HH Lifa L/S base-layer and Lifa long-johns and a PHD down vest for me which will then double up as sleeping wear rather than a silk bag-liner. Plastic bags to wear over dry evening socks to stop wet shoes just making them wet straight away.

Long johns are no more embrassing than cycling tights!

Pish I lost but 3 tis all.

Panic ye all not, my entry for WRT will be posted tomorrow. I’M IN 🙂

IMO the ‘best’ brands are:

Hilti
Festool
Milwaukee

But then they are top shelf stuff. As ^TAFKASTR^ and as a joiner I have owned the Makita 18V Li-ion tools for about 3 years and have seen constant daily use and other than 1 battery now worn-out they haven’t missed a beat and have more than enough power for professional use. I wouldn’t think twice about running a 76mm holesaw through oak with one.

I was fortunate enough to pick up US imports from Ebay though and I got 2 combi drills, trim saw, 4x 3ah batteries and 110v charger for about £350. (The batteries retail for £80 each!)

Complete weight is an embarrassing 425g without zip-ties. But, if it means that luggage can be loaded more evenly and securly then hopefully the bike will ride better for it.

I’ve tried various ways of strapping a drybag to the bars but nothing seemed to work properly. I’d prefer to have soft lightweight items in my camelbak and wierd pointy heavy items strapped onto the bike.

I’m pretty sure it’s strong enough to support my 2 1/2yr old boy, who would probably jump at the chance of trying it out!!

🙂

Picked up my bar-bracket this afternoon. Really rather pleased, the welds aren’t pretty but then it was an agricultural engineers I used to tig weld it for me! For just £5 to weld it though I really was chuffed as they do appear nice deep welds and they sorted it pretty much overnight. Total outlay, about £15.00

The small holes are where I will zip-tie the drain-pipe through to the ‘chassis’.

I’m going to add a couple of zip-ties to secure it to the stem too, taking out any possible bounce but it feels pretty solid anyway. It clears all the cables nicely which was my main aim. I’m looking forward to loading it up and trying it \o/.

How much warmer is the 260g Uniqlo down top than say a 100weight fleece jumper that weighs about the same?

What down is in them? Their price always makes them tempting!

And whoa there, what were you doing taking the case for your Elite on the OMM, it weighs more than the headlight!!

All those posts at once!!

Stu, fire it over, timings not great but never say never 🙂

If I’m offered post #1000 😉 in 3 posts time…..

LOL, I’m glad I’ve only got a 30″ waist the Ultra sleeping bag is certainly a slim fit!

I’m running out of excuses not to ride the WRT 🙂

That is some raffle prize! Is it a med? 🙂

And yes I know that doesn’t include the sundries required for them like dry bags, fuel, wind shield, cooking pans, pegs etc. I could list those too but there is a limit to how much of a geek I’ll admit to!

(My ballon bed stuff sack weighed 7g, I sewed it in half as it was too big anyway!! most of the time I prefer to leave stuff sacks at home anyway.)

What can I say, the kit prep is half the fun.

PHD Minim Ultra sleeping bag (genuine 900EU fill mmmmmm) 345g
PHD Minimus vest 240g
Rab Survival Zone Lite bivvy bag 200g (claimed)
Siltarp1 200g (claimed)
Caldera stove 16g

1001g, 1g over, sorry Ian! (add in 68g for balloon bed, forgot that beauty!)

At the moment my tarp is 320g, home-made from 2oz nylon and my bivvy bag is a standard Suvival Zone @320g hence the 200g saving from the 2 items mentioned above.

I almost went for the 150g Ultra vest but the Minimus is one that I can wear day in day out so could justify the cost a bit more. My kit is far from money no object, everything is obsessed over then saved up for.

Mini Lineloc’s and 1.5mm dyneema makes for great guying btw.

Thanks for the info Ian. I suspect the siltarp is the easiest option then, especially as it’s notoriously difficult to sew anyway.

Thats the 200g Rab Survival Zone-Lite and a Siltarp1 now on the wish list for this summer then. £160 to save 200g, it’s about the same cost as saving weight from an XC race bike!!

