Packing for the Silk Road Mountain Race - Electronics

[@NeilosNeilosGharley]

Brilliant, very useful 👍🏻

[@TurnCycling]

Glad you think so!

[@MartinMcShaneMScMSMRCGPMA]

Feedback post event would be brilliant

[@TurnCycling]

Okay boss 🫡

[@alanhanley9515]

Quite superb.....

[@TurnCycling]

Thanks. Glad you liked it!

[@MrLozatron]

Nice Neil! I was thinking “but what about the cables???” and there you went. This is great.

[@TurnCycling]

Glad you found it useful! We need to sort out that ride together Leon

[@michaelthomson5125]

I did an extensive comparison of power banks as I don't have a Dynamo either and this has the best weight/power ratio: Replace: Anker 737 / 24,000 mAH / 630g With: 2 x RAVPower 20,000 mAh = 40,000 mAh / 748g And because you have two power banks you can charge them in parallel, have redundancy if one fails and flexibility where to put it on the bike. Anyway good luck !!

[@TurnCycling]

Yes that’s another option that works really well although you would have to get the very latest ones that recharge at 65w. Otherwise you are still not going to get as much power into the batteries in a given time frame. This monster battery will only really get used on events where I’m off the grid a lot like Silk Road. On other races i generally just carry 1 or 2 5k powerbanks just in case. What is very useful on the Anker is the lcd screen that shows charging rates etc.

[@hansotto089]

Oh no - Neil releases a new video about bikepacking electronics… time to get the credit card ready

[@TurnCycling]

🤣🤣🤣 sorry. Really don’t mean people to spend all their money

[@MartinMcShaneMScMSMRCGPMA]

@@TurnCyclingreally! 😂

[@TurnCycling]

🤣🤣🤣

[@jonoelliot01]

Great video thankyou. I've only ever used a dynamo setup for races. I did find it a bit limiting on SRMR '22 on long steady climbs at night, walking over passes and river crossings. I relied on my head torch a lot. I'm in two minds for SRMR '24 whether to take a K-Lite dynamo & Exposure Zenith combo or Exposure Strada & Zenith. I'll be using the Zenith on my helmet for those times I need to peer further into the darkness, like the best way across a river. A small headtorch as well for camp. I would appreciate knowing how your setup worked for you over the race? Might give me an excuse to upgrade from my Strada to a 6 pack?!

[@TurnCycling]

It was a flawless set up. To be honest I probably could have taken a smaller powerbank. My total range was around 6 days but I stayed in a guesthouse on night 4, 7 and 11 so never even got close to running out of power. I find the 6pack can give a huge amount of light where needed so I didn't take a helmet light. Just a small headtorch for camp. I genuinely do not believe anyone needs a dynamo now.

[@bikepackingadventure7913]

Good setup but one suggestion I’ve thought of for iPhone port failure, which happened to me, luckily on my last day of a trip. Quad lock do a waterproof, wireless adapter for motorcyclists that allow you to charge your phone and have it also fixed to the handlebars. I thought about buying this for my bikepacking bike and connect the wireless charger to a USB power bank. At the moment one of the two 10,000 chargers I take is also a wireless charger, luckily did not need it on my wet 2 week trip on the Outer Hebrides and Skye.

[@TurnCycling]

Yeah there are probably a few ways of doing it. I prefer to keep my phone away and like to recharge it fast so the Apple MagSafe puck ticks this box and can leave it in my bag without worrying about it slipping off the charger. But your way would work too.

[@Ultra-Craig]

Nice tip on the mag-charger. I got caught out crashing into a puddle on PCR when my phone was almost out of battery and it was a race against time to dry the lightning port out before the battery died to find a hotel. Interested to know what you think the ‘risks’ of a dynamo is though? There’s some drawbacks but I’ve never thought of risks to them?

[@TurnCycling]

I’ve known a lot of riders completely lose the use of it early in the race. If that’s your main power source for dynamo lights and no decent back up then you might be stuffed. Two thin wires dangling close to my front wheel. No thanks 🤣

[@Ultra-Craig]

@@TurnCycling gotcha! I’ve had dynamo lights fail before because of water ingress to be fair, but I’m always more worried about burn time for my lights than a potential catastrophic failure, but to each their own. Best of luck with the race. Riding out there is on the bucket list for me, but maybe not racing it, that’s a journey I’d rather enjoy

[@TurnCycling]

My light should last me about 6-7 days so I’m really not worried about burn time.

[@justindean4464]

Bit off subject niel , what bars are you using , make , and alloy or carbon thanks mate

[@TurnCycling]

It’s a NukeProof Horizon carbon riser bar. 800mm cut down to 750 with a 25mm rise. I like it. I am a little nervous running aero bars on it when I’ve got the Miss Grape handlebar mount as well as it pushes the aero bar clamp very wide and out of the clamping zone. So no aero bars on this ride. But that’s fine, wont need them.

[@justindean4464]

Cheers mate good luck for the race 🙌

[@TurnCycling]

Thanks!

[@oliverburke3743]

Would love to know why you have decided to go the powerbank route rather than dyanamo. Looking to do badlands next year and trying to decide which route to take.

[@TurnCycling]

No weight penalty, no drag, more robust (in my view), allows me to run super powerful front lights for fast off-road riding, known a lot of people have dynamos fail on them mid race, powerbank charging is so powerful and fast these days that I just have never seen the need to use a dynamo. But I will update after this race and let everyone know how it goes. Badlands is such a short race I probably wouldn’t even need to charge anything. Well maybe take one 10k powerbank to top up the phone and Garmin but the light would last the whole race. Wouldn’t need a plug. Badlands is definitely not off grid enough to need a dynamo.

[@oliverburke3743]

@TurnCycling cheers for the advice. Really useful.

[@oliverburke3743]

@@TurnCycling will be interested in a report on the new exposure light as also considering which light to get for badlands.

[@TurnCycling]

Will report back! Probably do a post race video on what was good and what wasn’t good.