I am always looking for new ways to improve my bike touring: nifty ideas for ways to make it better or simpler. These aren’t always about bringing new things but can be practices or shortcuts.
Over the years, I have picked up a few tricks or ‘hacks’ as I believe they are now known, from other tourers, videos, websites and the like. I thought that it would be useful to list them. Some of them will seem obvious but
If you know any other hacks or tricks, I am always happy to know.
I have broken them down into four broad categories:
Confession: these are hacks based on my preferred style of touring: carrying a few changes of clothes, staying in hotels and apartments, and going out for dinner to eat. I am sure that there are loads of good tricks for those camping and cooking for themselves, but I just don’t know them.
Packing Hacks
1. Using freezer bags to pack your stuff
Packing your stuff into organised small bags makes life much easier. You can pay for expensive packing cubes if you like, but using reusable sealable freezer bags will make your life much easier and are much cheaper. I buy a range of sizes: 8 litre bags to put my jeans, jumpers and shirts, 3 litre bags to pack most of my clothes and toiletries in, and small 1 litre bags for things like electronics and wires, as well as food such as almonds and biscuits.
They give me greater flexibility, including breaking my toiletries down into bags for toothpaste, brush, floss and the like; deodorants, sun creams and insect repellents; and shampoo and soap. With the clothes, the seals of the bags allow me to squeeze the air out and fit as much as possible into my bike bags.
2. Packable Decathlon bags
My friend Mélanie put me onto these. Decathlon sell very basic 10 litre backpacks which fold up into a very small pack. These are perfect for bags for shopping trips, keeping food on the bike or the odd quick walk around town.
3. Repurposing shower caps as shoe covers
This is a trick I use both for bike touring and for travelling in general. I forget where I came across it. In a lot of hotel bathrooms, you will find shower caps. I collect these and use them to cover my shoes to prevent the dirt getting into the rest of my bag. Really recommended. They wear out after a while – this is why I always pocket them when I see them.
4. Takeaway food boxes or other plastic boxes
I carry the bulk of my stuff in small bags but I have started to carry one or two small plastic boxes – a reused Chinese or Thai takeaway/ carry out box and a larger ‘Tupperware’ box – to carry items that I want to avoid getting crushed by accident: namely wash tabs and hygiene stuff in soft tubes, and most importantly fresh or ‘fragile’ food like tomatoes, bananas, biscuits. Or even stuff like ham and cheese that I want to keep away from everything else.
5. Photocopy relevant parts of travel guides
Weight and space are a big concern on the bike so I photocopy the relevant sections of travel guides. Not only does this save weight because I only carry the pages that I need, but I can also throw away each section as I leave the town in question.
6. Clothes pegs
If you are staying at places where you will need to make your own breakfast, clothes pegs can help you close opened bags of nuts, muesli and the like (though you can also use the freezer bags mentioned above). I use them in combination.
Bike Hacks
7. Get a bike stand
This might sound obvious but took me years to realise. Rather naively, I assumed that bikes either came with them or they didn’t. Having one installed – around 30 Euro – on my touring bikes has made a world of difference, allowing me to stop pretty much where I want to take a photo, grab something from the bags, answer a call of nature… without having to find somewhere to lean the bike against or lower it onto its side.
8. Toe holders
You can buy these very cheaply in many bike shops: they can be screwed onto ordinary bike pedals for those of us who just don’t like or want to use bike shoes and cleats. (I tried them for a year and never felt comfortable.) They give you some of the advantages in terms of pedalling efficiency without the risk or having to take a dedicated pair of shoes that you can’t use off the bike.
9. Elastic shoelaces
OK, this is not technically the bike but is linked. Most trainers/ sneakers will come with standard laces, which obviously need tying and untying, and can sometimes get snagged on your drivetrain. Running and other sports shops sell elastic laces which feed into a small plastic tie and can easily be removed. Not just quicker and less risk, but also great when you need to quickly put on a pair of rain trousers. The brand I use are called ‘Lock laces’ and I paid around 10 Euro for them.
10. Duct tape, electrical tape and zip/cable ties
The Americans have variants on the saying “There’s nothing that duct tape can’t fix” and this is true for bike touring, together with electrical tape and zip/cable ties. I use all of these for packing my bike and keep a few handy at the bottom of my bike bag to deal with emergencies: bags breaking, screws coming loose and the like. At worst, they should get you to the nearest town where you can put in place a more permanent solution.
