Hello, welcome to my YouTube channel
If you are already following me, you know we have done a bike tour across Some European Countries
Before our bike tour, We had a look around.
We didn't have any idea what we should bring.
Actually, after our bike tour we came out with our own list which we are going to share with you
Because at the end some of the things we brought with us, we didn't really need
and some others actually we forgot to bring with us
we put all of the stuff we need for a bike tour here
And these are the things if we go for another bike tour, we will carry. let's go through all of them
It is obvious the first thing you need for a bike tour is a bicycle
This my my bike. You saw in different videos that I was riding it. I have done more than 1000 miles with this bike
And it is not an expensive bike
It is an hybrid bicycle
Some people thinks my bike is a mountain one because of the wheels, but it is not
The hybrid bike is good to ride on a road and also on an off-road
The other thing you definitely need is a rear rack
I put on my rack a bag which I can put wallet or anything you want to have easy access
The next thing you need even if you are not going for a long bike tour, even if you are going for a very short bike ride, is helmet
You can see my helmet is not very girlish or nice, but it is better to have one
probably you can buy the nicer one, and I might later buy the nicer one
another essential thing you need for your bike tour is panniers.
You need the solid ones. These ones are pretty good and they are waterproof
they should be waterproof because during the long tour, you don't know what weather you would have
In terms of space these panniers are really good, you put all the things you see on the ground inside the panniers
Or probably, even more. even your clothes which we didn't bring today because we didn't need to
when I was thinking about the bike tour I was thinking I would have pain in my butt
I came up with the solution.
Actually, we both two padded saddles
At the beginning, I didn't think it would worked, but to be honest it worked
They were so good
Even though, I had the padded shorts too, but I couldn't do the bike tour without the saddle
You can plan ahead, But sometimes it is impossible to plan
So you should be ready for everything can happens
For example, you plan to stay in a hotel or hostel or somewhere, but sometimes you don't know where you can reach to
That is why is it better to have all the camping gear with you
We had a very small tent and you can see it on a video how small is
Our tent is waterproof and windproof
As I said you need a camping gears
This one is our sleeping bag, it is not heavy
Since we were not cycling during winter
We bought something light, because we had to carry with our bikes
and you can see that we have two of them
Sometimes you don't want to sleep on your sleeping bags and you want something soft
This is an inflatable mat
This is another luxury thing for camping
I call it luxury
You see it has kind of cover
and this is just a pillow
It is an inflatable pillow
It doesn't take any space
Another thing you might thing it is just luxury, it is flip flops
When you go to a campsite and you want to take a shower, it is better to have flip flops with you
Because sometimes the floor is not clean and it is not easy to put the shoes on
These towels are microfiber
The microfiber towels get dry easily. when you are in a rush you don't have to wait
You should always be ready for things can go wrong on a bike tour
Your bike can break down at any time
It is good to bring with you a small repair kit
This has a bunch of keys to tweak your bike
and a puncture repair kit
This is just a small and spare pump we have
Actually we have the bigger one there
and this is helpful for when you want to take out your tube from your bicycle's wheels
a couple of spare tubes if you can
These are helpful if your puncture is not easy to fix
at least you can throw away the tube and replace it with another one
Also for your chain, in case your chain has some issue
you can actually use this tool to replace chain ring
Another little thing is just some loob for your chain
Overtime your chain gets a bit dusty, especially if you leave out under the rain
So it is good to apply this (oil) regularly to your chain
and the other things you need: gloves
Even if it is not cold you need a pair of gloves, since they can protect your hands
Actually, we didn't have gloves during our bike tour, It was really cold we had to stop in Belgium and buy gloves
They helped us a lot
Not only to protect us from cold
The ride was more comfortable with these gloves
Since I bought them, I always wear them when I am on a bike ride
One thing you really need on a bike tour is a good lock
You don't want to lose your bike middle of your bike tour, so buy a good lock
If you don't have a good lock you can ruin your trip, so invest on a good lock
You need a pump, we have two
One is small and the other one is a bit bigger
both of them are easy to carry
of course you need lights, especially if you are going to cycle during the autumn, spring or even winter when days are shorter
also if you are going to camp you need a light
what I really recommend is to have a first aid kit with you
The first aid kit is essential for camping, even if you are not planning to go on a bike tour
another couple of things might be useful
If you camp, there is a big plug adaptor and
you can plug to a campsite, in case you have something to charge
in our case we had tons of things to charge
we bring usually cameras, phones and GoPros. So this one was so useful
Another thing I brought with me it was this waist bag
Mostly, I kept my passport in here
Because we were going around Europe and passport it is important, so I kept it here around my waist
You can also use it to keep money
We also brought with us a multi-USB charger
because as you can see there is one socket here
So we just brought a bunch of USB cables and they don't take a lot of space
and you can charge 4 things at the same time
and also we had a power bank (mobile charger) which
we usually use to charge our phone
Because we were using our phones quite a lot for finding the direction where we were going.
I had a small bag like this in front of my bike
I put my phone here and the charger in the other side
So I could connect them and while I was riding the bike I was able to charge my phone
This part is usually for phone, but I put my wallet
Because I could detach it easily and carry with me
There are other things you might not thinking about them but they are essential
Hand gel, sometimes you are middle of nowhere
and you want to have food and you can't wash your hands
and your hands are not clean, so hand gel would help you
and you can put shampoo and body wash on a small bottle to be able to carry
and sometimes you can't find a shower
It is not easy when you are on a bike tour to find a shower, so you can carry the dry-wash liquid.
You don't need water to use it
When you cycle in Europe, you think you don't have a lot of sun
But, when you are out there you need a sun cream
You need toilet paper and toilet wipes
Believe me you really need it. I have gone through many things that why I really recommend it
These are our bottles for carrying water
Actually during our bike tour, we carried a lot of different drinks
not just water
a lot of fizzy drink
I know it is not healthy, but when you are on a bike, you burn a lot of calories
So I think you deserve some extra sugar
You don't want to forget about your expreince
That is why I recommend to carry a small notebook and end of the day write about your day
Sometimes you are in your tent and bored so carry your kindle with you
Kindle is easier to carry compare to carrying books
These two are so light and you can carry them with yourself
and the other thing helped us a lot
and actually the whole bike tour we carried with us so closely was our GoPros
We had two GoPros, one Hero 4 and the other one Hero5
Here is our drone
and as you see it is Mavic Pro
and you can see in the videos we flown our drone many times in the different countries
It made our trip very enjoyable
When you are on a bike tour, sometimes you feel cold and sometimes hot
Especially when the weather is not predictable
When you cycle you usually feel hot, but when you stop you feel cold
That is why is better to have different layers
It is so easy you can take off the layer or put on the layer
and you can see on the video, in Belgium, I had to take off some layers and later stop and put some on
I recommend to you, don't carry a heavy clothes since you think it is cold
It is better to carry light clothes but different layers
The other thing you might not think about that
It is carrying a light spare clothes for you stopped and you want to walk around
another thing we did to avoid stopping to check our phone for finding the direction all the time
You definitely don't want to put your phone in your pocket and keep taking it out every 2 minutes to check direction
We bought a little gadget
and you can attach to your bike and put your phone and secure it easily
You can keep your phone on and it save you a lot of time
Because you have the direction in front of you
On our bike tour, I had my laptop with me ( I put it in the panniers) but you don't have to carry laptop
I hope this list can help you
I will put links of all the gears we talked about down bellow
and also the article I wrote about that you can find it in the description
Same as always thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe for more adventure videos