Riding Solo 18 - Drying Out in Colorado - My Gear and How I Pack

A good thing .

I threw up this tent back here last evening because the middle of the night it started raining and I got out of the Hammock and crawled into the tent .

You can see it stayed warm and dry in there .

It's not cold up here , which is nice .

Um , but I'm gonna make a cup of coffee and have some breakfast and then see about packing up .

Maybe the rain will stop by .

Then I put my helmet like this so that my gloves on the inside would stay dry .

My panniers kept everything dry inside of them and I put my camera gear underneath this dry bag .

So it stayed dry .

It looks like this dry bag actually has some water in it .

So I'm gonna empty that out and then I'm gonna put my wet things in this dry bag .

My sleeping bag stayed nice and dry .

So that's the most critical thing to keep dry .

So I'm gonna put that in this dry bag .

It's a little bit damp .

So I will need to dry that out later .

And there's my pillow with my down jacket inside of it and that's everything inside of the tent so I'm gonna seal this up really well , try to keep it as dry as I can .

That'll go in the bag with the Hammock here .

Since that's pretty wet too .

The little fire box stove performed admirably last night .

Been pretty happy with that so far .

It sure was a good night .

Even though it got a little bit wet out , I've got a few things to dry down the road somewhere , But hopefully , uh , the sun will come out today and it'll get a little nicer out .

Yeah .

Yeah .

Just stopped on the side of the road here to let everything air out .

It's all sitting on the grass here .

My tent , my Hammock drying out .

I thought this would be a good time to cook the breakfast that I was planning to cook up in the mountains .

This morning .

We're gonna have some hash browns , some country gravy and the rest of the sausage that I've already started eating last night for dinner .

So it should be pretty good .

I've got the hash browns in here right now , soaking in the water , cook the sausage already .

And next , we're gonna do the , uh , the country gravy here .

So that's it .

It's just a , just a chance to , to dry out , get my tent and sleeping bag and Hammock all dried out and my clothing have a little breakfast at this beautiful location and then continue on this wonderful journey .

I came down from the flat top scenic by way .

Actually , I'm still on it , but I got back to pavement , the dirt road section of it , the 40 mile dirt section ended a little ways back .

And now I'm just cruising through this peaceful beautiful valley .

There's a river flowing over here .

There's trout fishermen , sheep farms , ranches .

It's just beautiful .

It's really beautiful and it's obviously beautiful weather out right now .

So , despite the rain and not being able to cook breakfast up in the woods like I wanted to , it's a great little scene right here on the side of the road .

You know , the thing I would say here is that sometimes you're gonna have difficulties in camp under unpleasant circumstances .

Like last night , you're gonna get dirty , your things are gonna get wet and it might be tempting at that point to just call it a day , stop your trip or get a motel or go to a laundromat or basically bail out for the sake of comfort and convenience .

But when something like that happens , don't just go ride all day leaving your wet gear in your bike or don't think that you have to go to a motel or a laundromat , do something like this .

If the weather changes and it's nice out , just pull over on the side of the road somewhere , spread your gear out to dry , take a couple of minutes of a break , make a cup of coffee , have breakfast before you know it , everything will be dry .

You'll pack your stuff back up on your bike and you'll be good to go like it never happened .

And I just put my sleeping bag right inside .

I don't even use a stuff sack for it .

It's one less headache to deal with in the morning trying to fit my sleeping bag and a stuff sack .

As long as I know this thing is waterproof and it is , it packs in there a lot easier just like that .

Just shove it down in there .

It's a down sleeping bag .

It's rated to 15 degrees .

So it keeps me plenty warm .

Packs up nice and small .

And then I have this bag here which has a fleece lining .

I can turn it inside out if I want to and I keep my long underwear and my hat and my down jacket inside of here so that I can use this as a pillow at night time .

I usually , when I set up camp , I'll take my sleeping bag out , take this out , put on my long underwear and hat , leave the down jacket in here for a little pillow and I know that I have everything I need to be warm during the night .

Right in this bag , it just stays perfectly dry throughout the day .

And because it's just a down sleeping bag and a down jacket , it's pretty light weight .

So I'm not too concerned about putting it on one of my panniers up high .

Because you want to keep the weight distributed on your bike as low as possible .

So these lighter things , these two bags here go up on the , the top on the panniers and the other one here , which I'll pack up momentarily .

I'll put my tent and my hammock in there , which is also pretty light .

And again , it just keeps that heavier stuff , like my tools and cooking stuff and water and food down lower in the pan .

So let's get this one loaded up .

And I'm just putting , I'm putting my fly into this bag because honestly , I don't use it every night if it's real buggy out , but it's a nice night .

I'll set up my tent and I won't even put the rain fly on it .

I'll only use it if it's , if it looks like it's gonna be wet out .

So that just stays in its own little bag .

And then the tent is the same thing .

I don't even put my tent in any kind of a stuff sack .

I just put it right in there just like that packs up really easily .

