Saturday, April 18, 2009

2010 Dream list

Stuff I would love to bring to Africa Next year (if money weren't an issue) :

1) Wild Things Spectra Andinista pack
2) Wild Things Superlight Windshirt
3) iphone or ipod touch, surprisingly useful in Africa now
4) Small netbook, does mac make one of these yet?
5) The perfect bike:
Rigid 29" Mountain Bike, preferably with G2 Geometry but without an eccentric bottom
bracket. I like Surly's FFF idea. fatter the tires the better for northern kenya.

Extra wide road bars (really, really wide) Ti would be great but steel - well...

Some super fat downhill tires for Northern Kenya (cheap and disposable), some schwable marathons
for everything else.

A cane creek thud buster (I'm a convert)

A brooks saddle

Thompson stem and, stainless steel rings, gripshift, or thumshifters.

7 speed if possible, 8 sp if not. Not sure what else...

6) Tent - something free standing, easy to pitch and water proof. Also very breathable. And packs small. Perhaps a Sierra Design Meteor Light 2? The footprint is also a must have due to the rocks and thorns we encounter, I wish they made on from Kevlar

7) Foam pad, the hell with thermarest. Useless.

8) Other ideas... to be continued.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Bruce,I am doing the TDA in 2010 and have been following your blog with much interest. You are the first one to give some detail of what is ideal to take. Any more suggestions bike-wise?Thank you and well done!Hope the rest of the ride goes well! Eric.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Paul for the mistake!

Unknown said...

I'd bring a rigid 29er. Bring one set of 25 mm tires, one set of 35 mm tires and one set of 2.5" MTB tires or bigger.

Anonymous said...

yay Paul - I served in Botswana and visited Namibia (beautiful and even less people than Botswana I think!) and Zimbabwe. Deb and I (and I am sure Cliff) chat about your adventure often. Take care. Jenn (communications person for RPCVs in Tally)

Shane Robinson said...

I can't speak to the bike stuff, but I totally agree about thermarest. Also, bought a netbook a few weeks ago and loaded ubuntu for its OS. Love it. Have an iphone too... There's not a mac netbook yet but you can buy OSX and "hackintosh" a pc netbook and get OSX to run well. Apple doesn't like it, but if you paid for the software they will look the other way.

Shane