I’m now a little less than two weeks out from my start-to-finish and back trip along the Hennepin Canal Trail. Given that, I’m making preparations and reviewing my checklist to make sure I have everything put together.
Making a list, checking it twice…
In many ways this has been an adventure in discovering the world of products designed for lightweight, outdoors travel. As a younger person I went camping periodically and I still have a fair amount of equipment from that era. However, pretty much all of it assumed that one was going to be piloting some sort of automobile either directly up to the campsite, or at least very close to it. I love my old green Coleman camp stove, but lightweight it is not.
Several weeks ago I ordered a lightweight tent and air mattress, and I already had a sleeping bag that I’d purchased for car camping at the Hilly Hundred last year. So I’m good in that department, but I still need to get practice setting it up and taking it down so I’m not learning that in the moment. I’ll plan to do that over the next few evenings.
When discussing what to do about food with My Lovely Wife she first suggested looking into whether MRE’s are something that can be ordered from Amazon.
It turns out that they can, but that search also opened the door to freeze-dried meals designed for backpacking (and hence, suitable for trikepacking). There are a variety of these available, and with no experience with them I decided to order one and give it a try. I went with Peak Refuel - they have good reviews on Amazon - and specifically tried the breakfast scramble. It was easy to make - just add the specified amount of boiling water, stir, and wait - and surprisingly good. I was a little afraid it would suffer from the Turkey Bacon Problem, but I was happy to be proven wrong. I suppose this is due, in part, to the fact that it is made of the real, expected ingredients.
Obviously I am not just going to eat breakfast skillet for every meal, so I ordered up a batch of these to cover breakfast and supper:
Future fuel
It would have been rather costly to try each of these in advance, so I picked some things I was pretty sure I would like with the hope that the breakfast skillet meal is a fair representation of the overall product. We shall see.
For lunch on day one and three I’m planning on bringing along granola bars and/or trail mix. This has been my strategy for longer day rides and it’s worked well for me. Lunch on day two will be at a restaurant in the Quad Cities. I haven’t picked one yet, but I’m planning on eating somewhere along the Mississippi. And I may just leave that up to spontaneity and serendipity. Tho, honestly, that is not my way, so I may break down and plan something…
To prepare those freeze dried meals, and more importantly, to be able to make coffee on my ride, I also need to be able to heat up some water. As mentioned before, it was clear my old Coleman camp stove was not going to do. There are a number of single-burner camp stoves that incorporate the fuel tank into the stand. I landed on the Jetboil Flash.
Jetboil Flash
There’s a lot to like about this product for trikepacking. In addition to being lightweight, it’s relatively small, and entirely self-contained when it is packed. Literally everything you need fits inside it:
Packed
Unpacked
As the name implies, it heats water to boiling very quickly. I should be able to get my breakfast started and then heat up a second pot for coffee well before the food is ready to eat. It has a couple of other neat features as well. The lid is also a drink cover - you could make soup in it, for example, and simply drink it out of the Jetboil pot. The protective plastic cover on the bottom is also a measuring cup and can be used as a bowl. And there is also this:
Heat Indicator
The side changes color as it heats up as a temperature indicator. It’s clearly a thoughtful design, and it seems sturdy. We’ll see how it stands up on the ride, but I’m optimistic based on my experience with it so far.
I do have a handful of remaining items to obtain. This morning I ordered a first aid kit and a fresh batch of tube patches. Obviously I hope not to need either, but I can just about guarantee that I will need them if I don’t have them.
I’ve debated about ordering a solar panel for charging battery packs. It’s on my list, but I have three or four battery packs I can bring along, and my camping site is supposed to have electric access, so it may not be necessary.
I also need to sort out how much water to carry. I should be able to get water at the campsite in the afternoon/evening of day one and two, and there will be spots to buy it during the day on day two. That would suggest I’ll be fine if I bring along enough to cover the ride in on day one, and fill those bottles again for the ride out on day three.
I am getting a little concerned that my side cargo bags - the Radical Design Banana Racers that I ordered - may not come in on time for the ride. They were supposed to come in the last week of May, but when I checked on it earlier this week I was told that it was still in transit from The Netherlands. If they are not in by the end of this week I’ll have to pivot - either use the backpacks stacked up like I tried earlier, or maybe break down and get the bags in a non-orange color (the horror!).
And finally, this weekend and next I’ll be working in extended rides - in the 40-50 mile range - to build up conditioning a bit for the trip. And now it’s time to check that item off my list for today…