Hacks

In my experience of running any system (such as my mechanical musical contraptions) hacks start to creep in over time. These are often as a result of things not working as initially planned, or changes that occur to the design or approach, before the point at which a fundamental rethink is warranted. These occur a lot on the road and I thought it might be of interest to some (very few?) of you if I catalogued these. I’m not talking about fixes. Stuff breaks and needs fixing a lot, either due to manufacturing flaws (as with our Big Agnes sleep mats - more on this another day) or because we messed up (as when we put our tent down on some thorns). Both of these examples were fixed with clever glues (two different types of Seam Grip, to be precise), though unfortunately the sleep mats had to be abandoned ultimately (Ultralight Outdoor Gear kindly issued refunds), as they kept puncturing over and over again :(

Anyway, back to the hacks, which range from the ridiculous to the sublime…

My water bottle

Ok, this one is partly a fix….but only partly. The duct tape on the side of my water bottle covers a split in the plastic. It is partly an attempt to seal the hole but is also there to hopefully stop the widening of the hole, both mechanically and by providing a tactile reminder to me not to squeeze the bottle at that point.

One other reason for including it here is that long distance tourers sometimes wrap duct tape around their water bottles to provide somewhere to keep a part roll, as a whole roll (complete with cardboard inner) takes up space and adds weight. Definitely a hack!

Beck’s front wheel cord

Beck’s rear stand boss broke in northern Spain, and since fitting a ‘universal replacement‘ in France, we have had issues with the stand gradually moving about and the bike angle becoming too active when it’s on the stand as a result. This causes a heavily loaded bike to want to tip over, especially when the front wheel moves too. So, we used a Cordura draw string from one of our former sleep mats bags to create a steering lock. One end is tied to the top of the bottle cage and the other loops over the handlebar. Very hacky, but also pretty effective.

Relatedly, as part of the latest maintenance round, I added another hack after repositioning and retightening the stand. I cut a small piece off a spare piece of drive belt we have (which I carry as a possible future emergency belt whip) to create a physical spacer between the stand arm and the frame. This is taped with electrical tape and Tenacious Tape, to hopefully prevent further movement. We will see…

My helmet tape

One thing that always wears out pretty fast in my experience is the pads inside a cycle helmet. It’s not like it’s the most comfortable or fetching hat in the first place but when it’s lacking its pads it can be even worse. So, when the back of my helmet started to hurt my head, I put a few layers of ripstop repair tape on the offending point. Seemed easier than finding any suitable pads on tour.

My microphone holder / binaural recording set up in general

I carry audio recording gear with me wherever I go. Sometimes conditions don’t allow for me to have my microphones out but, where possible, I like to be able to be ready to record as quickly as possible. This is useful to both ensure I do it (unpacking and setting up loads of gear can be a real mood killer) and to make sure I don’t miss fleeting sounds due to a lengthy set up.

As you can see in these images, I have two small microphones—in little fluffy wind jammers—either side of my front bag. My recorder and battery are inside the bag. Everything is ready to go.

I initially tried to make some screw in clamps for the microphone croc clips to attach to but they kept popping off when riding off-road, so I ended up fashioning a sort of dampened mount out of one of our MODL Infinity Tool straps attached over the two strap mounts on the outside of my front bag. Has worked a treat!

Our power supply standoff (with hole for pin)

We have a nifty Verbatim GAN III travel adapter that features all of the plugs you could want for worldwide travel, along with loads of USB outs for multiple device charging. So far, it has been really useful, except when a ‘euro socket’ features a flap to cover it, as this prevents the big adapter from fitting, or if there is a grounding pin (Morocco), as the Verbatim doesn’t feature a hole for this eventuality.

We got around the first part of this problem by buying an adapter that acts as a stand off. Cunningly, we then got around the grounding pin issue by creating a hole in the ‘stand off adapter’ that the grounding pin can slot in. Now we can make the most of every opportunity to charge.

Cutting the corners off my bum towel

We use two hand towels for washing at night, before bedding down in our tent. This is important for personal hygiene reasons and to extend the time it takes for our bedding to reach ‘stinky’. We have one towel each for washing our face, body and legs, and another for washing our ’bits’. Initially we labelled the towels accordingly with hand drawn symbols.

The problems with this approach are many. Firstly, the symbols fade with multiple washes. Secondly, they are hard to see at night. Thirdly, this approach doesn’t allow for the use of any other senses to distinguish between the towels.

So, we came up with the simple hack of cutting two of the corners off the bum towel. Now, there is no getting them mixed up, even in a tired and hungry state…in the dark.

You might ask why we don’t use different coloured towels instead. In fact, due to mislaying her initial towels, Beck does now. The problem with these is that they are still hard to distinguish under red light, which is how we use our head torches when we are trying to act all stealthy. You never want to to get those towels mixed up, so I I think we’d better cut the coroners off her new bum towel too…

Silk liner

Related to the above, when we started this trip we were unaware of sleeping bag liners. We use a clever double bed sleep system (more on that another time) and it now has a Sea To Summit double silk liner inside it at all times. This means the main down part of the duvet doesn’t get dirty, or as smelly, and we can wash the liner regularly without worrying about a lengthy drying and lofting process. This is a hack, even if it seems to be one nearly everyone on the planet, except for us, was aware of previously.

Surly strap on handlebar stem to prevent wear

We have rather elaborate handlebar stems. They have some suspension in them and unbeknown to me before buying them, they also need servicing by the manufacturer in Germany when the bearings wear. When I sent mine back (Beck’s is yet to need a return), it became clear that the straps from my Ortlieb front bag had badly worn the plates that make up the stem.

Once rebuilt and returned, I refitted the stem and the Ortlieb front bag holder. only this time, I added a Surly strap underneath the cord that Ortlieb use to hold their clamp on. Let’s see whether that reduces the wear.

I must say that in the time I rode my bike with a stem on loan from the people that made our bikes I didn’t really consider the comfort of this stem to warrant the hassle of returning it for (a fairly costly) service periodically. Granted I didn’t ride off-road a great deal in that period but depending on how long it lasts this time, my next hack may be to do away with it altogether.

Brake band

Lastly, a classic hack. Our bikes have a rubber band on the left handle bars, so that we can easily lock the rear brake by pulling the rubber band over the brake lever. This can be handy in a variety of settings, to prevent the bike from rolling away…or being rolled away.

In actual fact, this hack is now rather obsolete, since we tend to use the cafe lock instead. We need to be a bit more careful with this to ensure it rests on the spoke before leaving it but, aside maybe from if we needed to put the bike upright on a hanger, it performs a similar function. Our cafe locks are a great addition to our bikes as the only easy way our bikes can be taken in haste is wheeling them away and these comprehensively prevent that from happening.

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No doubt I will remember other hacks in due course. In which case, there will be another exciting instalment. Thanks for tuning in ;)

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Addendum

Martin reminded me (with his comment below) of another hack of ours relating to our Ortlieb panniers. I cut some bits of 2mm wall silicone tubing to slot over the bottom clips of our panniers. They prevent a lot of the rattling and bouncing about you get (in our experience) with Ortliebs.

These work doubly well with the rear panniers as the mudguard stay constrains the other side of the clip/tubing.

I suspect ‘other panniers’ is the best answer if trying to fully eliminate that rattle. Beck’s front Tailfin panniers are resolutely rattle free, and we’re not even using their swanky custom rack/clip system.

Otherwise—Martin—pannier rack rattle / loosening is kept to a minimum on ours because the main rear rack is part of the frame (!), so we only have a couple of bolt on rails for hanging panniers off. So pleased with that decision thus far…