Cloudride Gear List
By Jonathan Milford
This is Jonathan Milford’s gear list from the Cloudride in 2021. You can find the accompanying trip report here.
| Category | Item | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Sleep setup | Sea To Summit Trek TK 2 | I think my sleep setup is pretty light for how comfy it is. |
| Mont Silk Sleeping bag Liner | However as I only set up the tent for two nights in the race. | |
| Sea To Summit ComfortLite Air Mat | I am starting to consider lighter options - it is comfy and gives me some reassurance in bad conditions, but a bivvy can cover the safety aspect and I don’t need the comfort all the time. | |
| Tarptent Rainbow | ||
| Water purification | Steripen Classic | I like the Steripen because it kills giardia in 90 seconds as opposed to the 2 hours that the Micropur recommends. However if you carry a lot of water, the refill times get longer as you can't sterilise on the go. It's also a bit heavier. |
| Micropur tablets | I still bring the Micropur tablets as they are light and reliable - can't be without water if the Steripen fails. | |
| Cooking | Jetboil Minimo with 100g gas canister, small lighter, 1/4 of a green dish sponge, Sea To Summit plastic spoon | Cooks very efficiently. Can simmer, but I still mostly just boil water and then add ingredients. 1L pot size, which helps you eat big while you ride big. Theoretically the Jetboil has its own ignition source but I haven't figured out how to use it that reliably. |
| Toiletries | Sunscreen (in 90ml travel container) | With my near full clothing coverage I don’t need much sunscreen, even though I reapply every 2 hours as per cancer council recommendations. |
| Moisturizer (200ml container) | In future I would bring this from the start in a travel container, rather than having to buy it en route. Helps with foot care - I didn’t take shoes off for any of the river crossings and the water dries out the feet. | |
| Hand Sanitizer (in 10ml container) | After toilet/before food. | |
| Toilet paper in ziplock bag | I didn’t bring a shovel, but there are many toilets without paper, and you can dig with your hands in the worst case. | |
| Aussie Bum Cream (~100ml container) | Can’t tell how much this helps but sometimes it’s a good excuse to give your sore areas a bit of a rub. | |
| Comb | Keep the scalp happy. | |
| Toothbrush | Toothbrush does 90% of the work, I don’t think you really need toothpaste (not a dentist). | |
| Face Washer | Good to scrub down the skin at the end of the day. Can dry it out on the handlebars each day, beats single use wet wipes. No soap cause either you are staying in a pub that has soap or the wilderness which doesn’t need soap in its waterways. | |
| Spare clothes | Wool Thermals and underwear | These were my pajamas, warm clothes, and "clean clothes" at the finish. |
| Puffer Jacket | To stay warm in in bad conditions. | |
| Mont Austral Jacket | This didn't see much use on my ride, but has kept me happy through many all day downpours. You could probably go for a lighter jacket but I think the 3/4 length works well on the bike. | |
| Bike Computer | Garmin Edge 1030 | Great battery life. From what I've heard the solar recharging on the 1040 is amazing. Many people complain about the touch screen in the rain but I didn’t have any issue with locking the touch when it was raining. |
| Recharging | 2x 10000mah xiaomi battery packs | When you are as slow as me, battery packs work better than dynos. Plus, they are cheaper. |
| Spare batteries for Spot tracker and Steripen | ||
| Front light | Exposure Diablo 12 | On the lowest setting this has a 24 hour burn time, which is good. However it's not ideal for handling technical terrain in the dark unless you are able to run it on the high settings and recharge it enough for that. Since I mostly slept at night this was fine, but for someone racing they will need more lights or more lumens. |
| Rear light | Cygolite Shotshot 50 SL | On the slowest blink setting this has a 200 hour burn time, which is great. |
| Phone | Gotta get those instagram pics, check the tracker, read the course notes, text steve. | |
| Tracker | Gen4 Spot tracker | Required for the race. |
| Bike | 2020 Karate Monkey with NX 11 speed gears, upgraded Shimano Deore 4 pot brakes, rigid fork, and 2.8" Maxxis Rekon tires | This bike was my little tractor. I enjoyed the plus tires on a lot of the nasty terrain, but the bike was very slow on the fast parts of the course (and heavy on the many hills). If I was racing towards the pointy end of the field I would change to a carbon XC mountain bike, but this is a bike I knew could get me to the end no matter what.
