Last month we drove from North Carolina to Utah, and spent a few weeks mountain biking
out West.
Our road trip was glorious.
Although we made a lot of memories, we also spent back to back days just driving.
Keeping the car clean, keeping ourselves clean, and staying well rested were the main keys
to sanity during our time on the road.
So, since you guys are all mountain bikers, hikers, or outdoor enthusiasts at the very
least, I figured you could use 10 road trip hacks for your next adventure.
Let’s get started.
You’ll probably end up buying some things you forgot while out on the road, like a toothbrush,
a flashlight, batteries—stuff like that.
So start a dedicated bin just for road trip stuff.
As you buy all the stuff you forgot, just add it to the bin.
Next time you can load it up and not need to buy everything again.
Seems like an obvious thing to do, but it’s actually not.
If you’re road tripping really hard, you may even need to change your clothes, and
you may not have a low key place to do it.
In a pinch, you can use your car doors as a dressing room.
It only gives you 270 degrees of privacy, but that’s enough if you’re facing the
woods.
If you’ve road tripped before, chances are you’ve already used this trick to get the
job done.
Speaking of getting the job done, you can use a heavy duty bucket for that.
I even labeled mine.
To make it more comfortable to sit on, you’ll also need a pool noodle, which surprisingly
you can still buy during the winter.
Cut the noodle to the circumference of your heavy duty bucket, and then cut it again long
ways.
It should fit around the rim and make for a comfy seat.
You can use a bag to contain the mess, but make sure your heavy duty bucket is clean
before it goes back in your car.
When number twoing out on the road, toilet paper just doesn’t cut it.
With a few days between showers baby wipes should be your religion.
You can use these to clean off public toilet seats, to clean yourself, or even take a road
trip bath.
With wipes, you won’t need to stew in your own filth for thousands of miles, so put them
in your road trip bin and make sure you don’t run out.
If you’re watching this channel then of course you’ll be bringing bikes on your
next road trip.
While eating, or taking bathroom breaks, you need to protect your bikes from would-be opportunists.
U locks and bike chains are great ways to secure your bikes, but the best of those cost
crazy money and often times aren’t long enough.
Here’s how to make a custom bike lock.
First obtain a length of really heavy chain from the hardware store.
I got 5 1/2 feet.
Now cut open an inner tube so you can slide it over the chain.
This should be easy.
Okay, so this is almost impossible to do with a narrow inner tube, so make sure you get
one wide enough.
Secure the ends with electrical tape and fold the inner tube back to protect it.
I bought these heavy duty contractor locks which are about as big around as a U.
The inner tube will protect your bikes from the chain, and you can also use a cable to
secure your wheels from getting stolen.
Now nobody can steal my bikes—unless they have an angle grinder, or a T20.
At least they’ll be safe from casual theft at rest stops.
Speaking of rest stops you might get tired of driving and need to sleep.
If you can’t find a campsite, some Walmarts allow overnight parking.
If you see RVs and semis in the back of the lot, it’s usually cool to set up and get
some rest there.
Just be low key about it, and don’t treat the place like a campsite.
I found a really expensive and outdated app that, to be fair, does work well for finding
these locations.
It turns out that ingles, Cracker barrel, and a few other places also allow boondocking.
When waking up in the morning a lot of us drink coffee, I know I do.
One of the easiest ways to make coffee on the road is to just keep some in the cooler.
Iced coffee tastes delicious, you don’t need to heat anything up, and you can prepare
it with ice from your cooler.
You can brew the coffee at home, or even buy this premade stuff at most supermarkets.
Once it’s diluted with ice, you’ll find that one bottle of this is enough for multiple
days, and you’ll save money on coffee stops.
I’m personally a lot more comfortable when my immediate surroundings are clean and free
of clutter.
Alex doesn’t care as much.
By shaking out your floor mats and wiping your cars interior, it’ll feel and actually
be cleaner.
For this, I keep car cleaning wipes in my road trip bin.
Although these say “Armor all” on them, they’re actually just cleaning wipes.
In fact you could probably use baby wipes for this as well, although I haven’t.
Another way to keep your car clean is with a carbage can.
Trust me, this is a lot better than the shopping bag around your shifter because it actually
contains the garbage so don’t need to look at it.
Get a small office sized trash can and secure it someplace in the back.
When you get a receipt, a bag, or the remains of of meal, it can go into the carbage until
you find a place to empty it.
This last hack is for those of you who like to cook.
For this one you’ll need some aluminum foil, bread, cheese, and some butter or oil.
Just coat the foil and sandwich some cheese between two slices of bread.
Wrap it up, and throw it on your engine block.
This works better on older cars with “proper” engine blocks, but Alex’s Mazda did a satisfactory
job of cooking our lunch.
I guarantee you haven’t seen engine block grilled cheese in any other hack video.
So there you go, 10 road trip hacks.
Road trips are one of the best ways to create memories, so start planning!
There’s loads of singletrack, parks, and wilderness out there, and it’s not gonna
explore itself.
So fill up your gas tank, grab your road trip bin, and get out there.
If you found this video to be useful or at least entertaining, please give it a thumbs
up and share it with someone you know.
Thanks for riding with me today, and I’ll see you next time.
For the experienced road warriors out there, give us some more ideas in the comments.