Mountain Laurel Designs Duomid (cuben) & MYOG Firestarter

My birthday rolled through Saturday. I expected a good day and it was. Just to add a little bit extra I was treated to a pleasant surprise in the mail. Mountain Laurel Designs got my Duomid & solo inner to me two weeks early AND on my birthday. NICE!

Duomid set up with my LT4 and solo inner... tons of space in there and a bomber pitch

You really have to see it in person to appreciate it...

 I also took a little time to try out a project to MYOG your own fire starters that JERMM posted not too long ago. We don't have any candles to donate so I used parafin wax instead. It melts easily on the stovetop set to low and they set quickly on a sheet of aluminum foil (wax paper would probably work better but we didn't have any). They're light, weatherproof and burn like mad. Give it a whirl & thanks to JERMM for the tip.

Ultralight & Low Volume shelter

I've been working on putting together a practical low volume shelter kit for my bikepacking adventures. My hiking kit is a Mountain Laurel Designs Grace Duo tarp coupled with their Serenity net tent. This system offers a great balance of weight, flexibility and weather protection. Unfortunately, it requires that I pack the shelter on the handlebars when I'm out on the bike due to volume. This post shows the system I'll be trying in 2011 - a MLD SoloPro tarp & MLD Superlight bivy. Everything is a trade off so I'm giving up a little comfort for low pack volume.

Tarp: Mountain Laurel Designs Cuben SoloPro - 5-1/8oz (146g) with guylines
The tarp is a minimalistic design. Its a cuben fiber tarp cut long and narrow with a bonded ridgeline for 100% water tight protection. Due to its narrow design, a hard rain could get under the tarp and onto my bag. That where the Superlight bivy comes in.

Bivy: Mountain Laurel Designs Superlight Bivy - 7-7/8oz (225g)
The bivy is the larger size that MLD makes with the full mesh hood to minimize condensation in our typically humid weather. The Momentum fabric top is a water resistant breathable fabric that will keep any rain coming under the tarp from wetting out my down quilt. It also has a foot box made out of Epic fabric to help with condensation.

Poles: DAC 8.84mm OD Poles - 3-1/8oz (88g)
On hiking trips I use my trekking poles as the tarp supports. Obviously I won't have those on my bikepacking trips so I salvaged some DAC poles from an old tent. I selected different sections to adjust the length to work well with the tarp. I like to pitch the tarp low and wide for weather protection and to keep the support poles short, light and stiff. The rear pole is only two sections (23in) and the front pole is three sections (36in).

Tarp & bivy set up with Thermarest PL3

Front view of the tarp - set up low and wide

Plenty of weather protection with the bivy & tarp

Bivy alone with PL3 for size reference

Yellow ceramic coated stakes are great - very easily spotted in leaves

Low volume even without being packed efficiently

The Shortest Bikepacking Trip on Record

I planned on doing a local bikepacking trip but the weather had other plans for me. The radar has looked something like this for the past couple of days.



I did pack everything so here's the gear:



A - Frame bag and gas tank from Epic Designs.
B - Mountain Laurel Designs Grace Duo Tarp
C - Thermarest ProLite 3 short sleeping pad
C#2 (should have been D) - Thermarest pillow
E - SealLine 10 liter dry sack. Already has Marmot Hydrogen sleeping bag & Mountain Laurel Designs Serenity net tent stuffed in it. I also had shorts and a capilene silk weight t-shirt in the dry bag.
F - Silnylon bag for dinner and breakfast.
G - Vintage Camelbak MULE bag & bladder.
H - Snowpeak 600... switch between this and BackpackingLight Trapper's Mug depending on the trip.
I - Fuel canister and Snowpeak TiMax stove
J - Snowpeak french press - luxury coffee on bike and kayak trips!
K - First Aid Kit
L - MSR towel, mirror, three small droppers with Bronners, sunblock & eye drops.
M - Old DAC tent poles re-purposed to serve as tarp poles.
N - Tent stakes (2 MSR Groundhogs, 4 MSR needle stakes, 4 Ti J-hooks)
O - Granite Gear zip up envelope that I keep all the miscellaneous small stuff in. Brunton Wind, Gerber LST knife, small aluminum whistle, Petzl e-Lite.
P - Simple tool kit: pump, chain break, ratcheting driver with a few different insert bits.
Q - MYOG Bear bag & line.
R - MYOG reflectix cozy for meals
S - Paper & pencil (pens always seem to fail)
T - Wet Ones
U - MSR HyperFlow water filter

Here's everything packed on the bike:



Its a tight fit getting everything packed using the Camelbak. You can see that I had to strap the sleeping pad and pillow to the back of the backpack which would be a real problem in the rain. There's also a little too much volume close to the seatpost with the dry bag. My leg hits the bag as I'm pedaling. This wouldn't be a problem on short trips but I can imagine it would be annoying on longer trips. I could solve all these problems by getting a seat bag from Epic Designs or by using a proper backpack like my modified GoLite Ion or MLD Burn.

Total weight for the setup ended up being around 8lbs on the bike and 7lbs in the Camelbak with 1L of water.