Chris Burkard Bike Gear Overview

Chris Burkard goes over all the gear he will be bringing and using on his bike packing expedition across the interior of Iceland. Here’s a rough topic/gear timestamp and details:

Filmed & edited by @chrisorwig

1:00 Bike, Bags, etc.
2019 Specialized Epic HardTail, 10-50 Tooth Cassette, Sram Eagle Axxess, Brakes – Sram Guides, Wheelset- 30G Motos, Schwalbe 2.6 Nobby Nic, Rock Razor 2.35, Rockshox 100mm, Ergon Grips, Infinity Seat Saddle, Revelate Bags, Pronghorn Medium, Mountain Feed Bags, Specialized Top Tube Bag, Joey Down Tube Bag, Custom Tail Fin, Bike Pump

5:40 Sleeping Gear
Custom Nanga Sleeping Bag, ProLite Pad

6:34 Shoes
Shimano MT7 Shoes, Vivo Barefoot Shoes

7:22 Water Bottles
Hydrapak collapsible bottles and bladder

7:40 Navigation
Wahoo Elemnt Roam

8:28 Cameras
Sony Xperia, Sony ZV1

9:08 Electronics
Batteries, Headlamp, Charger, Lithium Ion Batteries, Light and Motion Headlamp

10:18 First Aid Kit
Med Kit, Liquid Bandage

10:45 Sunglasses
Varnet Racing 1929

11:10 Repair Kit
2 Spare Tubes, Patch Kit, Extra Derailleur Hanger, Extra Batteries for Electronic Shifting

11:45 Wolf Tooth Repair Kit
Wolf Tooth Hideaway Kits, Bolley Straps

12:15 Tent
Black Diamond Ion Tent and Tent Poles

12:59 Helmet
Specialized Road Bike Helmet

13:19 Backpack
Black Diamond Distance / UltraLight Trail Running Pack with 40L Bladder

13:55 Clothing
Rapha Cargo Bid, Lululemon Top with Silver Ion, Active Jacket Riding Shell, Waterproof Jacket, Merino Hooded Base Layer, Merino Mid Layer LuluLemon, Riding Tights, Waterproof Pants, LuluLemon, Patagonia Capilene T-Shirt

15:45 Clothing Storage
Hyperlite Revelate Roll Top Bags

15:54 Clothing Continued
Sealskinz Waterproof Socks, LuLuLemon Socks, Specialized Merino Wool Socks, Lightweight camp pant LuluLemon, Camp Towel, Swim Shorts, Specialized Thin Riding Shorts, GoreTex Riding Booties

17:45 Gloves
Winter Gloves, Giro Riding Gloves, NRS Gloves, Specialized Mountain Bike Gloves

18:27 Baklava
Descent Labs (over face), Buff (over neck)

18:45 Food
Keto High Fat Breakfast Cereal – flax powder peanut butter, coconut shreds, cacao nibs hemp seeds ground sunflower seeds, dry coconut milk + MCT oil. and more!, Peanut Butter, Coconut Butter, Almond Butters, Pili Nuts, Salmon Jerky, Coconut Shreds, Macadamia Nuts, Nutiva Coconut Chocolate Mana + cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla flavorings, Coconut Wraps, Skinny Dipped Chocolate Almonds, Pistachios, Dehydrated Olives, Salmon

