Now that our bike Tour has ended, I will have a few posts about some of the gear I carried and comments about their usefulness. This 1st post will be about all things electronic; those things that required charging, or batteries.
1) Cell Phone: Yes, Indispensable
My Samsung S6 cell phone was indispensable. Although any good recent model phone would also have worked as well. I did everything with it. During the Tour I communicated with home, friends, motels, campgrounds, etc., via text, voice and video, wrote this blog with it, took photos, mapped our route, looked up the local Geology, paid bills, followed daily news and sports, listened to music, set a morning wake-up alarm, used it as a flashlight, etc. An amazing little device. I also carried earbuds for music and the cell phone's wall charge unit (as backup, see Battery Pack below)
Before the Tour I realized that I did not need to bring my notebook (or laptop), because it is much too heavy to justify any added convenience of a bigger screen. So I left it at home. I was able to do everything with my Cell Phone.
2) Separate Camera: Nope, not needed
I should have left my camera, associated batteries and charging unit behind. It's a nice little Nikon CoolPix, but my phone takes photos that are just about as nice. I ended up not using the camera after about the 3rd day, partly because it was hit-or-miss whether it would connect to my phone via wifi, which would allow me to transfer photos to the cell phone for blog posting.
The thinking behind for bringing the camera was that it would be easier to use on my bike and so I would take more photos. I stored it in my handlebar bag for quick access, and it has a wrist-strap to prevent drops. However, the loaded bike was way too unsteady to ride one-handed (it would develop a wobble). Hence, I had to stop to take photos anyways, so I ended up using the Cell phone's camera instead.
3) Battery Pack - RavPower 22000mAh: Yes, Great
Both Ian and I bought one of these battery packs for the trip. It holds about 6 cell phone charges for each full charge of the battery pack. Plus the cell phone charge from it is very quick. Sure beats having to deal with a Solar Charger. Slight downsides are that it weighs about a pound and it takes all night plugged in to charge the charger. However, with them, we had no charge issues on the Tour. We were able to find an outlet every 3-4 nights in order to charge them. I actually now use it at home. It's more portable than a wall charger.
4) Flashlight(s): Yes, but ...
I brought along both a small handheld LED flashlight and a head-strap mounted LED headlamp. I actually never used the headlamp unit and only used the handheld a few nights, until it must have gotten accidentally turned on while packing which drained the batteries. You would think that they could engineer a flashlight that cannot be accidentally turned on. I think we had a decent moon during the trip, so my cell phone's light was adequate. Flashlights are important safety equipment so camping without one is not recommended, but I could have probably left one of them behind; maybe the small handheld?
5) Bike Flashers: Yes, but better battery charge life is needed
I brought along a pair very bright of hi-tech LED bike flashers (front=white, rear=red), which charged via a USB cable. Hence, I was able to charge them using my battery pack. However, they did not hold a charge very long; at the most maybe 4 hours. Ian and I were out on the road much longer than 4 hrs most days, so my flasher would go dead before we were finished riding. Ian had a normal battery powered red flasher, which wasn't nearly as bright as mine, but lasted the entire trip. I probably should have gotten two red flashers for the back and only used one at a time to double my flasher range.
6) Bike Cyclometer: Yes, - for mileage, time, speed and Avg speed
I used a basic cyclometer unit that did all that I needed. And, its batteries lasted the entire trip. Ian carried a Garmin, which gave us our climbing stats, and more.
Mike
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