Packing and Tools of the amateur trade

Now that the trip is over, we have had so many hours reminiscing, thinking about what we brought, used, didn't use etc and what we would do differently. Hopefully this post will help those who are planning a trip in the future.
 
PACKING 
The Forgotten : Those items we left behind

** PLEASE NOTE ** All scorchers wrote their own packing lists below - I take no responsibility for the quality of their jokes. :)

Shruti's lapse in memory

• Mosquito repellant cream

• 

  Shruti's kit - this is such a lie! Multiply this by about 8.5 :)

  Tea tree oil –any day better than the aloe cream we used for the sunburns. Thanks to Matt’s mom.
• Should have got some breakfast bars , ended up eating most of the apple oats bars that Matt got
• May be more clothes ** Steve commentary : She had a new outfit every day! **
• School pens

 Steve's dropping the ball items

Steve's monstrosity ... but accurate! **minus the tools **

• Mosquito repellant cream - I knew matt was bringing it
• Aloe Vera cream - I didn't think I wld be burnt enough to need it
• Garmin GPS watch
• More long sleeve shirts to cycle in
• An action camera / gopro / tomtom bullet or something
• A better pump - Sorry Val, the bday pump is kinda crappy-ish :)

Matty Bhais - There is def stuff missing!

Matty's packing mistakes



• After sun / Aloe Vera lotion for the crispy red skin
• Thinner tyres - I think 1.5 or 1.3 inch would have been perfect
• Another bike bag would have been handy to carry a tube or two (but I didn't need them :) unlike the other two who took their bikes into the thorn forrest)
• Despite making fun of Steves antler bars, a bigger / longer set of bar ends would have been good
• Dog / cow repellent (no comment)

Mess with the bull and you will get the horns

The Damned : Stuff we wished we didn't bring

Shruti's sh1t list

• May be skip the sunscreen that didn’t work :) - Shruti

 Steve's list of unwanted toys

• I would bring less clothes. There were a few things I didn't even wear.
• paper map - didn't use it
• bike lock which weighed 75lbs - didn't need it
• 5 diff patch kits. I hate patch kits

 
Matt's list of unholy items

• A full racing bib with padding - I think only used my padded shorts and had them washed midway
• Bike lock
• Shruti's tinted sun cream
• Jeans - I never needed to wear them for any temple etc. I was allowed in with my cycling shorts with or without the time shirt

Star kit : thank lord Vishnu we brought this stuff!
Shruti's Essentials

Thanks for the blessings bhai!

• Hat
• Glad that we got the extensions for handle bar - such a relief
• Cycle bell – Indians love honking 😊
• The wide saddle 😊 No soreness at all , poor Matt & Steve!
• + Check with your teammates if they are getting all the other essentials – like tools and gadgets 😊   ** enjoying nicely! **
• And the top essential - Smile + Wave 😊

Steve's had to have's

• Padded cycling shorts ... theoretically I could have made it using just the bike, 1 padded short, 1 shirt, sneakers, 2 spare tubes, some tools, sunscreen, 1 pair of socks, a credit card and an atm card!
• Extra charging battery
• Laptop! We redid the routes so many times!
• My helmet - I love tht thing. I feel like im in the army with it. :)
• My Trek - never leave home[ on a bicycle trip ] without it!!
• My tools!
• Extra tubes... and I bought some there as well!

Matt's mandatory kit

• Drone - took some good aerial shots and video
• Sun cream which everyone was clawing to use :)
• Mosquito repellent from Thailand - so strong and actually smells nice
• Powerful front light - I had to lead the way in the dark for the morning rides and needed to see the pot holes and animals as Steves and Shruti's lights were pointing up at the bushes and trees ;)
• iPhone 7 with Strava, GPS, bike mount and charger - I don't think we would be alive without them
• Kick stand - it's embarrassing when your bike collapses in public lol

Tools of the amateur trade

We used a number of free online tools to plot our route, keep track of our distance, plan the trip etc. I think most of the Shruti found for us. :)



Plot a route editing screen

Strava is one of the most popular GPS activity apps for the smart phone. We used it for every cycle. I think I introduced this to Shruti a while back when she first started riding. Now she has 75 friends and I have 4 =/




plot a route - route listing screen

PlotARoute is a powerful tool for planning your route via it's mapping functionality. It was complicated at first, but after using it for an hour or two it gets much easier and only more powerful. We routed every cycle with it, pulled out the GPX and then loaded that in to Strava. ** Miss Rao's find **

Slack.com - a techie tool for development teams. [ I think ] We used it to communicate, share files, pix and of course jokes. ** Miss Rao's find **

Google Photos : photos.google.com - Used for sharing albums etc.

Youtube - Used for posting our videos.

Keep : keep.google.com - I personally use it a bit and had put together many a planning list I would then copy and paste in to slack.

Travefy : to keep our itineraries straight. ** Miss Rao's find **

Google Maps : maps.google.com - We ALMOST used this one day when Strava was acting a bit weird with a smaller road from plotaroute and the GPX mapping was off. There was a late night SUPER early morning scramble for me to mess with the route literally an hour before we had to set out. probably my only nervous point of the actual ride.

Hopefully this helps any potential scorchers in the future

See you next blog!