ALC Hacks!

Here are a few tips that I personally used to help life on the ride much easier. 

 

The compact reusable bag  Hauling things around can be made simple by having a Compact Reusable Bag. This bag will help free up your hands walking to your bike, leaving bike parking, and going to the showers.  This bag should be compact so that it can be stuffed in your saddle. It could hold your water bottles, your helmet and many other items that will free up your hands. Especially if you are a wakeup-dressup-teardown tent-bag2gear-breakfast2bike kinda person... dont worry it'll make sense eventually
MOIST Free!!  Yeah I said it so what... but you can avoid it by purchasing a shower cap to cover up your bike seat. Its a great way to protect it from the weather. To even step up your game, you get a really odd pattern or the brightest color to spot your bike from the sea of thousands of other bike because believe me, you will NOT always get Peter pan.. again, this will make sense later on.
CHARGE!!! We all have cell phones and we know we love social media either its Facebook, Tinder, SnapChat or whatever. We have a mobile device that needs juice. So what you need is an awesome battery pack to keep connected for 7days and yes you can do it. To charge your Mobile Phone, GoPro, and/or Bike Computer I recommend a battery pack that has 10,000mAh or more. This should keep you out of the crazy electric tent. For you to survive 7days on a charge this is what I do. I'm not saying you need to do it but from my experience this has worked for the past 3 rides I've done. 1) Airplane mode: while on your bike make sure your phone is Airplane Mode so that you can take those awesome pictures when you are not riding your bike because you will see some amazing things along the way from Father & Mother Natures creations, DOLPHINS, Bearded Drag Queens at Mission, Muscle guys in tutus, to even maybe Ellen.. yes THAT ELLEN! Also use this mode while charging and anytime you are not using your phone. It will save your battery life on your device. Then at night start to upload those awesome shots of you reaching the top of that hill. 2) Charge your devices while sleeping
Ziplock Gallon Bags and dryer sheets  No Gurl we aint making sammiches, this is where you put your cycling clothes in when packing. each jersey or kit in each bag. Its a great way to organize your gear and it compacts your clothes too when trying to stuff that bag of yours. The dryer sheets are amazing especially when you are done wearing your sweaty gear. Pack your soiled gear back in your ziplock and throw a sheet in their to reduce that stank. Because your bag may be cooking out in the sun when the gear truck unloads it. It also helps unpacking when getting home much more bearable
LIGHTS, maybe not camera, but action!   Headlamps is something you will need. Its great to use when navigating around the moving city at night, its great when you pooping in the porta-pottie, its great when you need something in your bag, or when you are fluffing up your tutu for red dress day the night before. I bought a cheap headlamp for like $12, nothing fancy and it did the work for 2 rides. I just changed the batteries.
Earplugs  When you finally get to meet your tent neighbors and you look at them and think, that sweet girl right there is going to be nice to have next to me as she will be silent. Then lights go out and what do you hear... A FART, the giggles that follow, snoring... let me say that again SNORING! You cannot get away from that for sure... and you will not look at the sweet girl again as she just ripped the best perfect 10 Fart. Go half's with a friend to split a packet of earplugs, not the most comfortable thing but you get used to them.
Binder Clips  Were not here doing office work but the binder clips can be used for drying out your clothes clipped to the fence or to the top of your tent. Its very important to dry out your towel and binder clips always done the job. and its very useful to clip things together. You never know when you need something to bind together.
THAT'S MINE! You may know already, but all of the tents look the same and we are staying on a wonderful grid. Get something that you can put near your tent so that you can spot while looking down the tent rows. Pink Flamingos, Flags, or for me, I like to hang some odd toy from the front maybe even something with an LED light so you can spot it right away. Also, YOU THINK you may got a bag that will stand out, but sweetie there are 3k other people thinking the same way and I bet someone else has the same bag as you. So one year I attached a bandanna, another year I attached tassels, and my last year I had a giant Hello Kitty Tag And stickers, you could slap on some stickers on your devices if you do choose to use the charging tent. That way you can spot your electronic item and have it stick out from the rest. Because believe me, you dont want to sit in there for hours on end because that is just plain boring.

So if you have any other hacks you would like to share please do. This is what the love bubble is about.. sharing what works to help life on the ride much more easier for others


image source:
Reusuable Bag http://athome.kimvallee.com/my-top-4-reusable-ultra-compact-shopping-bags/
Shower Cap http://blangk.com/bicycle-shower-cap
Ziplock Bag http://www.survivalistssite.com/~canuck/page25.html
Headlamp https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LED-headlamp.jpg
Earplugs https://www.northernsafety.com/Product/EAR200/3M-Classic-Uncorded-NRR-29-Pillow-pak-Disposable-Ear-Plugs-200-Pair
Pink Flamingo http://blog.diynetwork.com/blogcabin/2014/03/04/i-spy-a-pink-flamingo-at-blog-cabin-2014/