11. Using an Allen key on pedals
For many but not all bikes, the pedals can be unscrewed not just with a spanner but with an Allen key because on the side closest to the bike, there is often a dedicated hole where they will fit. Worth checking on your own bike as this will save you having to take a spanner with you. There’s a picture in my page on packing a bike for air travel.
12. Medical or food gloves
It’s bad enough dealing with a puncture on the road, but you can do without all the grease on your hands with nowhere to wash your hands until you get to your destination. When doing anything that involves removing or reinserting my rear wheel, or anything chain-related or dirty, I tend to put on a pair of disposable surgical/ hygienic gloves. These will save you all the mess and weigh pretty much nothing.
Hygiene hacks
I know, this sounds a bit weird, but roll with me on this…
13. Reusing hotel shampoo/ hand soap bottles.
Many hotels are – quite rightly – phasing this out, preferring to install a fixed shampoo/ shower gel dispenser that is more environmentally friendly. But others still provide small bottles and over the years, I have taken half-used bottles. These are great for staying in that odd Airbnb where the owner is too tight to even offer shampoo or in some cases soap, so that I never get caught out. I refill them when the next opportunity arises.
14. Buying smaller travel bottles/jars
This is a similar idea. Do you really need to bring an entire bottle of after-sun cream? If you are anything like me, you need enough to deal with those one or two days where you severely underestimate the sun, but no more. I usually find that one experience of sunburn per holiday is enough to get me to slap on the Factor 50 enough times the following days.
The same for chafing cream. I find that the average pot takes me years to get through so much better to simply decant enough to deal with the odd days when your buttocks are…
In Belgium, Di stores have them. In Germany, I would try DM-drogerie markt and in the UK Boots or a pound shop.
15. Washing machine soap tabs
For years, I packed a tube of travel wash – Wipp is the local brand in Belgium and much of Europe. Nothing wrong with it, but these days I pack a few ‘bubbles’ or tabs to wash my clothes: they weigh less, though you do have to protect them a bit from being squashed.
When staying in apartments with a washing machine, these can be used in washing machines where the owner doesn’t leave any clothes wash. Or when washing your clothes in a hotel bathroom sink, you can drop one in for the whole load.
16. Taking your bike clothes into the shower
Thank you Global Cycling Network for this one. This is a fallback for the bikepacker/ the desperate. GCN suggests that you wash with the kit still on. When desperate, I go for taking the kit off but bringing it in with you and washing each piece of kit separately in the shower.
I tend to use a variant of this for the days when I need to wash my bike clothes on the go. I handwash them in the bathroom sink using the gel tabs above but then take them into the shower with me to rinse them as I shower. It gives me an excuse to spend even longer in the shower.
17. Using hotel towels to help dry your clothes
Again, thank you GCN for the tip. Once you have finished washing your kit and have given it a good squeeze to wring out as much water as possible, a good tip is to lay each bit out on the towel you just used to shower then roll it all up and again give a good squeeze. I find that this really helps speed up drying and means that I can then hang up my clothes in the room overnight and be confident that they will be dry the next morning.
Food hacks
18. Almonds
Thanks to my former colleague Nic Morris for putting me onto these. Almonds are a sort of wonder food, packed with nutrients. They’re good for your heart, your gut, your brain, your energy levels, your sugar levels. This BBC article gives you more information.
19. Cucumbers
I came across the value of cucumbers in an article about ultramarathon bike racing. Cucumbers are a great food to buy because not only do they provide valuable vitamins but they also stay fresh for longer than say, tomatoes or bananas, and are not ruined the moment that you cut them open. Here’s an article on the benefits.
20. Effervescent vitamin tablets/ concentrate
Thanks to Joanna at Wobbly Ride for suggesting this one. She recommends popping one of these into your water bottle both to make the water more interesting – and encourage you to drink more often – but also to keep yourself full of vitamins. It’s a great idea though it does mean cleaning the water bottles more thoroughly and more often.
While travelling through Sweden, though, I found another solution. In some countries, you can buy small packs of concentrate/ cordial. I distributed the contents of one over two or three 550ml bike bottles and found that it really encouraged me to drink. Not available everywhere – I haven’t been able to find in Belgium – but great when you come across them.
So what do you think? Let me know in the comments. Any other great hacks? Again, let me know in the comments.