Lower gears would help too - My lowest gear was 30:42, and my legs ran out of steam towards the end. I had bar ends in the middle of my bars to act as pretend "hoods", but with my ergons I didn't really need to move my hands at all. |
| Bike bags | Surly Frame Bag | Frame bags are my favourite bag, as they never move or rub. I store my water, stove, spare tube here, as well as water sterilisation items. |
| Apidura Backcountry tail bag | This bag is light and doesn't wiggle at all, but only because it is tiny. I put my warm clothes here. | |
| Terra Rosa Top tube bag | This bag is huge. I keep all my electronics and lights in here, as well as some bars. | |
| Terra Rosa feed bags | These are also massive, I stored a day's worth of food in one, then toiletries in the other. | |
| Terra Rosa fork bags (on Manythings cages) | I really like the minimal Manythings cages, and the bags are quite durable. I stored tools, toiletries, and dinner food in here. | |
| Ortlieb handlebar pack | All my sleeping stuff, and thermals. This is a BIG bag, but I love it. It comes with foam blocks to give your cables space and prevent rub on the head tube. | |
| Downtube mounted Velo orange mojave cage | Carries my Nalgene with no chance of it getting ejected in rough terrain. The bottle has cloth tape around it, which can fix many problems. | |
| Repair Kit | - Pump - Bacon Strips - Multi tool - Lube (Ride Mechanic Bike Syrup) - Spare Tube - Quick links | I struggled to use my screw-on pump - I now use a Silca tattico which locks onto the valve via a gasket. It's also got a good volume and quality construction. The lube got the most use out of this set of tools, as well as the pump for changing pressures depending on the terrain. I would bring a rag as well next time. This repair kit leaves a lot of ways for a mechanical to produce a DNF, but I am a useless mechanic, so the missing tools would not necessarily help me. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than skilled. |
Clothes during the day
| Item | Comments |
|---|---|
| UV Wraps sunnies | Cheap polarized safety glasses. |
| Long sleeve cycling top | Sun safety first. |
| Fingerless Gloves | These work well with the constant eating, chocolate is easier to get off fingers than out of gloves. |
| Bib shorts | Make sure they are comfy! |
| Sun tights | Dirt and sunscreen on the legs is bad mix, at least for me. |
| Injinji Socks | Fast drying non toe socks would be better, but these are at least fast drying. |
| carbon soled racy XC shoes | I would run a more hiking friendly shoe next time. They tore up my feet on the hike a bike, and I cracked the soles with all the kicking rocks (made them a bit more comfy though). |
Food and water
| Item | Comments |
|---|---|
| DIY oat mix (quick oats, brown sugar, milk powder, cinnamon, dried fruit, mixed nuts, chia seeds) | I carried this for most of the ride, and only ate one portion. Still had 1kg left over at the end oops. |
| Milk powder | These two powders, mixed in the right ratio, can get you a long way and get you out of a lot of sticky spots. |
| Drinking Chocolate powder | |
| Snickers, Mars, Snakes, etc | The snickers and mars were my main fuel, I went through 100 of them on the ride. Snakes were the backup if I didn’t feel like a bar. |
| Auswan Biltong | I carried this as a bit of protein and a way to reset my mouth from all the sweetness. |
| Couscous and cup-a-soup packets | Good lightweight dinner option. You can add milk powder to this too for more calories. |
| Hydralite tablets (berry flavour) | I usually drink water from a bladder and hydralite from a drink bottle - the bottle serving as back up if the bladder fails, and drinking the straight water to help save my teeth from the acid in the hydralite. |
| Spare ziplock bags | For decanting take away food or other food restocks. |
Things I would bring next time
| Item | Comments |
|---|---|
| Snake Bandage, Space Blanket, Gastro-stop | You may have noticed the lack of a first aid kit. I usually follow the following thought process. If you are injured, it's either bad or it's not. If it's not bad, don't worry. If it is bad, press the helicopter button. However, I now realise that you need to stay alive until the helicopter comes, and these items will help with that. |
| SPF lip balm | The only place I get burned these days. |
| Rag for the repair kit | Lubing the chain wasn't helping much without cleaning it. |
| Monkey See Reflective Harness | Lightweight way to add some safety - you know how drivers are in Australia. I would also slap some reflective tape on the frame of the bike. |
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