Gear

Here’s a rundown of our major gear items with some comments on how they worked out. There’s a semi-complete clothing list at the bottom. of course, ask questions if you have any.

List of Awesomeness (aka gear and companies that rule):

-Santana bike frame. did not flinch. only wobbled a bit when we REALLY loaded up on water and food. We are also able to race around home with really fast riders on their road bikes, so the 26″ wheel platform is superduper versatile. Customer service sucks, though – see below.
-Salsa gordo rims. great for wide tires. ours broke on the braking surface, eventually, but lasted 11,500 loaded, abusive miles. Friends (erich and laura) rode the whole way on their single bikes without any problems with their Gordos.
-Cheng Shin Semi Slick Tires. $10 and lasted 4,000 miles on some of the worst roads we encountered. Better than any Schwalbe or Continental at a fraction of the price. to be fair, they are not as puncture resistant.
-Arai drum brake. this is a 3rd brake that worked to slow us down on hills. I set it up on a thumb-shifter so that I could actuate it and leave it on, handsfree. It was priceless for the hundreds of grueling gravel descents we encountered.
-Big Agnes tent and sleeping pads. This is mainly here because of their awesome customer service. Anytime something broke, they sent us a replacement anywhere for free, no questions asked. Our tent (slide mountain 3, now discontinued) was well thought out and worked great. Their sleeping pads are also (a) light (b) extremely comfortable and (c) relatively cheap.
-Sea to summit event compression dry sack. Incredibly durable for how light it is. We used this to house our sleeping bags and down coats, an important task. it started to leak a bit around southern patagonia, but still.
-Old man mountain rack. our rear rack was constantly overloaded, and it held up great. Also, they have great customer service and will replace anything no questions asked. note: we did have to duct tape areas where the panniers rubbed to keep the tubes in tact.
-Ibex wool clothes. All great, except their bike shorts which wear out instantly. The wool underwear is freaking amazing:comfortable, durable, and doesn’t need to be washed very often (very important for bike tourers). Erin just wore the wool underwear instead of bike shorts for the last half of the trip. They also gave us 40% off when we told them we were doing a big trip. Smartwool stuff also worked out.

Not so good

-53-39-24 chainrings. This was just a gear setup issue, rather than a problem with the gear, per se. Too much range between the high and low chainrings and we dropped the chain all the time. I highly recommend that you ditch the top 20% or so and coast. 42 -32 -22 with an 11×32 cassette would be optimal for a loaded tandem. if you have road gearing, cut the highest chainring as much as possible and use a 24 tooth little guy.
-Santana Customer Service. Almost every company we called did everything to back up their gear. Santana just tended to say “no,” “sorry that’s not under warranty,” “you’ll have to send that part into us before we can give you a replacement,” etc. They came off as elitist (our stuff is the best, and you can’t break it if you use it correctly) and unwilling to help. If their bike frames weren’t so awesome, I’d recommend another company for this reason. They are probably better for more common, domestic, situations.
-Schwalbe tires. OK, so their customer service is great and they replaced our tires multiple times over for free. unfortunately, that had to happen A LOT, because we went through 8 of their best tires in the first 8 months (plus a set of continentals and a bontrager in between). Some people have better luck on single bikes, but I say schwalbe tires are overpriced for what you get. their regular old marathons at $40 are good and reasonable, but still 4x as much as cheng shin tires which outlasted the marathons twice over.

Other stuff

Repair Kit

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Gear storage: panniers/trailer

We started pulling a bob trailer, but ditched it in Seattle. we are much happier without it, though it did help a lot when we needed to carry a week worth of food in the remote northern portions of our journey. The bike is much more maneuverable and fun to drive.

In addition to our 4 Ortlieb panniers and handlebar bag (front) we made some frame bags for the bike, converted a fannypack into a rear stoker bag, and added a wood platform up front to expand the carrying capacity of the bike. We like the setup. Biggest problem is for lots of water storage.

Here’s a picture of our rig in El Salvador:

Camping Gear

For camping, we got a 3 person, 3 season tent by Big Agnes called the Slide Mountain 3. It is no longer made, so a review is pointless. but we do like it. Big Agnes Customer Service is OUTSTANDING.

we have his and her’s REI sleeping bags that we zip together. We also manufactured some straps to tie our big agnes sleeping pads together. we then loop the sleeping bags around the pads and have a very nice nest. Our most comfortable sleeping is in the tent.

Our stove is a Trangia stove that runs on alcohol, and is basically a glorified Sterno. Super quiet and pretty quick, we love it. But it’s a bit tricky to find Alcohol in Southern Mexico. Stock up when you can.

Other:
-MSR 10 liter waterbag. Bombproof and useful. Highly recommended.
-MSR water filter. does what it’s supposed to do. needs cleaning occasionally – learn how to do this before you leave.

Clothes

General list (each person) just to get an idea:

1 pair Sandals
1 pair running shoes (erin) moccasins (alan)
2 pairs bike shorts
2 pairs socks
2 pairs wool underwear
1 long sleeve wool shirt (erin has 2)
1 short sleeve wool shirt (alan)
1 pair synthetic pants
1 pair synthetic shorts
1 sun hat for under helmet
1 pair bike gloves
1 pair of long finger gloves
1 rain coat
1 rain pant
1 wool hat
1 down jacket (doubles as pillow) -this one seems extravagant, but man are we glad when the temps are in the 40s and below. this is a highly recommended item you might not think of.

feel free to ask questions on any gear if you have them – we’re happy to tell you our experiences.