I've recently gone away from wearing contacts while riding to 'scripts sports glasses. They have two drawbacks; one, they collect sweat on the inside, and two, they fog up on really humid days especially as it cools in the evening. I'm hoping the Halo will fix both problems though the fogging problem may require some spit as well.

     My choice of light was picked a while ago and I've used it extensively over the last two months, a Niterider PRO 1400. It's super-bright, and works great for single-track except that it sometimes comes off its mount. I don't ride much single-track in the dark so I haven't yet figured out what makes it stay on which is about 40% of the time. While the PRO 1400 should be fine for the AML I may need to consider the Mi-Newt for the TD. The time and resources to charge the PRO 1400 8-cell battery seems like it will put some unnecessarily harsh limitations on my lodging options. Finally, I'm taking a closer look at my tires. 235 miles of pavement versus 78 miles of rail-trail, 65 miles of forest roads, 22 miles of easements, and NO single-track has me strongly considering cross tires instead of the standard MTB tires. I hope to have pictures up as soon as I get the bags and pack them.

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