Gear

I promised several curious people that I'd list everything that I carried with me on my trip. It will be a little complicated, since I changed gear regularly and chose to ship certain things on certain segments rather than carry them. I think the way to do it is to start by listing everything I arrived in St. John's with - these would be the essential things that I had from beginning to end - and then list the things that I ditched along the way and the reasons why I didn't want those things anymore. Ok? Here we go:

Bike:
2005 Miele San Remo 16" touring bike - basically as I bought it off the shelf in 2005, but with the following alterations/replacements:
- I replaced the entire drivetrain (cranks, chainrings, cassette, chain) immediately before the tour began because the old parts were badly worn.
- I also did a complete cable and housing overhaul immediately before leaving Vancouver.
- My left 8-speed Sora STI shifter (which was broken) was replaced in 2006 by some other 8-speed Shimano shifter
- I replaced the factory pedals (plastic with toe clips) in Minneapolis with metal, one-sided clipless pedals. These pedals have clip-ins on one side and a regular platform on the other. Really nice for touring!
- I replaced the factory tires with a Conti Top Touring (front) and a Schwalbe (rear) before the tour began. I had to replace the Schwalbe in Minneapolis and chose to go with a Vittoria Zaffiro on the recommendation of Derek, the vegan fixie.

Bike Gear:
My set up was a very simple rear rack with two panniers - very light for more than 8000km, but I was easily able to fit everything listed below.
- Rear rack - Bor Yueh
- Rear panniers - Axiom, 3-compartment, capacity
- 1 red MEC turtle blinkie
- 1 white MEC turtle blinkie
- 2 generic bottle cages
- 4 bungee cords

Camping Gear:
- Tent - North Face Canyonlands
- Sleeping bag - MEC Raven -7C mummy sack (size small)
- Mattress - Thermarest Prolite 3 small self-inflating
- 75cm compression strap for the mattress
- Pillow - handmade by Jenelle Jakobsen and given to me in a spirit of tremendous irony on my 27th birthday in 2005.
- 1 tube of tent seam sealer
- 1 roll of tent seam tape

Electronics:
- Computer - 12" Apple iBook G4
- Computer power cable
- Discs - OSX installation disc, 4 other discs containing Microsoft Office 2004, Photoshop 7, Adobe Acrobat, Macromedia, Coreldraw, backups of my files and photographs
- Flash memory - 1Gb Transcend
- Flash memory - 1Gb Sandisk Cruzer
- Neoprene sleeves - Tucano, large one for the computer and small one for the accessories
- Camera - Panasonic Lumix 4.1 megapixel
- SD memory - Sandisk 256Mb
- SD memory - Sandisk 1Gb
- SD case for the extra card
- Camera case
- Camera USB cable
- Battery charger - Energizer Ni-MH 4 battery charger
- Batteries - 4 Energizer AA Ni-MH
- Cell phone
- Cell phone power cable

Clothes:
- Bike shorts - 1 pair
- Tights - 1 pair
- Shoes - Adidas touring shoes with Shimano cleats
- Jacket - Orange MEC waterproof bicycle coat
- Helmet
- Gloves - Musto Performance leather fingerless
- Toque
- Mitts - the type where the tops flip back to reveal the finger tips
-
- Pajama pants - 1 pair
- Shorts - 1 pair
- Socks - 4 pairs
- Heavy wool socks - 1 pair
- Underwear - 4 pairs
- T-shirts - 4
- Long sleeve shirt - 1
- Cords - 1 pair - picked them up near the end of the trip when the weather was cooling down (otherwise I had spent most of the summer without a pair of pants). Doubled as second pillow at night.

Maintenance Kit:
- Pedal wrench - 15mm
- Cable clipper - Park CN-10
- Screwdriver - with 11 various driver bits
- Chain whip
- Metric allan key set - 1.5mm, 2.5mm, 3mm, 3.5mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm
-
- Cone wrenches - 13mm by 14mm, 15mm by 16mm, 17mm by 18mm
- Crescent wrenches - 9mm by 11mm, 8mm by 10mm
- Adjustable crescent wrench
- 6" vice grip
- Crank multi-tool from Filzer - includes crank puller, 15mm crescent/box combo wrench, 15mm socket, 6mm allan key, 8mm allan key (a very nice compact tool!)
- Cassette remover
- Bell chain tool
- Universal spoke wrench
- Mini multi-tool (acquired at O'Hanlon's pub trivia in 2006) - includes needle-nose pliers, large knife, small knife, Phillips driver, bottle opener, multiple flat screwdrivers
-
- 4 spare spokes (1 front wheel, 1 rear wheel non-drive side, 2 rear wheel drive side)
- 2 spare tubes
- 1 spare folding tire
- 1 shifter cable
- 1 brake cable
- 1 set of replacement cleats
- 1 set of cleat place keepers (I know this is not the name, but they are the things that screw into the cleat nuts but they have shoe tread on them)
- 1 set of replacement brake shoes (Kool Stop)
- Spare Kevlar rim liner - useful in many situations for its elasticity and strength
- 1 Spare derailleur pulley with bolt, washers, and sleeve
- 1 bottle of Phil's Tenacious Oil
- 1 pill bottle containing various nuts and bolts, ferules, cable ends, washers, etc. basically look at all the tiny pieces that might fall of your bike and get a spare one of each.

Personal Effects:
- Toothbrush
- Toothpaste
- Dental floss
- Anti-itch cream - necessary for those mosquito bites!
- Benadryl tablets - when I woke up one morning near the beginning of the trip almost unable to breathe because of allergies I decided to keep these with me the rest of the way, athough I didn't use them once after I got over the Rockies.
- Nail clippers - useful in so many situations!
- Spoon
- Fork
- Tissues/toilet paper

Money, ID, Travel Documents, Contracts, etc.:
- Ziploc bag for change
- Royal Bank card
- Scotia Bank card
- Royal Bank Visa card
- Sask Health card
- Sask "This is not a driver's license" ID card
- Phone card
- Paper cash
- All held together with a bulldog clip
- And inside of a Ziploc bag
- Ziploc bag for receipts
- Another Ziploc bag containing:
- SIN card
- Newfoundland health card
- NSCAD faculty ID card
- U of R student ID card
- Canadian passport
- Irish passport
- A copy of each contract from each gallery - 7 in total
- A copy of my Sask Arts grant letter

Food:
Obviously this changed daily, and what I arrived in St. John's with was not representative of what I might have carried on any given day, so I will list what I might have carried on a typical day.
- Peanut butter - 500g, or one pound jar, depending on which country I bought it in
- 6 pack of multigrain bagels
- Apple
- Granola bars
- 2 bottles of water, about 1.5L altogether
- A 1L spare water bottle that I would occasionally fill before those long, lonely stretches where refills might be hard to come by

Odds and Ends:
- Notebook
- "Relational Aesthetics" by Nicolas Bourriaud
- 2 pens
- The applicable maps - on certain segments I carried as many as five maps at a time
- Ziploc bags
- Plastic garbage bags - always at least three
- Plastic shopping bags - always at least three
- 1 roll of 500 Bicycle Rehabilitation Project stickers