The cyclists network

When we camped in Mt Cook Village we used - as we usually do - our ABUS loop cable to lock our bicycles. That night there was no tree near by our tent so we grabbed a thick branch of a bush and tied the cable around it. The next morning after we had checked the place for possibly forgotten things we continued to Twizel, some 70 km from Mt Cook Village.

In Twizel we were setting up our tent. Suddenly I noticed that I had forgotten the loop cable. It was still in the bush. Ahh, what a painful moment! Again such a moment when you think how stupid you must be. We had forgotten several items on our journey but most of the time had got it back ... somehow. The steel cable had been a good piece of gear and it was gone now. Since we arrived in New Zealand, we have been touring with only one lock. So the loop cable was helpful to lock all four wheels or to lock the bicycles to something. We considered taking the tourist bus shuttle from Twizel to Mt Cook Village but a quick gain-loss calculation told us that it wasn't worth it. We let it go, RIP cable!

Two days later we came over the Lindis Pass and stopped at a free camp site. It wasn't a DoC (Department of Conservation) campsite but the sign read 'campers welcome'. Very nice! We met Adam on this campsite. Adam just started his bicycle trip and plans to cycle from New Zealand to Switzerland. We had dinner together under the trees while it was pouring down. Adam was heading to Christchurch and wanted to make a stop-over in Mt Cook Village too. When he heard about the loop cable story, he promised to look for it. And we were confident that it was still there, hidden in the bushes.

Getting back the loop cable

More than a week later at a different place, now on the west coast, I was holding the loop cable back in my hands! Again we have got something back. Adam had mailed it to Hokitika. Thanks so much, Adam! The cyclists rescue and mail service network worked perfectly!

Bicycle adjustment in Sweden/Finland

We are at Riga airport and waiting for the flight to Dushanbe. So there is some time to have a look at the modifications of our bicycles.

Back in Stockholm Sarah bought her Brooks B17 saddle (there is a Brooks retailer in Stockholm old town Gamla Stan). She had problems with the WTB Pro Gel mountain bike saddle that was on her bike. Since she got her Brooks saddle I haven't heard any complaint.

I was riding on my SDG mountain bike saddle but replaced it by Sarah's WTB Pro Gel saddle. We were carring my SDG saddle for a while and finally sent it back home when we arrived in Finland.

In Jyväskylä, Finland, we swapped our stems. Sarah's riding position was not ideal and she had numb palms (despite the Ergon GC3 bar ends) and backache. My stemis a double adjustable stem whereas Sarah's headset can be adjusted in only a single point. The double adjustable stem allows a more upright riding position. In Helsinki Sarah bought a bended handle bar that again lifts the hand position by 2-3 cm. It all helped, the numb palms and backache are gone.

When we arrived at Noora's place we received the spare part parcel that my brother had sent from Germany. I was riding a 44-teeth chain ring and a 16-teeth sprocket in Sweden and Finland. The first gear was easy enough, but would not be adapted to Central Asian and Chinese mountains. I replaced the 44-teeth chain ring by a 40-teeth Spécialités TA one.

Back in Germany we had ordered the Schwalbe Marathon XR tyres. These tyres are supposed to be the best for touring. Interestingly enough, Schwalbe stopped its production last year. We hoped to receive the XR's at Noora`s place with our spare part parcel as well. Unfortunately the online shop was not able to deliver them. So we were looking for the XR's in Helsinki without any success. At the end we decided to continue with our tyres and bought two foldable Schwalbe Marathon Extreme tyres as spare tyres. Let's see how far the Schwalbe tyres will last. After 2350 km we couldn't see any wear on our Schwalbe Marathon and Marathon Plus.

Drinking pond water - Wir trinken Teichwasser

The pond

While we were sitting on the terrace and drinking coffee, we thought that it was high time to test our water filter for the next cups of coffee. As there are two fish ponds in our garden, we picked the dirtiest one.

We have got the MSR Miniworks water filter, a small water filter with a filter capacity of max. 2000 litres.

One glass of dirty water was filtered through the MSR and the result was good. The filtered water was clear and didn't smell. And the taste? 3 people volunteered to give it a try. The 2 Sarahs and Gina sipped the filtered water and confirmed that the taste was ok. They haven't died yet or complained. They are all alive.

Yes, I did not try it myself :-) Not yet ...

Rain gear - Regenausrüstung

Sarah mentioned our rain gear test, but what exactly do we have and what are the key features. We will be able to give more feedback and experiences in a few months time when we will have cycled weeks of rain.

From the bottom up:

Overshoes: Vaude Bike Gaiter

• Big enough so that you can slip in with regular shoes easily

Rain trousers: Vaude Drop Pants

• Special bicycle trousers, i.e. strengthened where needed
  
• Small pack size (the smaller, the better)

Rain jacket: Marmot PreCip  

• Underarm zips (good venting during sport activities)
• Small pack size (the smaller, the better)
• Slanted chest pockets (good access while carrying a backpack) 
• Wide enough to be worn over fleece pullovers etc.

Gloves: SealSkinz All Weather Cycle Gloves

• Waterproof (nothing is worse than wet, cold hands)
• Breathable

Glasses: Alpina Twist Two Varioflex

• Varioflex glasses adjust according to light conditions  

Rain gear is crucial but actually we don't want to use it :-)  Please rain, stay away!

How many clothes? Wieviel Kleidung?

