Sunday, August 11, 2024, 10:33:29AM EDT
This gear list is designed for living on the road (including occasional alpine passes) the last week of Spring, all of Summer, and the first two weeks of Fall following an Ultra DNB weekly schedule. There are a number of assumptions that strongly affect the decision to bring something or not. Almost all of these are the same considerations that a Tour Divide rider would make with one major addition: including a lightweight, fully remote home office:
The bike:
The gravel+ (touring) bike is metal, heavy (32 lbs), and virtually indestructible (for a reason).
The bags:
The body:
* Adventure shorts
* Padded cycling underwear
* High-vis synthetic short-sleeved shirt
* Xero sandles
* Helmet
* Glasses with reactive lense tinting
* IRL live streaming pack (see elsewhere)
Monday, August 5, 2024, 1:46:21PM EDT
The following can be strapped as a unit onto the crank-side pannier or worn in a messenger bag.
This is enough for a full day of work when it is possible to recharge at night.
When more water or food is needed I can put on a hydration pack and/or an ultra-light backpack and transport more stuff temporarily.
(Previously)
This list is ever-changing as I tweak it. Here are the main criteria for what gets on the list:
One thing that will seem odd to most bike tourists and packers is all the heavy winter gear I lug around even through the desert in hot months. This is because I’m more interested in creating a consistent system and rig that works for all GDMBR-like conditions no matter where they might occur. The extra weight does slow me down, but comes with the guarantee that not only can I survive anything but the most excessive, extreme weather anomalies for the locations that I bike according to my annual schedule but that I can work a solid, honest 40-hour week, and livestream everything but the work part. (That is where people look at me like I’m crazy. Most bike enthusiasts are looking to ignore work and tech as much as possible when they ride.)
Not as powerful as the separate dongle, plus need a second one anyway, one for connecting to the Starlink Mini wifi (or pub or whatever) and another to provide a network access point to connect to from the phone to control the Belabox software.
The official work i7 16” Macbook Pro pig-of-a-laptop burns through its internal battery in four hours. I would need one or two Baseus bricks just to use it for a single day when not plugged in.
Bringing the ultra-light (3.3 lbs) Macbook Pro 14” is roughly the same weight as bringing three Baseus battery bricks, but will run for 18 hours when fully charged. Considering that I can do almost everything I need to do for work officially and legally from this personal laptop I save a tremendous amount of weight and frustration that would be wasted trying to use the official computer. Until I get a modern Macbook Pro for work I’ll continue to bring the extra, and even then I probably will bring the two anyway just for the critical redundancy when and if things stop working on the official computer.
I carry two for the Belabox and two for the Starlink Mini.
I’ve been using these for more than four years at this point. They have been rock-solid for me and provide just enough juice for the Starlink Mini to work (and not more). Their smaller size (compared to the popular Renology) allows them to be scaled back and to have one charging while the other is working. A single brick will power a Starlink Mini for about four hours, the typical length of a major livestream segment. The same Baseus brick will power the Orange Pi for about 20 hours and another the Netgear Nighthawk modem in “high performance mode” (which requires removing the internal battery) for well over 24 hours straight.
The beauty of this power system is that everything is using the same modular battery banks so their is built-in redundancy. In fact, I can power both the modem and the Orange Pi from the same bank in a pinch with a small USB-C adapter (and have many times).
Inevitably I find myself needing an extra cable or connecting to something that isn’t the usual thing. For example, plugging directly into the Jackery in my car while driving instead of burning up the charged battery bricks. Three feet is the minimum to make these other scenarios possible without overly cluttering the kit on my back when compacted down.
Mostly weight. The one I bought weight almost triple the weight of the 65w charger. Also, the 65w is the minimum that will work directly with the Starlink Mini when I don’t want to burn batteries at all in camp with a hookup.