These are the , uh , the webbing , the slings for the Hammock , which is over there drying in the sun and it should be about dry right now .

And there we go .

Here's the Hammock that'll just go right inside there as well .

And the only other thing I put in here are my sandals .

Obviously , you got to have another pair of shoes on a trip like this that you can't wear your motorcycle boots all the time .

So I put my sandals in there because I know that they don't come out until the end of the night either .

Get all the air out of it .

Oops , I forgot my 10 steaks .

It always sucks when you pack these things up , get them on your bike and then you realize you forgot to put something in there or there's something in there that you need .

Roll it up .

Been using these wolfman bags here for many , many , many seasons .

They've probably been on six or eight B D R s with me and they're super indestructible .

They have not leaked yet , very durable , very hard core , very waterproof .

You can see the bottom here has that discoloration from rubbing on the top of the pan and that's something that's inevitable in this kind of travel is that the vibration is gonna cause anything on or inside your panne to wear and just , you know , get this kind of metal on it .

So when I pack stuff inside my panne , I really try to be careful to put stuff in stuff , sacks or bags or things like that that , you know , that I know that can take that kind of vibration and that I won't be upset if they do wear or get dis discolored or things like that .

But if there's something you don't want marred or marked up , you definitely want to protect it in your pan ear on this trip .

For whatever reason , I just tossed a pair of sunglasses in there one day and when I opened up my panniers , they had completely , had rubbed , you know , rubbed the lens on them .

They were cheap sunglasses .

So I'm not concerned but it , that made them pretty much useless .

So there we go .

Everything is dry , organized , ready to be put back on the bike and ready to get back on the road .

Start packing up my little cook kit right now .

I've got this seed to summit .

I think that's what it's called .

It's a little , a little plate here which also doubles as a cutting board .

The end just folds down just like that .

Nice and simple .

Then I've got my Billy pot here .

This thing is awesome .

I've been loving using this .

I got these little clips right here that will hold the handle in place .

So it stays upright .

And that way it doesn't get hot when you're cooking over a fire , it stays up here and you can just grab it .

So I absolutely love that .

I got my arrow press here for making coffee , clean that off a little bit .

Turn it inside out just like that and then I put all my filters inside of there and a little coffee spoon can go down in there as well .

And then I put the , the filter down on the bottom there and take my coffee cup here , which has coffee in it .

We'll finish that off , give it a little rub down as well .

And then that just kind of nestles inside of there and that fits in there .

The coffee lid goes right inside , actually forgot to show you this metal cup right here .

This Nestle is inside of this metal cup that goes in there .

And then I'll take my fire gloves and I'll put them in there , put the lid on it just like that .

And then it goes into this stuff sack here , just like that .

And then this top part here is where I'll take my stove using a little portable MS R stove .

This thing is a real gem .

It just packs up so tiny .

It's like that .

And then it goes in this little protective case here .

All right .

And then I'll put that in the top here and I usually put something else inside of it .

I don't quite remember what I put my little rag in there with it and that goes inside this little , this little stuff sack right here , just like that .

There we go .

Get that all nice and orderly , great little stuffed sacks here that come with .

You can purchase from firebox stove company .

That's where I got this whole kit goes in there just like that easy peasy .

And then this is my last little cooking thing that has my silverware , has my nice folding chef's knife .

My my fire starter and I'll put in the pot grabber and my wooden spoon in my dish cleaner .

And that all just goes right inside there like that .

And then I got my fuel for my stove .

So we'll get all this stuff packed up on the bike .

Now , I don't necessarily always pack my panniers the same way things do move around a little bit .

But what always stays the same is this bag right here that goes in the bottom .

This has my tool kit , my tire puncture repair supplies , my air compressor , the things that are heavy and that I don't really need that often .

So that pretty much just lives down in the bottom and then the rest of the stuff just kind of goes in .

However , and I like the fact that this plate can sort of fit right on the side like that .

That's pretty easy .

And then I also have my , my fire box stove here .

This can fit right down in there just like that doesn't take up much space and then my cook kit .

I really like that that fits in sideways just like that just about a perfect fit .

So we'll put that in there .

This is my rain gear , which is really just a pair of pants and gloves because my jacket that I'm wearing is totally waterproof .

So I'll put that down in there .

Here's my little kitchen kit and my fuel bottle for my stove .

So as you can see that all fits in there .

Pretty good , pretty snug .

This is my clothing , the rest of my clothes for this trip .

And I'll just lay that on the top in there , kind of like that .

And then the last thing I'll do is I'll put my water containers up here .

This is always water .

Sometimes this one has water in it and sometimes I use this at the end of the day when I'm getting fuel and supplies for the night , I'll empty out whatever water is in here and I'll buy a cold beer up to 32 ounces and I'll fill it with beer .

And that way when I get to the campsite , I have really cold refreshing beer to drink and I don't have any bottles or cans to have to bring out with me .

So that goes there just like that .