Michael OBrien

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What To Pack For A Staged Bike Tour like Ride the Rockies or RAGBRAI

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When preparing for your first bike tour, you may wonder what to bring.  This blog post should get you pointed in the right direction.

After doing Ride the Rockies seven times, I have created a list that I have found especially helpful to ensure I have all the bases covered.

Some quick background: Ride the Rockies (RTR) is a 6-7 day bike tour of Colorado averaging between 30,000 and 40,000 feet of climbing over the week.  Being staged, they move your bag from town to town as you make your way across the state.  RTR offers three lodging options – hotel, outdoor camping, and indoor camping.  I have always done indoor camping where you share a gym floor with a few hundred of your closest friends.  After riding 90 miles at elevation climbing mountains, I could sleep soundly on broken glass – so the gym floor doesn’t bother me.  I mention this as it influences what I bring (or more accurately, what I don’t bring).

As I said, I am a list person and below is my personal list I use to pack for RTR.

Toiletries
Aleve and Advil (I usually take the 12-hour Aleve in the morning and an Advil at night)
shampoo
Eye shades / ear plugs (for sleeping in indoor camping)
Two lip balm sticks (one for jersey and one for toiletries bag)
Small container of laundry detergent (and large ziplock to hand-wash stuff)
Electronics
Bike computer
Smart phone
GoPro / batteries / battery charger / memory cards
Portable USB charger with multiple charging ports (make sure to bring cables for all your unique devices such as Bike computer, iPhone, Fitbit, etc.)
External battery charger (this is a battery the size of a small paperback that can charge my stuff when I am not near an outlet)
iPad
Point-and-shoot Camera (this may seem redundant to an iPhone, but I like to take quick pictures and I can take a picture with a point-and-shoot much easier)
Replacement button batteries for heart rate strap, Garmin speed/cadence sensor on the bike, etc.)
Power splitter (when all the outlets are taken, you can unplug someone, put in your power splitter, plug them into your thing and then add yours as well)
HR Strap
Head lamp for seeing around my space when the lights turn out
Bike stuff
Bike
Hex wrench for stem, saddle, etc. (Make sure seat post is marked)
Spare cleat (if you have non-standard pedals like PowerTap P1s)
Cycling shoes
Under-seat pouch (spare tube, etc.)  REMOVE Co2 Cartridges for flight!!!
Water bottles
Bike Clothes
Socks (wool and cotton)
Bib shorts
Jerseys
Gloves
Helmet
Sunglasses
Sweat bands
Cold weather stuff
Head band that covers ears
Skull cap [depending on how cold it is, I will use either the head band that covers my ears or my skull cap]
Glove liners [I wear these under my regular gloves]
Knee warmers or leg warmers [depending on how cold it is, I will wear either my knee warmers or my leg warmers]
base layers (I only bring short sleeve base layers – and then couple then with arm warmers for when it is really cold)
Rain Jacket
[At least for RTR, the days can start out in the high 20s, but by the time you arrive at your destination, it can be in the high 70s/low 80s.  If you take a hard shell jacket, booties, etc., at some time you need to strip them off.  So I don’t bring anything I can’t carry with me when it gets hot.  For especially cold days, newspaper between your base layer and jersey works amazingly well]
Cycling Food
Sports Legs capsules
[Note, RTR added Kind bars and chips this year, before it was fruit (good!) and alternating pretzels and animal crackers (yuck!) so I brought my own food every day.  If they keep up the Kind bars, I will significantly decrease the amount of food I bring]
Trail mix
Fig Newtons
Energy bars
Energy gels
Skratch pre-ride drink mix
Bagels (I have a bagel when I wake up for my initial fuel)
Other
Inflatable mattress
Mattress inflater plump
Mattress repair patch kit
Sheets
eCubes (helps me pack dirty clothes far more tightly)
Bike Box
Multiple packing directions that I place around the bike box for the TSA so they can reassemble
bubble wrap
plastic baggies for bolts and loose parts
Clothes
T-shirts
Shorts
Ball cap
Long sleeve Tee (for colder nights)
Sweat pants (for colder nights)
Shorts to sleep in
Flip-flops (for going to the bathroom at night)
To do before ride: Plastic zip-lock bags with each day’s stuff including shorts, jersey, and socks, food and gels, Sports Legs capsules
If you are flying your bike, make sure to remove any CO2 cartridges from your seat pouch.  You will need to buy some at your destination and then get ride of them before you take the plane back.
I am sure there are many who will say I over-pack – but this seems to work well for me.  What do you think?

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