So thats Sleeping bag, bivvy bag, tarp, cooker and down vest all in under 1KG, Nice.

We had a great time bivvying in the caves on Stannage Edge Friday night, it was cold and uncomfortable sleeping on the uneven rocks though. Fortunately I had my down jacket to suppliment the 8’C sleeping bag so was toasty warm 🙂

Ian, did you source the 1.1oz Silnylon from a UK supplier? I’d be interested to know where, the usual suspects are only listing 2oz+

The Suvival Zone Lite still needs a groundsheet under it!

I’m just prototyping an aluminium front luggage bracket from some 6x60mm plate that slots in place of a headset spacer which projects forward under and beyond the stem to support a drybag securely and out the way of cables. It’s being welded up by my local engineers shop as I type, I’ll hopefully post pictures once it’s done next week.

We are out again tonight, temperature forecast looks promising enough to finally try out my new 350g PHD sleeping bag 🙂

They do taste great, but IME there isn’t anywhere near enough carb content so need bulking up with other stuff if your looking at riding the day after too.

What a superb trip, Kinder was cold over night but warm blue skies today meant there was a lot of fun to be had. Someone else was enjoying it to, we arrived 11pm to the spot we had in mind to find 3 tents had already tucked up for the night!!

New ‘Travel Tap’ water filter- tested and great.
New ‘Caldera Cone’ stove- tested and great.
New ‘Storm Matches’- flippin brilliant for lighting cold meths.

I weighed my complete 25L pack (all kit inside, we were yomping not riding this time) at 7.3kg. For my full on winter kit I was quite happy with that. Weight includes tent, -18′ sleeping bag, food, water and filter, stove, & fuel, pots, down jacket, gloves/hat, and sundries. No camera though 🙁

Roll on the next trip.

Good luck with the Travel Lite! We’re up onto Kinder Scout tonight and forecast is hovering zero even down in the valley. Alpkit PD800 for me, although I’m only on a 3/4 balloon bed so will loose a fair bit to the ground. It packs easily into 8L drybag so it’s not a big issue.

Stove looks great, should one assume the pegs are ti? That looks like a lot of fuel for the amount of food laid out!

I suspect he means road mechs can’t cope with the 34t mountain bike cassette, only a 11-28.

You know how to tell if you have come across bear poo in Wales? It’s the one with the bear bells/whistles in it 😉

700gish 1 season sythetic bags can be had for around £30, in fact my synthetic Karrimor was reduced to £13 in Blacks end of season sale. Tesco and Decathalon would be a good place to start for real budget bags. Tesco also do a summer down/feather/sythetic mix for about £40 iirc, but they seem to sell out fast.

One of the main issues with cheap sythetics is their pack size compared with down. For example my down summer bag is about 1/4 the packed volume of the Karrimor I mentioned above and has a slightly warmer rating, but then it cost 15 times as much.

Someone will be along soon to give you example of a more mid-range bag, but I tend to either buy cheap and cheerful or save up for very expensive.

Cheers Blake, ‘sgood to know.

A full length zip on it’s own weighs 120-140g, anything sub 400g is likely to have no zip at all. Pop it on the scales 🙂

That Furtech site looks interesting, they are making some bold claims. I’m not sure why the first line of their description likens it to ‘Waking up to the sound of snap crackle and pop’!! Not the best selling point really. It’s also a shame it needs vacuum packing to get it down to a decent size.

The current Marmot Atom weighs 600g?

Chris, how did you make the 4 speed cassette? Is it butchered together just using spacers, is it clunky to shift gear?

Great pictures, just what the thread needed.

I’m sorry but I’m perfectly happy, from an environmental point of view, with 7 balloons per night.

To put it into context again, I have just eaten 7 individually wrapped celebration chocolates (not bought by me, they were a gift). There is more waste from those than from my 7 ballons. In the grand scheme of the average human life, it’s not even a drop in the ocean.

