Space saving tips and camping essentials
 

As we've now been on the road for over 7 months we have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. Especially now that we are camping more and preparing our own food there have been several things that are very useful that I want to share:

Large chopping board in pastic - serves as a plate, platter, chopping board and much much more. I store mine on the outside/top of my topbox. As I have easily remmovable panniers the topbox serves as a table top and the panniers are seats - ggreat for camping.

Headtorch, and keep it handy. Mine is always on the outside poket of my tankbag.

Cable ties, electrical tape and rubber off-cuts. It seems that most things can be temporarily fixed with one or multiple of the above.

12V air compressor- not only has it saved me three times but also countless other motorcycles stranded on the roadside or in camping sites

For the tech savvy a phone or small laptop that has WiFi. Seems almost everywhere in Thailand, Malaysia and now Turkey has free WiFi

Sounds like good tips to me.

I cut my blown inner tubes into strips of various widths..then use them to roll up my clothes with.

They also come in handy as shock cords for the tent stake down points.

daryl

Cut up strips of innertube
 

Yeah this is a great idea. They're called ranger bands and they're very strong, much better than elastic bands. They also burn very well so are ideal for fire lighting too.

Steve
xXx

JB Weld and a few bits of beer can, in an emergency, can be used to patch the magnesium LHS cover of a DR650 when you drop it hard off road and the gearlever punches a freakin hole in the sidecover.:( Just use some petrol to wipe oil away from the area and roughen up the case with a knife blade or sandpaper taking care not to get crap inside.

JB WELD Never leave home without it!!!!!!:thumbup1:

Yup, head torch absolutely essential and stops your day ending at 4pm when it goes VERY dark in some places.

I can also recommend taking a pair fleecy slippers. Ideal for tent or digs. The keep your tootsies warm in your sleeping bag, and if you're in digs you'll be walking on a lot of cold floors.

Baby wipes - face, hands, bum, bike.

Happy travelling :mchappy:

Glue, Glue and Gaffa tape
 

All the following went under the seat with some of the above mentioned items

Gaffa tape, super glue, rubber glue (Shoe Goo), a bag of nylock nuts and bolts. Plus the usual suspects. levers, fuses,tools..

I used them all on a two up 4 month road tour of Europe so off road would be harder on the equipment.

Yup baby/face wipes are great for cleaning you and your cookware..

'' '' --Baby wipes - face, hands, bum, bike. -- ""

Ah, I see you get four uses out of them , that's excellent !
I would have stopped at three myself .

In that order ????????? :rolleyes2:



I've just noticed you're on the Wirral ???? Small world.

For patching and glueing
 

Always carry a glue stick (for those electric glue guns) with you when traveling. Just heat the end of it with a match or lighter and then rub onto the hole you need to patch or between two things you want to glue together. Wala!

Army folding shovel. I got mine from an army supply store in Munich that sells original used Bundeswehr equipment. Great for so many things besides digging a trench and dune around your tent if it won't stop raining. The BW one can for example be also used as saw and axo for cutting wood, as hammer, as kickstand for the bike, etc.

I also always carry a small led light with a crank lever that charges small capacitors because we all know that batteries are going to die at the worst possible moment right when you need them most.

thingys and wire!
 

can't believe nobody mentioned it so far.

Wire - I carry 2m of strong wire, rolled up it almost doesn't take any space and it's the life safer.

Rope - a strong but small textile rope. Together with wire and duck tape we attached a handlebar back to the bike till we reached a village.

Thingys - no idea what their real name is, but I love them: http://www.ihb-illingen.com/bilder/p...elle-gross.png

I love the glue stick tip!

Jubilee Clips.

I have a few various sizes but also a strip of the band and a handful of ends to make up any size. The don't go very small so keep a few little ones.

You can get stainless steel zip ties; they are great for holding exhausts back on.

Jubilee clips lol Aldi are selling them set of 20 £2 all sizes

Another name for them:

hose clamps



...but that's not nearly as uplifting as "jubilee". In times requiring their use, the most uplifting term may be best suited...

I've said this before, but my best space saving tip is buy your luggage first! That way, you know (as you buy more stuff) how much room your kit takes up and how little space you have left. Focuses your mind on both size and weight for what you're gonna take on your trip.

Before my trip I regularly slung my panniers over a chair and eye'd up what I was planning on taking! Gross luggage weight was c30kgs in the end (suprisingly light compared to most!).

30kg of Tshirts?

Thongs !

Thongs as in what my SO wears under her skirt or the type that go on your feet at the beach?

Note: Do not confuse the two. You will get no foot protection and she will most definitely walk awkwardly.

Nigel.

As he is English would of thought under skirt so no VPL, (visible pantie line), for the concerning lady rider lol
Thong in oz is Flip flops in UK

Great tips and tricks. Thanks for the shares..

The ones I was going to submit have already been added.

Thanks for sharing.

