Tiny travel essentials: Little things you usually forget but always need …
Tiny travel essentials: Little bits you usually forget but always need...
- Julian
- October 3, 2019
- 9:39 am
- No Comments
If you do a lot of travelling on your motorcycle, you tend to get good at packing. You know to travel light, you know to bring things to make life nicer, you know to pack your toolkit. But what about those bits that don’t appear on any list, but you always need. Those tiny little things that are so obvious and yet every time you reach into your bag, you’ve left them back at home. It’s time for us to list those Tiny Travel Essentials.
#1 CABLE GUY
OK straight in with a big hitter that you know you are going to need but you also always forget. How often do you find yourself saying ‘Has anyone got a cable tie?
It’s impossible to own a motorcycle without the use of cable ties, and once you are travelling then the potential for these little bits of plastic genius increases immeasurably. From bike repairs to clothing saves, tent maintenance to cooking accessories, the humble cable tie can do it all.
#2 GAFFER PACKER
So second on our list is another obvious but again commonly overlooked travel essential. In the garage, the roll of gaffer gets used from everything from masking paint projects to repairing waterproofs and everything else in between. But we are unlikely to ever take a full roll out with us on the bike as it’s just too big for the backpack.
The answer is to decant some just like you would with the little pots of two-stroke for you premix. Take a length of aluminium tube – nice and light – and wrap around a few metres of the good stuff and your done. Robert is your dad’s brother.
Again you could keep some for bike repairs and some for everything else but because it’s light and small it doesn’t really matter. Tape it up and it’s done!
#3 EYE CANDY
When we are out on the bike, then our preferred eye protection is a good set of motocross goggles to keep out the dust and maintain clear vision. But when the going gets wet or snotty, then that’s when it gets a bit more tricky. Even the best anti fog treatments tend to give up if you’re sweating like a Sumo wrestler on a treadmill.
And that’s when a good set of safety glasses come in reet handy. For less then a pound you can get a good set of impact resistant safety glasses than will protect your eyes, keep out the rain and allow a good flow of air to your face.
And off the bike, the same glasses will keep out the dust just he same – hell they might even keep out the smoke from the camp fire!
#4 BEANIE BABY
Now if you’re a bit lacking in the hair department, you’ll know all about this one. But even if you are as hairy as a mammoth, including a beanie hat into your packing list makes sense. It will keep out the cold, keep out at least some of the rain, can be used to wrap up breakables like your camera in your tank bag. Hell it will also come in handy to use as an eye mask to help you sleep on those short nights, not to mention keeping your head snug and protected if the pillow isn’t that squeaky clean.
#5 POWER PACK
Although we’d like to think otherwise at times, we’re all as locked to our phones as those annoyingly well off teenage bloggers. Whether it’s just to keep in touch with out mates or maybe to navigate across the globe using the vast array of incredibly good Apps that our freely available, from Maps.me to Viewranger, Pocket Earth to good old Google maps.
But running these all takes power, and unless you’ve got a decent charging system wired into the bike – then battery power in remote locations may prove an issue. And if you are going to need your phone in a remote location, that’s not the time to find it’s dead!
So rather than scrabbling around trying to find a plug socket for a few minutes charge every time we stop, why don’t we just remember to pack that power pack we bought that is now sat at home! Genius …
#6 WALLET WONDER
Now we’re not sure whether this is really essential, but having been given one of these bad boys on a Ducati launch, then our little credit card size multi tool has become a regular in out wallet for every trip since. So imagine our irritation when the security guys at Ulaanbaatar’s Ghenghis Khan Airport spotted it in our hand luggage on our return from Mongolia and promptly confiscated it! Arse …
A quick Google to replace our handy little, bottle opener, knife, spanner revealed a ridiculous range of prices from £80 down to a mere £2.50 delivered which was our obvious choice. Now where’s that beer?
#7 TUBE TIME
OK so in our opinion, the humble neck tube is arguably the best innovation to motorcycle clothing in the last forty years. Forget gore-tex clothing, forget smart fabrics, forget airbags the genius that decided that to use a tube of cloth to go between your jacket and your helmet deserves a huge medal.
To think that before neck tubes across the world motorcyclists, explorers and every other outdoor type were relying on scarves to do the job. Now the idea of attaching a woollen rope around your neck before heading out onto the road seems more stupid than steel toe-capped flip flops …
Like the Multitools above, the range of prices can be huge. with the large brands like Buff charging big bucks for products that do much the same as a one for a few pounds. Either way, on a bike trip the neck tube can be many things from sun hat to scarf, hair band to sand screen. Perfect.
Just a few rules – no clown faces, skulls, big teeth or cartoon characters. We are not seven.
#8 Torx SPORT
Now this may be a thing for newer bikes and technically this is a tool kit thing, but manufacturers are starting to drop in the odd Torx fastener onto their bikes. That’s fine if you’ve realised, but it’s not so good if you need to top up your KTM 690 Enduro R front brake fluid to find you can’t open the damn thing up …
We’re suggesting a little fold out kit as it will slip into your bag and stay there for the odd-occasion you need it, at which point it will be the best tool, ever.
#9 KENTUCKY CLEANER
Now this one is a true hack and works a treat. Certain popular high street eateries give out sealed little wet wipes for cleaning your mitts after your delicious poultry-based meal. If you happen to have any left after cleaning up, then they will slip into your wallet alongside that funky multitool.
It turns out that not only do they clean up your hands and leave them lemony fresh, they also make perfect visor cleaners to remove those dead flies and road muck. You can also just about clean your face with them at the end of a long ride if there’s nothing else available – just keep them well away from your eyes – they sting like a mofo. And don’t flush them kids – dispose responsibly!
#10 ROLL MODEL
We’ve saved the best till last for our little list of essentials. This might be one more appropriate to travel in foreign countries where the facilities are few and far between, but as ‘Sh*t Pants Stuart’ from Bristol will begrudgingly agree, it’s easy to get caught out even in rural Wales …
And if you can get caught out in the middle of Wales, just think how essential that roll of soft toilet paper will be in the middle of nowhere, or faced with an ‘a la Turk’ latrine at an Indian petrol station. If you ignore anything on this list, don’t let it be this one …
That’s all we’ve got for the moment – let us know if we missed anything that you always take on those biking awaydays!