More on Saddles:
I tried the noseless Spiderflex saddle but have discarded
it as it simply puts too much weight on my feet, hands and forearms. In short there is no real ‘rest’ position;
you always have to brace your arms or legs.
And it’s more difficult to grab & eat or other one-hand or no-handed
actions with a noseless saddle
As part of my testing I have been riding without chamois padding. Like everything else going combat has some
pluses and minuses. Also along this line I will be trying some heavily padded,
elastomer sprung “comfort saddles”. These type saddles are aimed at the
recreation/bike path crowd but my thinking is that if I remove the padding from
my bike shorts but add padding to the saddle it might be a workable TDR combo. In addition these type saddles are wider for
a more upright position. If I cannot
find a clear winner I will simply buy a new Selle Italia Turbomatic. That was my choice for 2014 and overall it’s
the best saddle I have found for multi day.
Carbon ‘no-name’ fork is now on the bike. Bike weight with aero bars is now 20.8lbs. Once I put on the carbon rims with Nano’s I
suspect I will be close to 20lbs. So as
mentioned in earlier posts with a 30lbs target this leaves 10lbs for bags,
lights/electronics, sleep system, water system, tools, extra/rain clothing and miscellaneous
gear.
Sleep System:
As part of my quest to reach 30lbs I am going to test one
of these as my TDR sleep system: Blizzard Survival Bag
From my web research these all-in-one bivy/bag are light, warm and waterproof. On the other hand they are noisy, not very
packable after 1st use and non-breathable. But only
some real testing will tell me if I want to use one on the TDR.
My current sleep system, as seen above, is a SOL Escape™
Bivvy, old 1lb Montbell down bag and a couple of pieces of Therm-a-Rest
foam. I think with dry bag and straps it
weighs in at 2 or so lbs. At the end of the day I know I will be in hotel rooms
more than I think I will-- so who knows, a sub-1 lb sleep system may be just
the ticket.