23:00 Hydration
ELMNT, Nuun, Ultima – no sugar

23:47 Bodily Function
Hammer Nutrition Race Caps

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chris uh give us a clap okay get fired up for a second here we are i’m fired i’m ready i mean nipples are cold um all right here we are uh t-minus 48 hours before i jump on a plane to go to iceland and attempt um what’ll probably be the most ridiculous thing i’ve ever tried in my life which is an 800 plus mile east to west crossing the longest of its kind through the interior of the country through some of the harshest roughest conditions and what i have before you is basically laid out my years worth of prep this idea has been brewing for a long time and i just wanted to run you through a proper gear list of what i’m going to take and why and kind of the bike that i’ve built over these past couple months and sort of what’s working for me and what i’m absolutely terrified of i guess so to start um best places with this beautiful 2019 specialized hardtail epic this is a cross-country racing frame let’s be real this thing’s built for going fast and kind of going downhill and and through some rad terrain it’s definitely not built for bike packing but i modified it as much as humanly possible to be the lightest most you know badass bike packing frame i could so what i have is a 17 pound carbon fiber frame which is outfitted with a 10 to 50 tooth cassette um sram eagle axis obviously throughout electronic shifting which for places like iceland where there’s really fine grain volcanic sand this electronic shifting is actually really awesome i have upgraded the brake system to the sram guides with 180 millimeter rotor i also upgraded the wheel set to the 30g motors zip wheels super compliant lighter weight entire whiz so i know exactly what my air pressure is when i’m going through and having to air down and air back up where the rubber meets the road or the gravel or the sand for that matter i have schwalbe front and rear the front is a 2.6 knobby nick with brand new sidewall technology the rear is a rock razor 2.35 this is the biggest i could put in i probably would have gone slightly bigger if i could have but with this frame i was limited to certain things so um with that i have um specialized bar set specialized stem rockshox 100 millimeter front fork here ergon gp3 grips would just give me a little bit of different hand position this funky looking saddle is a infinity seat it’s actually the same type of seat i’ve used for all my ultra endurance riding basically one of the most comfortable saddles i’ve ever found that allows you to really ride with or without a chamois in in awesome comfort i can’t i can’t swear enough by that thing kind of diving into sort of the bag system i’m using here which is really a key component of what’s making this work um as you can see there’s no panties on this bike i kind of tried to go for a lighter weight setup and it’s going to make it interesting let’s just say that i tried to use what i think is the is the best solution for being waterproof having gear accessible and really kind of limiting it down to just the bare necessities so this front fork is a rock shock and it gives me about 100 millimeters of travel and diving into kind of the bag off this the bags i’m running are pretty much mostly revelate here starting with the front moving to the back i have a prong horn medium right here which is basically going to house my sleeping kit my my pad as well as my sleeping bag i’ve got a waterproof little front roll in the in the front here that’s going to house cameras and electronics two mountain feed bags again these are kind of holding phones cameras things of that nature as well as like my spork and things i need to get to a little specialized top tube bag revelate frame bag i have a joey down two bag mounted to the front fork as well as to the down tube right here i like the size i like the compression of them in the back i have another tiny roll top bag that’s mounted to a custom tail fin setup the tail fin is a really lightweight rear rack it’s like a pound and a half or less with a custom fabricated roll top waterproof bag on top and that’s just basically cinched by a vole strap i have a pump mounted to the other side and that’s really all my carrying capacity on the bike i’m also going to be running a black diamond 15 liter backpack that i will get to in a second here but pretty much everything you see on this is going to be filled to the brim with something right clothing really focusing on the back area food which is going to be in these joey down tube bags front right here and then in this frame bag i’m going to have food here food here as well as my repair kit right here in the back that’s tent stakes hand warmers and some other stuff again up in this zone is electronics it’s cameras it’s going to be chargers headlamps and probably just to go snacks and whatnot so that’s kind of the bike as it is as it’s built right now again without all of this crap it’s actually pretty light and handles really really well the moment you load it down it uh it gets pretty interesting but let’s dive into kind of what else i’m taking and why so first things first this is a custom nanga japan sleeping bag as you can see it’s pretty short it’s built for that reason because i’m basically planning to compensate for upper insulation with a puffy jacket this is about a four foot bag and it has a toe box in it zero backing at all so there’s no baffles no down here because when you compress down it doesn’t do you much good so that is my bag it’s about a 30 degree bag i’ve got a therm-a-rest pro light as you can see this thing packs down pretty pretty small but it’s not one of those ultra ultra light um pads why because when those ultralight pads you know pop they’re they’re terrible it’s a big bummer this thing is bulletproof it always works so that’s what i’m bringing um awesome so let’s kind of go through