What do you carry?

On any ride I carry a mini pump, tube, tyrelevers and bits of old tyre to put under cuts etc. Never need any more than that.

If you have to stop in a race you're stuffed. A new tyre isn't going to help you win. Its time to go to the saggin wagon.

OK, then what if you are on a "recreational" or training ride of a great length? No saggin wagon then unless you have really really really nice friends with no lives. 🙂

Up to you what you carry, you can't predict everything that could go wrong. I snapped a chain during a long ride the other week, couldn't do much about that (it happened at a good time though, nearing the top of a long gradual climb, I rang for a lift then rolled 10 miles to the dip at the bottom of the valley while waiting)

FWIW, I carry: spare tube, mini-pump, levers, multi-tool, box of patches, money, phone and a rain cape (even if it's sunny it's a light extra layer you can put on to stay warm while waiting). I think that that's about the minimum I would try to get away with on a longer ride. Beyond these you can try to guess which problem you could have, perhaps a spoke key or chain tool or outer tyre, but you can't carry everything, so you're better off just checking things over carefully before you go.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by diane143
OK, then what if you are on a "recreational" or training ride of a great length? No saggin wagon then unless you have really really really nice friends with no lives. 🙂

Well, you can approach it as a simple risk analysis experiment. Each of us has a different idea of what's likely to happen and how serious it would be. You can do a simple analysis as follows:

On a sheet of paper make four columns titled something like "What might happen", "Probability", "Severity" and "Total".

Under the first column list all the things you believe might go wrong on a long ride such as flat, bent wheel, struck by lightning etc. Then rate on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being most likely or most severe. Try to use the entire range of 1-10 if you can. When done multiply Probability by Severity and put result in last column. A spreadsheet program like Excel is great for this. Now resort the list by the last column. The list of what might happen is now in order of worst event first. Begin by deciding what items you need to deal with the event. At some point the weight and volume of the items will make carrying them impractical.

After doing all of this you'll probably find that the 'normal' items like tube, levers, patch kit, etc. are what float to the top. Don't forget to consider a cell phone, money and basic first aid.

Good Luck.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by diane143
Is there a standard gear pack people carry with them on long rides/races? Tube and tools are obvious, but I've heard there are those that actually carry an extra tire as well.

Is there a list of suggestions kicking around?

Thanks!

Diane

Here's what I take. I try to keep things as simple as possible when I ride, I hate things on my back. 1) cell phone, fully charged ( I can't express enough how important this is), btw hitch hiking 50 miles really sucks I know from experience. 2) credit card, I can't even count how many times I've needed this thing especially if there is a really good coffee shop nearby. 3) CO2, tire levers, and patchs, obvious. 4) Powerbars or equivelent, these serve a double purpose, first food, duh, and second if you have a rip in your sidewall your can place the wrapper inside the tyre over the hole and you can ride home, this is an old mtb trick I picked up from racing mtb's when I was younger. That should be enough to get you through any problems good luck and remeber it's not where you go or how far you've gone, it about everything in between.

What a long strange journey this has been.