Peter's clothes

In less than 4 weeks we will be hitting the roads. There is still some time left to think about how many clothes to load onto the bicycles. During our Pyrenees trip we became aware of how few clothes you actually need. A real surprise! You definitely do not need 10 t-shirts! As we plan to travel cool Scandinavia, mountainous Central Asia and hot South East Asia we need a healthy mix of everything.

A couple of days ago we made a test: how many bags would our clothes fill? So we packed everything that we want to carry with us. Keep in mind that we packed everything, even clothes that we would wear that day instead of having them in our bags. We would be literally buck naked.

The photograph shows Peter's clothes (without shoes). Info: tile size 30 x 30 cm. Look at that! It fits into one single (rear pannier) bag! What's in there? Underwear, t-shirts, pairs of socks, cycling leg warmers, cycling gloves, beanie, cap, mid-layer shirt, shorts, a trouser, fleece pullovers, soft-shell, rain jacket and a towel. Total weight including bag: 5.5 kg. 

Knowing that everything fits, we might consider packing some more things :-)

In the coming days we'll update the Gear section with more details.

Babel fish - Babelfisch

So, what is the best dictionary in the world? A multi-language dictionary that everybody can use and understand? A dictionary that helps you in everyday life? A dictionary that fits your bike bags or even your pocket?

Unfortunately we don't have an iPhone. Otherwise this app would be interesting :-)

We found two very useful dictionaries: Langenscheidt's "OhneWörterBuch" (nice play on words as dictionary in German literally means 'words-book' and "OhneWörterBuch" means 'without-words-book') and "Point It".

The concept of these booklets is simple: an image collection of items that a traveller may need. Just point it and everybody understands you! Or how would you explain someone that you suffer from diarrhoea?

Netbook

There it is! Our travel companion arrived this week. It's the Asus Eee PC1001p.

The decision to buy a netbook and to take it with us on tour wasn't easy. Its official weight of 1.2 kg equals 12 bars of chocolate and in the worst case you can't eat your netbook. True is also that you are dependent on power supply. On the other hand a netbook can be a convenient storage medium for photos and can make communication easier. Anyway, if it turns out that the netbook is more a burden than a benefit we'll send it back home.

Hmm, could I use the netbook to watch the FIFA World Cup 2010? :-)

Let's hope it will work well as the medium to our blog and you ... and somehow looses weight over time. 

Why did we pick this netbook?

• Lightweight: 1.2 kg
• Battery life: specs claim 11 h
• Hard-drive: 160 GB, enough to store photos
• Screen: matt
• Integrated SD card reader (our cameras use SD format)
• Integrated web cam
• OK price 250 Euros

Experiences 

It is still too early to give good feedback. The only "problem" we experience today is the chiclet-keyboard that has 92% of a regular sized keyboard. We probably have to get used to the new size. The keyboard is in general very good. Well made keys with good pressure point.

Kitchen

Stove: MSR Whisperlite Internationale

Campingaz

In the last few years we used the typical Campingaz burners (like the Bleuet 270 Micro) with butane/propane cartridges. There is nothing wrong with these burners. They do work well. However, in countries where the so familiar blue cartridges are not available the Campingaz burners simply do not work.
So we picked the MSR Whisperlite Internationale and a 887 ml fuel bottle. The huge bottle should give us some peace of mind in regions with minimum petrol supply.

Why did we pick this stove?

The MSR Whisperlite Internationale burns different types of liquid fuels, a key advantage over the Campingaz ones.





Experiences 

The stove needs to be preheated, something that you don’t need when you use the Campingaz stove. We had to get used to the “big” flame that was really a surprise. Manual:

A brief soccer ball-size flame is normal. 

One of the first tests with the MSR Whisperlite Internationale: making an espresso takes less than 3 min. and, hey, it still tastes like espresso. No, the espresso cooker is too heavy and does not go with us!

Espresso please!

Sink: Sea to Summit Kitchen Sink 

On camping sites you see many people carrying plastic bowls. They are useful to carry water, wash-up, etc. We’ll use a different solution. Lightweight (170 g), foldable hence space-saving: Sea to Summit 10 l kitchen sink.

Tent

Kaikkalla’s Tripole 2

Our home is Kaikkalla’s Tripole 2 (2009), an all-season, 3.09 kg, 2-person tunnel tent. Globetrotter launched its private outdoor label Kaikkalla in 2009. So we bought this tent as one of the first guinea pigs. At that time customer reviews were not available.

Why did we pick this tent?

The Tripole 2 apsis was a major key point for us. It’s big enough to keep all bags inside and to host 2 persons on rainy days.

Experiences

Castorama tarp

An alternative with similar features would have been Hilleberg’s Nallo 2 GT but the difference would have cost 300 € more. The tent seams came unsealed by default in 2009. We had sealed them but still had some rain coming through around the zipper seams (after days of rain) during our Pyrenees trip. We’ll re-make the sealing before departure.

For the Pyrenees trip we purchased a tarp at Castorama (French building center), adapted it to the form of the tent so we could used it as a tent footprint. The tarp has proven to be useful on rainy days when the ground is muddy but also to protect our tent, sleeping bags, etc. from splash water on the bike trailer.

Original tarp

Our self made Castorama tarp had not been robust enough. Things with light edges made it easily through the tarp. For this trip we bought the original Tripole 2 footprint. Its loops prevent the tarp from getting out of place.