here with uh i’m bringing these shimano mt7s um just good bike packing shoe kind of all around her works for everything one of the biggest unknowns we have are the river crossings that we’re going to be going through and um those river crossings are going to really force us to uh force us to kind of get pretty wet at times i’m bringing these little vivo barefoot shoes that basically allow me to cross through a river and then have the water just drain out not bringing any gore-tex shoes no waterproof shoes nothing like that inside these is an nrs sock that’s basically like a small thin neoprene sock just going allow to keep the feet warm in those icy freezing cold glacial rivers so shoes right here as you can see water bottles almost actually every bottle i’m bringing is um is soft and what i mean by that is there’s no rigid bottles so my bladder all my bottles are meant to be able to compress down so that when i need to put more gear in there i’m not having to force myself to have all this space filled up by a plastic bottle for navigation maybe the most important thing is the wahoo element rome this little tool is an amazing piece of equipment for not only you know obviously measuring all the bike speed and all that stuff but for navigating you on a gpx route that we’re going to build when the pavement or tarmac turns to dirt or sand or whatever this is crucial camp mug this is all i’m bringing to eat out of um and we’ll get to that later but i’m basically bringing no hot meals no stove i’m going with a group of four and one of the group members will have a hot stove so there will be access to hot water and whatnot but personally this is basically all i’m eating out of so that’s that um let’s dive in here uh sony xperia this is basically the camera that i’ll be using for 90 of what i’m shooting as well as this tiny little um little point-and-shoot camera that sony makes as well this is kind of their zv1 sort of vlog camera because it has awesome video and allows me to uh allows me to document the trip but this is really it and even with this there’s a lot of battery juice that needs to power these things because i can’t bring a million batteries and i’m gonna have to power a lot of extra stuff so yeah this is kind of my documentation kit right here all right let’s dive into this whole setup right here this is my all my electronics i’m bringing i’m not bringing this case this is all going to go inside the bag but pretty much this is like 10 000 milliamp batteries another 10 000 ml battery headlamp black diamond chargers a little rear light this is also kind of a little bit of a new system but i’m bringing a bunch of loose lithium ion batteries that i can then charge by a very very portable charging device made by nitecore it’s a uk company um this is a light in motion front headlamp for the bike it’s kind of going to get over to the time period now in iceland where it’s getting a little dark at night so this will be coming in handy but yeah this is pretty much all the charging components i’m using as well as cables one kind of multi-cable and then and then two more small usb cables and usb-c cables for the trip as well as some iphone adapters so um electronics is kind of a big headache obviously going with the solar setup there wouldn’t really make a lot of sense so we’re kind of having to force ourselves to basically bring what we can and use what’s possible um one of the most important pieces of the kit this is my dopp kit in here is toothbrush all of those things it’s also a med kit i’ve i’ve spent meticulous hours dialing this thing in from you know liquid bandage to uh some other emergency suture supplies to basically everything i could think of for my butt uh to make sure that i don’t get any saddle sores or anything like that so this thing’s worth its weight in gold um then sunglasses right here little varna pair of sunglasses um just something to kind of keep uh the wind out of the face wide coverage is important something with a little side coverage is huge so if it gets windy and that volcanic sand starts blowing these things are going to come in handy a lot and that is a very real that is a very real reality of what could go wrong probably one of the other most important parts of this kit is my repair kit i’m going to bring two spare tubes obviously this has just got everything you can imagine from lube to extra nuts and bolts to a big patch kit to an extra derailleur hanger to pretty much everything else you could imagine also a couple extra small batteries for um some of the electronic shifting and whatnot um this is kind of one of those scenarios where you don’t you hope you don’t have to tap into this thing but if you do then that would be you hope you have it with you and the other component is this little wolf tooth repair kit it’s going to take me a second to get this out sorry so the other part of this component is my kind of tools which basically i use both of these little wolf tooth hideaway handlebar tool sets one’s got a chain breaker one’s got all the little kind of allens you can imagine a couple extra vole straps because you can never have enough of those in case something breaks or you need to fix something um tent poles i’m bringing the we’re bringing two black diamond tents um to be honest this this gear right here this is actually for my partner eric batty we’re kind of pairing up we have a team of four and each of us are carrying a number of stuff so i’ve got the stakes and the poles and he’s gonna be able to have the tent this is actually gonna pack way way way down into something but this is our little two-person black diamond ion 10 it’s about a three person three season tent that hopefully can endure about everything we can throw at it it’s a bibbler so that means basically it’s one single wall and it works really awesome um let’s dive into the last few things specialized helmet going with the road bike helmet just to keep kind of the