Kit reviewsI chose them because they're yellow, probably not the best reason however they're very well designed. The XM models are really made for mountain bikes to cope with the reduced heel clearance but then the alternative GT-54 Grand touring model didn't come in yellow. Edinburgh Bike Co-operative had the rear XM-45s which I bought and immediately loved. I had to contact Arkel directly to get hold of the matching front XM-28s, fortunately they had some in a warehouse down south somewhere and had them shipped to me. The people at Arkel could not be faulted on service.
The panniers have a cordura outer with a black waterproof liner bag in the main compartment. The front XM-28s are very cute but really need to be fully packed to retain their shape. Less than full and the top tends to flop over when fastened. I've altered mine by replacing the back board with a taller plastic sheet, which makes the lid stand up even when the bag is half full. Maybe Arkel should consider this re-design.
They've done a few miles now and still give every impression of being bombproof.
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Brilliant in every way though expensive.
There are more advanced models available now with touch screen technology. |
In April, I spent a very enjoyable couple of days on Jura, camping and walking. It was warm during the day with bright sunshine in a cloudless sky, but very cold at night. I discovered that my trusty Tesco finest sleeping bag was sadly no longer up to the job and as I shivered through the night, resolved to find a new bag urgently. I searched online for a lightweight, compressible, dependable sleeping bag and read a number of comments in bicycle touring forums. PHD came highly recommended and I very nearly specified my ideal bag using their excellent 'design your own bag' feature. I hesitated due to the tight lead time and found another posting suggesting Alpkit as an alternative to PHD. I'd never heard of Alpkit and their website was a revelation.
I chose the PipeDream 400 sleeping bag I could have spent a small fortune but limited myself to some cook wear starting with a new stove. The Kraku caught my eye being 'possibly the world's lightest commercially available ultralight gas stove'.
I bought the
The
The best thing is that the Koro just about fits inside the Kelvin and a gas cylinder fits inside the Brupot with room for a lighter. In other words, my entire cooking paraphernalia consisted of just two packages.
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I've compiled a list of cycle touring kit and wild camping gear that I take with me and this can be downloaded either as a PDF or MS Word document. I hope that I remembered everything, you could edit the word document and use it as the basis for assembling your own kit. Click here to access the download selection page. |
I hope some of this is useful, please send your comments and feedback to me at paul@tourer.bike.
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