2017 Packlist
Andy and I knew going into our Colorado Trail ride this summer that our bikes weren’t going to be light. Although we both had grown older and wiser in our bikepacking ways since our partial ride of the Colorado Trail two years prior, this year we were bringing a lot of electronics: a nicer camera, a GoPro with multiple mounts, and a drone, all with multiple extra batteries and accessories.
Outside of this added weight, however, both of our setups would have been considered pretty minimal by bikepackng standards. We carried the bare essentials, with our only real luxuries being a tarptent that kept us mostly dry (versus a bivy alone) and our evening meal setup, which included a stove, propane tanks, and pots, which we wouldn’t have necessarily needed.
What follows is a basic packlist from our trip, to catalog what all we brought along with us on the ride.
The Video
Total bike weight loaded down with three days of food, drone gear, and camera gear.
This would be my heaviest backpack weight of the trip at just over 11 pounds. Usually it was between 5 and 8 pounds.
Revelate Framebag
- 2 extra drone batteries
- Drone accessories, i.e. sd cards, plug-ins, chargers, etc. (not shown)
- Propane canister
- Tire tube
- Shock Pump
- Tire Pump
- Duct tape and electrical tape (wrapped around pump)
- 3 to 4 days of food
Revelate Seatbag
- 1 pair of Gore Bike Bib Shorts
- 1 pair of long Pearl Izumi gloves, 1 pair of fingerless Pearl Izumi gloves
- 1 pair of tights
- 1 pair of Icebreaker wool underwear
- 1 pair of Smartwool socks, 1 pair of Darn Tough wool socks
- 1 pair of ‘around town’ shorts
- 1 Montbell Down Jacket
- 1 short sleeve tech shirt
- Specialized sun sleeves
- 1 long sleeve smartwool shirt
- Cookpots
- SOL Bivy Sack
- Inflatable Pillow
Revelate Sweetroll Handlebar Bag (small)
- REI 45 degree Sleeping Bag
- Tarptent (carried in yellow drybag)
- North Face Rain Jacket
- Rain Pants (I cut the bottoms off, so they are technically rain shorts now)
- Neoprene Gloves
Revelate Jerry Can
- Grease rag
- Chain lube
- Crankbrother’s multi-tool
- Small off-brand multi-tool with pliars
- ~10 feet of nylon cord
- Zip ties (multiple sizes)
- Spare shoe cleat
- 3 quick links for chain
- Fiberfix spoke replacement kit
- 3 tire levers
- 2 tire boots
- 1 replacement presta valve
- Some pieces of rubber
Revelate Gas Tank (Not shown)
- Quick access food container: Carried Snicker’s bars, clif bars, peanut butter packets, etc.
Revelate Mountain Feedbag
- Replacement lenses for sunglasses
- MSR Pocket Rocket
- Shammy cream
- Chapstick
- Sunscreen
Blackburn Outpost Cargo Cage (Downtube Bag)
- Toilet paper
- Wet wipes
- Propane Tank (not shown)
- Not shown: Miscellaneous toiletries/other bag – toothbrush, toothpaste, extra matches, extra lighter, Ibuprofen, Benadryl, nail clippers
Camelbak Skyline LR 10 Liter Backpack (not shown)
- Carried up to 3 liters of water at a time
- Cell phone, wallet, car key
- Olympus TG-3 camera (until it broke)
- Sometimes carried food, but only on the two long hauls (Waterton to Leadville, Buena Vista to Silverton)
What I Didn’t Carry
Since I was riding with Andy the entire way, we tried to split the load as evenly as possible. As you can see, I carried the tent, the cookware, drone and GoPro accessories, and the bike tools. Andy’s joint load was the actual drone (the DJI Mavic Pro) and drone controller, the GoPro and GoPro harnesses, and the first aid kit.
So the following question always seems to come up after posting a packlist: did I bring anything I didn’t need? And I can honestly say that, at this point, I feel like I’ve got my gear list pretty dialed in. I could do without the ‘around-town’ shorts and smartwool long-sleeve probably, but I used both, and even was wearing all of my clothes – sans my around town shorts – at certain points throughout the trip. I didn’t end up needing any of the bike tools, but it’s nice to be able to fix at least the little things if the need arises, so I think I’d bring all of that again. The only other thing would be my bivy sack, which I only used once, and probably didn’t need to use. I brought it because I was just a little worried about whether my 45 degree sleeping bag would be warm enough for me, but it ended up being totally fine, especially because I could just wear all of my clothes if temperatures got low enough. Overall, I feel like this is a pretty standard setup, and one that I will continue to use for long-distance bikepacking trips in the future.