lightness of it um the reality is we’re probably not even wearing helmets most of the time because we’re going to be moving so slow which means we’ll probably be wearing a hat or something along those lines to keep the rain and the wind out of our faces and out of our ears kind of the last most important thing here besides the clothing is this backpack this is a ultra light trail running pack i like it mainly just because it’s got some pockets in the front can allow for gear storage goose whatever you need and i have in here a 40 liter hydro pack bladder this backpack is basically built to kind of just be again carrying some extra clothes some essentials and it’s going to be something that i’m going to be loading up and pretty much riding with every single day and being able to access everything i need um so kind of the really the last thing to jump into here is the clothing what am i going to be wearing and this is pretty much it for potentially some of the worst weather on the planet um let’s go through this really quick uh this is a rafa bib this is the cargo bib so that means it has like some side storage in the pockets right here um you know it would be really nice to get bib weather but you never really know what you’re gonna get um lululemon top this has kind of got that silver ion material so that when it really starts to stink it’s gonna basically keep you nice and clean so long sleeve top this is an active jacket just like riding shell super lightweight kind of something that will just keep like minimal rain off this is actual waterproof jacket that does have some ventable and breathable sides in it here this is a merino base layer hooded you know thumb holes will go all the way over the body this is a sort of also kind of merino mid layer i would envision that most the time i’ll probably be riding with this thing as well as my active jacket kind of over the top there this is a lululemon piece and then i have about three pairs of pants i’ve got like a pair of riding tights here that are just basically something that can go over a chamois i have a pair of waterproof pants as well this is a pair of lululemons as well and then i have a small lightweight just uh patagonia t-shirt also in here that uh is made of kind of their capoline material so that is that and these are all stored in these hyperlite mountain gear waterproof revelate roll top bags these are just great because in case everything gets soaking wet you don’t want your clothes to get wet um a pair of seal skin socks seal skins are rad they’re actually waterproof socks that um that work really really well um so in case you are crossing a river these things can go up like almost knee-high and allow you to uh you know keep dry in there a pair of lululemon socks lined with some of that silver material that keeps kind of the stench off this is an extra pair i’m not bringing these a specialized pair of socks just merino wool something a little thicker right if if i really need to i can double down on the socks the one thing i was going to say is that my my shoes are actually a size up so that i can wear multiple layers of socks if i need to um this is kind of my my other layer of pants right it’s just like a kind of a easy light wearing sort of camp pants that um that lou lemon makes and i can layer triple layers meaning i’ll have my riding bibs i’ll have my camp pants and i can have my waterproof layer of pants over that camp towel for when you’re crossing a river this is meant to dry off the whole body if you need to right a pair of shorts like actual swim shorts because if you’re soaking wet and you’re crying across the river this is an option or finding a hot spring which i really hope and pray that we find um let’s see here this is a pair of specialized just kind of super thin um riding shorts kind of like more of an underwear style so they can sort of go underneath anything else you’re wearing you could wear them under shorts or or whatever and these are just really nice if you if you are wearing pants right that aren’t really bike specific these will work great and then this is a pair of gore-tex like riding booties just waterproof go over your shoes and then last but not least a couple pairs of gloves let’s see what i got here when it gets really severe and cold i have these full-time weather winter gloves that my hands get freezing cold so i didn’t want to skimp on these i wanted to bring something that would truly really work for me got those i have a pair of just thin half finger gloves for when the writing is nice padded these are made by jiro i have also a pair of nrs gloves for if it’s wet and you’re crossing a river you need to grip onto the bike these are kind of lightweight gloves as well and then last pair would just be a pair of kind of specialized mountain bike normal wearable gloves two balaclavas one is descent labs all the way over the head over the face and one is a buff that kind of goes over my neck and that is that now i know this is long-winded and i’m sorry but i have a little bit more to go through with you guys and that is food now the food let’s be real this isn’t even the full weight this is about 12.6 pounds of food and we are going to be unsupported for about 8 to 11 days if you take that consideration you’re burning about 5 000 calories a day we’re gonna be running probably a 2000 calorie deficit meaning i can only really pack about 3 000 calories a day and that’s what this looks like so please understand that i do my best at all times to not use single-use plastics but with this ride a lot of the single-use plastics are just a little too or a lot of the reusable plastics are a little too heavy and a little too bulky i have a lot of them so we went with just traditional zip locks and my goal is to use these as much as possible but this is kind of my special mixture right here this is like a keto really high fat breakfast cereal tons of hemp seeds cacao nibs coconut pecans