September 30, 2024
Gear and Recommendations
While we're by no means experts at these foreign bike tours, we have done many multi day rides in the states and between those experiences and our trip in Europe we've come up with some recommendations that helped us on our ride. We're not going to run through every piece of gear that we brought with us, but wanted to highlight a couple items that we feel added significant value to our ride experience.
Feel free to leave comments (if you're a CycleBlaze member) if you've got some other preferences or different thoughts on some of these items that you'd like to share.
INTERCOM HELMETS
One of the most useful items for our rides have been our Sena Intercom helmets. Both Ellen and I have them (along with a number of friends that we ride with in Maryland) and it allows us to communicate with each other (or with larger groups) without having to be right next to each other on the trail and it's also not blocking our ears so we can hear other traffic and trail noise.
The range is good for about a couple hundred yards and it was extremely helpful during our ride on EV15. Btw it comes with either bluetooth or wire-mesh connection technologies. We opted for the wire-mesh as that might allow us to connect for farther distances and with more people. But I've heard from people using the less expensive bluetooth helmets that were still pretty happy with them.
It also has a GREAT mic that's facing down on the front brim of the helmet. So it isn't exposed to the typical wind noise that you get when you're normally speaking on a cell phone while biking (just make sure you aren't wearing a skull cap or hat with a brim underneath your helmet that might block the mic). When using this as a mic for your phone, it sounds pretty clear and unless you're breathing heavily, people won't realize you're actually riding.
It also comes with a rear light on the back of the helmet that isn't that bright but can come in handy if it's really dark. And finally our model came with a built in Amazon Alexa feature that we rarely use.
I'll probably buy another one of these helmets as mine wears out or breaks and I'm not married to a specific style or model. I just want to make sure that it's got the built in brim-mic and the wire-mesh connection technology.
BONE CONDUCTION EARPHONES
Bone conduction earphones or headsets allow you to listen to audio without inserting anything in or blocking your ears. So you can be listening to a podcast or music while still hearing all the traffic and other sound of your surroundings. The combination of these headsets and our intercom helmets provide us with a pretty manageable set of three simultaneous sources of audio.
- Our riding partner(s) on the intercom helmet
- Audio entertainment (music or podcasts) on our bone conduction headset
- (Most Importantly) the environment around you... traffic, nature, other people on the trail etc...
Ellen and I both got a pair of Shokz OpenRun Pro headsets that we really like. The audio isn't studio quality, but it's still decent enough that I felt comfortable listening to quite a bit of music on our ride through Europe. And it's really nice for podcasts where the audio quality isn't critical.
Shokz offers a newer version of this headset with a combination of bone conduction and open air speakers that supposedly offers better audio quality. I haven't tried these yet, but I'd be a little concerned about the open air speakers potentially bleeding into the Sena helmet intercom mic.
There are also other brands of bone conductions headsets, but we're very happy with our Shokz headsets. Mine feels so comfortable that I'll often leave them on all day.
HIGH CAPACITY BATTERY CHARGER
We use portable battery chargers all the time. But on this trip we always wanted to have enough juice to get us through a couple charges of various devices during the course of the day that our previous chargers couldn't handle. We ended up buying a charger with 25800mAh of storage that could easily charge our phones multiple times and bike computers or any other devices we needed to re-juice during the course of our daily ride.
I'm not sure that we have specific brand recommendations for a charger. But for our purposes we were looking for a couple additional features
- An LED power gauge to let you know what levels you were at in case you were stretching your power needs for the day. I don't think we ever got it below 25% during our trip.
- Simultaneous charging - Our charger was accessible by three simultaneous devices which came in handy, with two USB A ports and a single USB C port. And you could recharge the charger itself from either the USB A or C ports
- Reasonable size - Our charger was larger than most of our previous chargers, but wasn't that much larger than my cell phone. For us, we could have gotten a charger with more storage power, but we felt most of the more powerful chargers were getting too large to be easily carried around with us on bikes for two weeks.
MINI USB TIRE PUMP
We DIDN'T have one of these but ordered one as soon as we got back. We both had Schwalbe Marathon tires and puncture resistant tubes. We just don't get flats and we didn't have any issues while we were in Europe. However you still need to inflate/deflate your tires once in a while. For instance our tires were deflated for the boxing and plane travel. So we had to inflate our tires at the hotel. CO2 cartridges are okay as a temporary fill up for emergencies, but for a long trip, we definitely should have had a USB pump rather than the manual mini pump we took which is pretty useless above 70 psi.
Here's the pump we ordered. It's conveniently sized with the ability to set a psi level before starting, a nice gauge and it's supposed to have the capacity to do a couple of inflations before recharging.
Of course we haven't actually used this pump yet. So I should caution that we haven't verified it's functionality. But I'm feeling pretty confident we're gonna start relying on this once it's in our bike bags.
MOUS INTRALOCK BICYCLE PHONE MOUNT (and CASE)
I've used various phone holders on my bikes in the past but found myself with all sorts of limitations that I wanted to eliminate for our big trip to Europe. I wanted something with quick release and re-attach capabilities so I could have in-ride access for pictures and videos (while I'm pedaling). And then I also wanted something that was rock solid and wouldn't move so I could actually read the display during rides when necessary and know that it won't have shifted and require adjustments every time I hit a bumpy patch of the trail.
The Mous system answered all these requirements in flying colors. I can easily pull my phone off and re-attach it with a single hand while I'm riding. And it's fixed in place and DOES NOT move. I also had to buy a new Mous case, but the case is super durable, gets great reviews and I'm very happy with it.
Most of the videos I film are actually done while pedaling on my recumbent. I feel it's a little easier to film while simultaneously pedaling on a recumbent than a traditional bike. But this mount works on any type of bike.
I think a video is more helpful to convey the functionality of this mounting system than simple images but didn't feel like creating a brand new clip to demonstrate myself. So I'm borrowing the manufacturer's promo clip to describe how it works.
Yes it's biased, but really (from my experience)... it's awesome
PHONE APPS
- RideWithGPS - Allowed us to easily follow the EV15 route, especially when the signs weren't always obvious. (but use with caution trying to get TO the trail if you're not already on it)
- Google Translate - GREAT with both signs (picture captures) and audio translations as long as you've got a quick internet connection (which we didn't have often from Verizon in Germany).
- European Train Apps - SBB and DB (Train apps for Switzerland and Germany that allowed us to book most of our rides)
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