Equipment we use...WARNING - Geek post!!!! :)

If you are not interested in this subject you can skip right over it...but for those of you that are geeks, read on :)

I spent a lot of time planning for our journey - both for the motorbikes in India and the bicycles in China. We sent a box to Beijing and picked the stuff up when we got the bikes, so all the planning had to be done before we even left for India. We did not think that we would be able to get reliable equipment while on the road....and though we have found plenty of outdoor stores in China and Tibet, I think we made the right decision. This was definitely the case with motorbike riding gear in India (the quality of helmets available is a bit too scary for my valuable head to think about :)

The bikes you know about - Trek 4500 WSD mountain bikes - but you probably are not aware of how much we have come to love them...and not just because they are head and shoulders above all the other bikes we see here! Both of us will readily admit to being bike snobs - A worked in the bike industry and has had access to the best kit available and I am just a gear head and insist on the best :) These bikes are great! They have handled everything we have thrown at them - they handle amazingly well, even fully loaded - and we have no hesitations taking them anywhere we want to go. We have put over 1000kms on them thus far - on the flat, climbing and descending big hills, on pavement, on dirt, on rocky paths and on singletrack - and they have not even burped! You never know, A might take hers home to add to her collection of bikes...

We only have rear racks on the bikes and they are rated for 50lbs. We each have a set of panniers with clothes and tools, etc. and then on top we lash the tent, sleeping bags and Thermarests, plus a bag of spare bits that doesn't fit anywhere else (our cups, shower shoes, waterbottles, etc.).

How much detail do you want??? Well I will give you something in the middle :)

BIKE KIT: We probably have more bike tools than we need but I didn't know what we would find so I have BB and freewheel tools in addition to the standard small trail tool that has everything from allen keys to spoke wrenches and a chain tool. Of course we have a patch kit, but we have been though both of the ones we brought and are working on one we purchased in Lhasa - we've had 12 puncture so far! We have a WrenchForce pump with a gauge and it has been getting an enormous amount of use...poor thing, but it is holding up to the onslaught well :) I also have a Paratool, which is like a Leatherman, so it has pliers and a saw, in addition to screwdriver blades and knife blades of all sorts. We have duct tape and some zip ties, too. As for bike parts we have spare spokes and lots of little nuts and bolts, spare cables plus 3 full sets of brake blocks (we were going to be doing a lot of descending, if you remember :)

CAMPING KIT: Ah, I had such fun investigation what we would need, making sure it was light enough to cycle with and sturdy enough to deal with the extreme conditions we will find in this very rural and high altitude place.

The tent is a Mountain Hardwear Airjet 2. It is a single wall tent, meaning that it doesn't need a rain fly as it's waterproof already (that makes it lighter and faster to set up). There are mixed reviews on this tent and I wouldn't take it to a damp place as there is just not enough ventilation, but it's dry at altitude, so I figured it would be ok...and it has been. We have had condensation on the inside, but nothing bad, certainly not enough to make us wet and cold...when it's wet and cold outside :). The worst condensation was when we had heavy rain that first night we camped; we had no condensation when we camped on the old road. There are vents in the top of the tent and around the bottom edge and you just need to open the vents to allow the air to flow. I think part of the condensation that first night was caused by the closing of the top vents - it was really raining and blowing and the water was coming in the vents so we closed them. I also like the inpenetrableness of the waterproof fabric as it's also warmer when the wind is blowing...and we know this from experience - our tent is toasty :)

The sleeping bags are from Blacks, the UK sports retailer, and they are the 2 season Quad bags, (polyfill, not down) in the women's model (makes them lighter because they are shorter :). The bags are rated to 0C-ish (whether they are warm enough or not always depends if you are a hot sleeper or a cold sleeper) and I was concerned that they might not be warm enough but we have not had any problems and we have had frost form on the inside of the tent - that is a good sign :). We also had great fun in purchasing some silk bedsheets at a market in Beijing and had them sewn into a big pillowcase shape (that is exactly how I explained it to the woman at the tailor shop using the Mandarin dictionary :) so we have silk inside the bags (posh and girly - one sheet is off white and one is pink :) and that definitely keeps us warmer!

We also have two Thermarests - the women's TrailLite model. They are the big indulgence as they are not super light but they are fantastic insulators against the cold, hard ground and they definitely soften the rocky ground that we have been sleeping on. Honestly, there is no substitute for a good night's sleep when we are wearing ourselves out like we are. The bags and the Thermarests we had the opportunity to test out at a few bike races the summer before we left and after that experience I knew A was never going to part with her Thermarest....we just had to bring it or she wouldn't get any sleep in a tent :). She has had some of her best sleep in all of Tibet sleeping on her Thermarest. I can sleep anywhere, so I'm happy :)

The other two necessary items that I fussed over were the stove and the water filter. It is cold here and having something warm to eat and drink will help keep us alive, so we needed a good stove. (Needless to say...having something warm to drink is the ONLY thing that will get A out of the tent in the morning, so it better be a good stove :) A gets a dodgy stomach fairly easily and there are rumors that Giardia is fairly common in the Tibet water supply...we needed a good water filter/purifier as the best solution or we would be boiling a *whole lot of water*. Well, I have been an outdoor person most of my life, I have read Outside Magazine (years ago, before it was all full of ads)...I'm a gear head and I love REI :) I know who the big players are and I read lots of reviews on the web, emailed my brother :), and decided to go with MSR for both the stove and the water filter.

We have an MSR Whisperlite International stove - it burns all sorts of fuel, whatever is available, including unleaded petrol (which is what we are burning now). I tested the stove at A's Dad's house with unleaded before we left and nearly lit myself on fire (we did it outside in the bricked walkway - no potential of lighting the place on fire, I promise :)...I am much better at it now :):):) We started from Lhasa with kerosene (or what we think might be kerosene - it's not in the dictionary...we had some weird experiences with the liquid that we bought...we are now using much cheaper and much more identifiable! unleaded petrol). The stove sounds like a jet and it heats the water incredibly fast...but it uses a lot of fuel. I have a 350ml bottle and it lasts about 3 days. We ran out of kerosene and couldn't get anymore in Medro Gunkar (but it was fun trying :) so we bought the unleaded. When we got back to Lhasa I bought a new 1 liter fuel bottle so we should be fine for a week cooking everyday.

The water filter is MSR's MiniWaterWorks and it is excellent! I used it in India (their water is pretty dodgy there, too :) on tap water and we have been sucking several liters of water a day, through the filter :), out of the Tibetan streams and into our bottles. A murky stream will slow the filter down, but it's so easy to take apart, wipe the sludge off, screw it back together and it is back up to speed.

We bought a cheap stainless steel pot in the market in Lhasa and it works fine. We have 2 sets of chopsticks we got at the grocery store, but I also have some camping silverware...but we never use it, chopsticks are handier :). We each have a pocket knife for slicing the garlic and ginger...and sharpening sticks to be toasting forks :) We have 2 plastic mugs that we bought in Hong Kong so that we had something to make tea/coffee in for the long train journey to Beijing - we still have them and still use them. Brilliant! and they were cheap, too :) We have a foldable bucket that we use for washing, it's army green :) I also have a magic bag of camping supplies with emergency foil blankets, some hothands chemical heaters, paracord, a whistle, a lighter, spare shoelaces, etc. :)

That is about it....we are well prepared as you can well see!