Preparations: keeping clean

Christmas is over, we've somehow chomped through most of January, and suddenly ... it's just around the corner, this bike trip of ours, and I'm yet to write anything substantive about our preparations. Preparing is something I savour and Lee doesn't. This has meant that I've been left to my own happy devices in terms of finding nifty gadgets, multi-use products, and tested strategies for doing everything from laundry to solar-charging your iPhone while on the road. First up: keeping clean.

Camping and tramping websites have been (not-so-refreshingly) honest about one thing: adventures of this sort are not pretty and you're probably going to pong a little bit along the way. The potential for this on a two month bike trip is ... palpable. But with these six things I think we'll be sorted - we'll be able to clean and dry our clothes, our bikes, our dishes, and ourselves (both when we're lucky enough to come across a stream when we need one and on those odoriferous occasions when we don't).




Some things to bear in mind ...

Ability to launder clothes = fewer clothes = lighter bike. One of the concerns I had with a portable washing system was the weight. However, this isn't logical - if you can't get properly clean on the road you'll want to take more clothes which will naturally mean more weight. The people at Scrubba had exactly this in mind when they filled a gap in the market and, by the looks of their reviews, filled it well. And a nice touch: shipping is included in the purchase price. While I normally wouldn't fork out for this for a one-off occasion, Lee and I are hoping to spend the year in Japan and this will give us flexibility as we'll be in hostels until we find an apartment post-arrival.

One soap to rule them all. I'd heard that there were some wonderful natural products out there that would do everything from clean my hair to clean my bike and wash away without pillaging the environment in the process (as we're freedom camping and facilities will be few and far between, this is a concern for us). Plus, multi-use products means less gear to carry. Dr Bonner is a cult brand. Their peppermint soap made the label famous, but as we're using this for everything (shampoo, body wash, laundry detergent, bike wash, dish detergent) and the peppermint scent can be quite strong to some, I went with citrus.

This shouldn't cost an arm and a leg. If push came to shove and the cost of an on-the-road laundromat was going to be ridiculous, I was more than happy to take my chances and wait until the next stream. I had a look at some elasticated clothes lines and then I realised that we could just use a bungee cord (and we'll have lots of those handy). Some improvisation will keep the price down.

Keep it simple. Three quick-drying microfibre towels and a gauze sponge that you can use to shower and to clean with should do the trick.

Next up in the preparation series: getting places and remembering we went there