Gear List
What to bring, etc. Coach P in red:
Your Bags
- Overnight/main gear bag: We will purchase, and mail to you, your overnight gear bag. No worries, it will be big enough, will have rollers, but having everyone use the same bag allows us to standarize packing of the vans, efficiently use the space, and ensures that no one shows up with a 6ft hockey bag (has happened). This bag may or may not be in the van with you, depending on the stage, luggage/hotel plan, etc
- Day bag: this will stay in your van with you, for you to have available extra cycling gear, bottles, tubes, dry clothes, etc
Your Body:
- Basic cycling kit (shorts, jersey, gloves, socks, etc) for 2-3 days. Cycling gloves are huge! You'll have option to do laundry 1-2x during the camp.
- While the Tour is May, and the weather promises to be awesome, you never know. Highly recommend you bring every peice of weather gear you own, just in case (as Rich might need to borrow it). At a minimum:
- Cold/wet weather gloves or liners.
- Vest or jacket. Pro = clear vest/jacket so the cameras can still see your team kit...
- Armwarmers, legwarmers, toe caps/booties, etc.
Your Bike:
- PREP YOUR BIKE BEFORE THE TOUR!!! You'll ride 400-600 miles, 22-27hrs in 6-7 days. New tires (consider Tufo strips for added flat protection), clean, lube, tube, touch/tighten all bolts. Consider blue loctite (non-permanent) on all critical bolts. If you need new cables, recommend you have bike recabled about 2wks before the camp, ride it, and have it retuned, as the cables will loosen and change your tune. We will have a full set of tools and a few spare parts, but you don't want to ruin your day because something broke because you didn't address it before the Tour (has happened, and hard to find critical bike parts with multiple vans doing point-to-point lodging dance with fried campers)
- Mandatory:
- 1 spare tire, 4 x tubes, Co2 (we'll have some if you're flying with your bike).
- 2-4 bike bottles marked with your name.
- Tools on your bike: multitool, with chainbreaker, levers, Co2 inflator. You will carry a minimum of two tubes and Co2s on your bike at all times.
- Highly recommend compact + 26-11 or 25-12. You're gonna see 17-20% grades more than few times and you can never have enough gears. I'm riding 50/34, 26-11...and if you ain't R will point it out frequently as he spins by you.
The Food:
- We've chosen hotels with continental breakfast. We'll also have our own food available for you each morning (bagels, fruit, etc) as well as coffee (natch).
- Training food in the vans will be Infinit and Cliffbars. If you have your own double top secret brew you'll need to bring it with you to the camp.
- Depending on how each day unfolds we'll order sandwiches, pizza's, etc to meet us at the final stop before we start to drive.
- Dinners are on you so we don't have to put you on a budget when you're starving.
The Regular Clothes:
- We end up going out to dinner almost every night, some fancier than others. Try to keep your clothing in check, as nothing gives a coach a hernia faster than lifting your 65-lb beauty bag after 5 hours of riding.
General Guidance: IF you can't lift your own bag, it's too heavy. Basic guidelines are 2-3 "nice casual" (think jeans and polo for men), ladies, I am not going to go there. - Some shorts / t-shirts for post ride quick change is nice, this will need to be in a day bag, not your overnight bag, fyi.
Technical Stuff:
- Some folks bring computers/laptops --- we don't have armed guards, so do so at your own risk. RnP live / die by their macs, so it will be safe, just know the deal. Most hotels have wi-fi, but we did have to deal with iPhone only web access once or twice.
- RnP will not download your powermeter stuff...that's on you.
0
Comments
Can you please label all these as ToC, or place them into a ToC-specific forum, so they're all easy to find and follow?
Edit: My bad, didn't realize there WAS a forum group set-up, i expected it in the forum name itself instead of "General Discussion".
Post updated for bag jazz.
Coaches,
In above list of gear etc... was mentioned an overnight gear bag you will be mailing to us to use. Is this still going to be the case or do we use our own bag?
Hey Trent, sorry, no bag. Just bring your own...but keep it reasonable. No body bags, sea trunks, etc.
Also, I'm going food shopping when I'm in Norcal before the camp to ensure I get what I need for my breakfast. In my experience, the term "continental breakfast" has widely varying definitions from hotel to hotel.
We'll have a ton of Infinit on hand, not sure what they are sending us. We'll have a supply of breakfast food on hand to supplement the hotel stuff. That said, if you have special stuff you want to have available, go for it.
Rich....I'm assuming no, since my bike is flying....and I'm also assuming you will have some for us.
Thanks
Oooh, good idea! I thought I'd just drop trou in the woods on the side of the road when the van picks us up and hoped that you'd all still be my friends at the end of the week.
The towel idea sounds much more civilized.
If you want a towel, for whatever, please bring, though we (Joanne and I) have your usual stock of crappy old towels we use for washing cars, etc.
We will have hand sanitizer and wipes for each van.
We will wipe down and inspect the bikes for you each night.
As for changing what we did last year (and it seemed to work) was just throw a few people in van to get changed while the others stood around outside, then you swap.
I neglected to bring a pair of post ride pants last year (just brought a single pair of jeans). So don't worry everyone, the creepy tight REI fleece pants that I bought while out there will not be making another appearance hehehe. So my recommendation would be to bring along a set of PJ's or something for post ride cause I forgot to do that last year and paid the price.
-Dave