:scooter::euro:

fantastic advice beerchug

Freezing bags.

http://www.p-lindberg.dk/ImageBaseDK...21/9021664.jpg

Kepp things dry no matter what bag you pack it in and a roll of that doesn't take much space.
Can keep a camera safe at a river crossing failure.
And you can get them all over the world.

Niklas

From many years of backpacking I learned that 90% of what you think you need is in fact mostly useless. Once on the road pay close attention to what you actually use every day. Anything you don't touch for a week is a prime candidate to be dropped unless it is part of (a) a first aid kit, (b) a survival kit, or (c) bike repair kit.

Also pay attention to luxuries which you don't actually need. Take a few of these, but be ruthless and limit the number to only your top favorites. For example I want a DSLR camera, but decided I would rather not worry about the size, weight, and fragility so I use a high-end compact camera instead.

Two-week shakedown trips are a great way to find out what these items are. Anything you didn't use needs to be reviewed. Any luxury item needs to be balanced against how much it improved the quality of your trip compared to the extra weight and space it takes up.

We use a trick on our trips to limit ourselves to what we consider the bare essentials: a packing list of trips past that we adjust after every trip. Everything we didn't need or use (unless it belonged to othalan's (a), (b), or (c) list) goes home during the trip. Once back we open the package and cross out everything from our list that was in there, plus the stuff that we didn't send back because we still thought we might need it.

The packing list for my wife and me is now one sheet of paper that contains everything we really need, from underwear to tripod, from sleeping bag to cable ties. We still look ridiculously overloaded two-up on that bike but we're getting more efficient every time we travel. The only tricky bit that cannot be covered by a single list is clothing - you obviously need different clothes for Africa then for Norway.

Try to make everything have two jobs:

If you take a pen, then wrap your electrical tape round it and ditch the original roll holder.

Do you really need shampoo, clothes liquid and something for the pots & pans?

Use trousers with zip off shorts, and roll your clothes rather than folding them.

Use merino wool underclothes as they resist stinking for a long time, so need less washing.

Take the phone numbers for the British embassies in the countries you're visiting (or those of your country obviously).

Take several extra plastic bags. Good for smelly clothes, keeping feet dry, carrying water...

Use a travel towel - and get the biggest you can. Nothing worse than not being able to dry yourself when it's cold out.

Use down sleeping bags, they roll up much smaller for the same warmth as synthetic bags.


Don't skimp on your own protection, your bike's tyres & brakes or your first aid kit!

Check out Dr Bronners! :thumbup1:

All we take are two bars of soap. One for my wife because she claims to have very sensitive skin and thus needs something special (aka more expensive) and one really cheap bar for me and the dishes. Thus, in terms of equipment I am but a fork :laugh:

I've only JUST noticed this reply (not on here very often). Small world, indeed! beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="" title="beerchug" smilieid="249" class="inlineimg" />

I too love the gluestick idea, and have just added one to my toolroll.

This is some very good advice, in fact I would go as far as saying if something doesn't have at least two uses then is it really necessary? Even with your tools, there are tools that are more useful and thus more space saving then others.

Take my tyre lever (I have three as two is not enough) as an example. I have two the same and 1 extra long, smooth but with a 22mm ring spanner at the other end, I use the BMW 22mm hex adaptor (for the front axle) wedged into the ring spanner so I have now three tools in one.

1 x long tyre lever
1 x 22mm front axle wrench
1 x hammer (due to the weight of the 22mm hex adaptor, it also serves well as a hammer.

Now if only all my tools were so versatile.

Oh and the funny thing was that I didn't intend to make this tool, somehow the 22mm ring spanner was just a bit too tight and I couldn't get the hex adaptor out once hammered in, now I wouldn't leave home without it!! :thumbup1:

Compression sacks
Not sure why no-one else has mentioned them. They halve the size of your clothes. I've got one for my clothes and one for my fleece. You want the smallest size you can fit your stuff in. The smaller it is the closer the compression straps can go. Yes, it makes it a pain to get something out quickly, but how often do you say "oh damn! I need a different t-shirt right now!" No, you say "I wish the food would stay in my mouth." and continue eating, or whatever. And if you're getting sweaty or dirty, you leave the sweaty or dirty stuff on until you've stopped getting them gross.

I'm thinking that an electric liner / vest in a compression sack would not be good for the wires.

Stuff sacks, stuff sacks, and more little stuff sacks. Everything compartmentalized. Bring a couple extras too. We don't bother with things like freezer bags because the plastic tends to wear quickly. Instead, most of our stuff sacks are also dry sacks. You can get a 3 pack on amazon for $12US ( Amazon.com: Outdoor Products 3-Pack Ultimate Dry Sack: Sports & Outdoors )

Plastic grocery bags. Hang onto the spares for trash.

We're also bringing Sugru on the next trip. The sachets are very small and i have a feeling that it might turn out to be damn useful. Then again, it may just be a waste of space, but if so, it will be very little space. Note that it has a shelf life of about 6 months.

Rice, now not just for dinner.