I tell you what, if ever I drive to go bivvying I’ll stop the car 5 yards shorter than normal, that will more than offest the carbon footprint. Whilst I appreciate your concerns, I just don’t think the argument is justified on such a tiny scale as this.

PSA-

The PHD spring sale is now live!!

The qualatex modelling balloons are latex and are biodegradable (not that I would ever leave them in the field), the amount of ‘waste’ is miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

Are plastic reflector brackets strong enough to carry what must be at best 1.4kg+?

Interested to try it myself if it proves reliable

For bivvy use, balloon bed every time. For all it’s oddities, I love it. Nothing comes close for value, comfort, pack size and warmth.

Plastic disposable cutlery is lighter. Although my ti spork is a much loved 18gram guilty pleasure!

I draw the line at taking the washing labels out of clothing!!

If you think a thermarest is ‘involved’ you should try inflating 7 modelling balloons with frozen hands!

Does spending an hour or so trimming then re-sewing every strap on one’s rucksack to make them shorter and thus lighter and neater count as geeky? If so, I’m in!!

Replacing perfectly good 2mm dyneema guy lines for 1.5mm dyneema instead, that count too?

What about re-sewing stuff sacks to make them as small as what ever is going in them will allow?

I wasn’t aware that inflating a thermarest needed any thought?! Appart from a down mat where dry air would be prefered, but then the Exped one’s come with it’s own built in pump anyway. The Neoair has no insulation so moist air isn’t an issue.

If you don’t need it, don’t take it. It’s the cheapest way to save weight 😉

What that dog needs is some panniers.

BTW if anyone is after a bargain low-level winter bag, rockrun.com still have the Rab Atlas Explorer 700 reduced from £180 to £100. 700g of 650-Fill down is is an absolutely fantastic buy for £100.

As Ian mentions Caldera Cones are specific to the pot they are designed for and they don’t come come with a pot in the standard kit, you use your own. Some are interchangable though, the Alpkit mug fits the Vargo Ti-lite kit for example.

Has anyone used any cuben fibre for tarp duties?

James, the Minimus is the 240g 800-fill vest, the ultra is the 150g 900-fill stripped down version with only a half zip.

If you have the Minimus, what sort of size will it squeeze down to?

Cheers Anthony

The expensive part is the down, so the lighter they get- the cheaper they get. Or so you would think!

Zero points for the turbo-flame above 😉 OTT heavy for lighting gas stoves. Rob a piezo ignitor from an old ciggy lighter, they weigh about 5g.

I use the Titanium Esbit stove with the solid fuel. 13g and £7 from BPL I’ve been very pleased with the results. However I’m taking delivery of a caldera cone in the next few weeks for a slightly more efficient system. I like the idea of the windshield creating a nice stable and sealed burning chamber.

Plus, meths is considerably cheaper to buy. I prefer the genuine Esbit tabs as they are non toxic but they work out at nearly 50p a go.

Has anyone got any experience of the PHD ultra vest? At 150g it looks incredible but it’s by no means cheap especially as the 800-fill version usually comes up in their sale at £80ish. I somehow managed to justify buying the beautiful Minim Ultra sleeping bag but I’m struggling to get my head around the gillet to match.

M u s t r e s i s t.

For a very rough guide, my Esbit 14g solid fuel blocks burn for the same amount of time as 15mls of meths. However the meths will bring 500mls of water to a good rolling boil where as the solid fuel wont.

what little bits and pieces do you take to give you that little bit of luxury while under the stars

None. The luxury is carrying a superlight pack instead of 10kg+ of dead weight for 3 days. It’s suprising what you can do without when you have the beautiful wild countryside to take your mind off things.

A £20 ballon bed is a good start for money spent vs weight saved. Yes they are a faff but then it’s half the fun. And they sure are funny!! I find mine far more comfortable than the heavier and more expensive Thermarest prolite, and the Neoair costs 3 times as much and still weighs 3 times as much. I’ll admit the neoair is a great mat though.

For example my summer sleeping bag, sleeping mat, stove and fuel for a weekend weighs under 500g.