all blended together with some peanut butter stuff this is like a hot or cold mixture and this is probably about 6 000 calories right here calories are hard you’ll realize that really quickly i have a whole bunch of peanut butters this is coconut butter macadamia butter with other peanut butters almond butters whatnot just a high fat this is probably again every package too i have marked out with how many calories it is so this right in here is probably another 2 000 calories um kind of the beauty of the way that i’ve built this is i’ve really tried to uh to go as as high fat as i can with my diet meaning not a lot of carbs because carbs take up a lot of space and they don’t deliver a lot of calories right these are peeling nuts um just again soaked in olive oil right as much fat as i can get with a lot of salt in there as well this is salmon jerky right salmon jerky just a good source of protein something i can eat along the way my traditional vegan diet is kind of out the window for this ride mainly because i’m going to be unsupported on a bike for 11 days and i know that i need a little more calories that i’m going to be able to put into some big bushel of kale right so i need dense foods and at risk of eating too many nuts i had to mix it up with a bit more also coconut shreds these have been salted soaked in olive oil as well macadamia nuts these are again awesome high-fat food salted there’s there’s obviously a theme here salted soaked in some oils as well this is kind of a special blend it’s a coconut mana which means coconut meat made by nutiva and i basically uh you know this is a chocolate flavor and i threw in some uh cinnamon nutmeg as well as some vanilla flavoring and that’s basically something i’m planning on squirting out onto these these are basically coconut wraps a lot of coconut why high fat digests well it works pretty easily for me these are these flat wraps that i can pretty much roll into any part of my bag they just kind of sit flat and basically what i can do is i can put fish olives whatever some oils in there and have it be salty or i can take this thing and squeeze that chocolate and roll it up and this is like a really high fat good eat thing again in here what else do i have i have a whole bunch of chocolate almonds these are um this is 2 000 calories right here of chocolate almonds this is made by skinny dipped it’s company um out of montana i believe awesome brand really good i mean these are like something i crave so it’s good to have something like that yeah these are pistachios um again salted just dry roasted really good something that i know i can i can you know is gonna taste good when i’m like at the end of my of my enjoyment factor um i know that when i get to iceland i’m gonna be buying some more food probably some gummies some stuff like that um the other thing is gonna be dehydrated olives these are epic when you want something that’s kind of a little more chewy a little more satiating but has that salty flavor right these are awesome um other thing is hydration right i’ve got a whole bunch of packs of magnesium this is from a brand called element i have ultima in here these are basically no sugar these are all just hydration with magnesium electrolytes and whatnot and my goal is to have about five per day so i have just right around that number in here um the other thing i’m gonna be put bringing out is some noon sport tablets with a little bit of caffeine these are really good again no sugars nothing like that no added carbohydrates uh other than that there’s really the only the thing that i i’m probably gonna bring is a couple tiny packs of salmon um just something that i can you know is gonna mix it up because i’m basically eating 90 nuts here um and then in terms of uh just you know kind of bodily function uh hammer nutrition makes some really good stuff i’m going to be putting these inside of a small plastic bag and shoving them probably into one of these pockets but these are just race caps it’s a super dense dose of electrolytes and whatnot the only thing i would say because i’ve had a lot of people ask me about this stuff what the heck is it and why are you bringing a bag of powder with you um well it’s actually not it’s been it’s ground up again flax pecans all that stuff it’s it’s a super dense and really yummy actually breakfast cereal or you can make it into something warm and that’s kind of the beauty is i have my little tin cup i can add some water and this stuff goes a long long way it sticks to your bones and just kind of fuels you all day so i’m really been looking for those things those items that are high fat that’ll satiate me for a long period of time but the crazy part about this is that this is about 10 pounds shy of what i need to bring with me ultimately the goal is to kind of you know have a variety of food that’s interesting and you want to eat that’s the key thing because after a hard day of being freezing cold and whatnot it’s really nice to just have food that you you feel good about eating and actually is in some way comfort food right that’s kind of what you’re looking for so if i pick up anything there it’ll probably be a block of cheese and maybe some eggs something like that hard-boiled um we’re gonna be passing through a handful of towns so maybe we’ll be able to resupply but it’s unlikely um you guys if i missed anything i’m sorry but i’m pretty much just figuring this all out as i go and i appreciate your patience and thanks for sticking with me and i i can just hope and pray that everything works and the equipment um works out and i know i’ve tested this stuff in some really brutal conditions and so i’m i’m really psyched to see if this baby can take me all the way through the interior of iceland 800 plus miles through you know single track tarmac road gravel and potentially a lot of deep sand so um yeah this will all be going on my bike and i’ll be taking it through thanks again cheers