Bicycle caching

[+lil'hobo]

While winter still has my area firmly in its grasp I will be taking some time soon to do some way overdue maintenance on my bicycle. I really enjoy caching on it, much more than by car. There are hundreds of caches within bicycling distance from me.

 

My question to those who also like to cache on their bikes is: are there any special accessories you like for caching by bike, or any ideas/suggestions? Any must haves? I do have a handlebar mount for my gps and it works great.

 

Thanks

[crawil]

Other than the handlebar mount and a pen, what else would you need? Have fun (once the snow melts).

[+Mule Ears]

Go for it! Picked up a couple of caches on Friday via a 96.4-mile ride on pavement and dirt. Links: 1 2

 

Handlebar GPS mount is the only essential piece of equipment (other than usual bike stuff).

[Skippermark]

I love bike caching. Have done a mix of true mountain bike terrain to gravel/paved bike paths and some road riding. I need to get me a handlebar mount for the GPS. It's a pain otherwise.

[+Y2KOTA]

I've done a lot a of biking around here where I live. The handlebar mount for my garmin help with caching. After doing most of the caches within pedding range, bike gets a ride in the back of the truck. From there off I go for some more riding n caching.

 

Have fun & ride safe!

[+Rumpled]

I've done a fair number by bike.

On some power trails it's almost annoying to stop every 528 feet to get a cache, hardly build up a rythym

 

Since I've found a good number near my house, by biking from home I find my rides to be longer and longer; with fewer "incentives" closer to the house.

 

The bike itself can be a muggle deflection tool. Just pretend to adjust something or take a water break or whatever.

[+SkellyCA]

I go camping on a bike; I haven't done any caching yet, but plan too; it depends on where the caches are for me

[+Ralfcoder]

I've done a few caches in a local park where I got around by mountain bike. It worked out pretty well, I thought. But it's far enough from home that I threw the bike in the back of the truck to get there. There's nothing really close that I want to do via bike.

 

There are some ribbon parks within driving distance, though, and I want to see if there are caches located along them. If there are, I'd like to find them this spring or summer.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

A motor.

[groundhog123]

I love bicycle caching. Nuff said.

[+lil'hobo]

I am getting excited to get back out on the bike again, especially after talking (writing?) about it. I didn't think I was missing any necessary goodies for the bike, but I thought I'd ask. The motor suggestion is a good idea. The ride back home always seems to be into the wind.

 

I second the stealth factor. It seems I can act much more incognito with the bike than with my car.

 

Thanks for all your input and encouragement, I'll check out the other post on bicycle caching too, not quite sure how I managed to miss that one.

[+carleenp]

We have racks and bags for over our back wheels. Our bags have one large center portion and two side portions that can be extended to drop down panels. We can fit a lunch and small ice back in the main portion and then extra items fit well in the sides. That way, we can go for longer rides by taking lunch with us, and we also can store the camera and GPS easily if desired.

Edited January 22, 2009 by carleenp

[+9Key]

I've hidden quite a lot of caches on my mountain bike on the trails in my area.

 

I have a handle bar mount for the GPSr, a large waterbottle holder, a tire pump, and a rack over the back tire that I can strap ammo cans to. I can put 3 cans on the rack and another two in my backpack for those long rides where you want to drop off some cans along the way. Both of the tires are full of that green slime stuff which seems to work well for sealing holes. I also have a small tool / first aid kit under the seat. I usually stuff a spare tube in there too.

[+WolfgangStiller]

I second the suggestion to use self-sealing tubes (the slime ones seem to be the best). It allows me to always re-inflate (I once had over a dozen punctures in both tires) and ride back home. Punctures seem to happen a lot when I try to ride as close to a cache as possible. The other important item is a lock. Around here I often encounter some steep terrain where I need to go on foot (or hand and foot ). For extreme terrain (since I have clip-less peddles that require special shoes), I may carry an extra pair of shoes.

[+lil'hobo]

Talking about ammo cans, I was just dreaming up an idea. I always seem to have some stuff to lug around if I'm out for a while (lunch, extra jacket, etc) and I do have a back rack on my bike. And I hate riding with a backpack on. I should make some saddle bags out of ammo cans that attach to my rack's side bars. Maybe that would be cool. They could mount down lower maybe to avoid being top heavy. Then I could always have an ammo can just in case like 9key does. Hmmmm. Of course I risk turning my bike into something heavier than it already is. (early 90's Raleigh Mtn bike with steel frame, rides awesome but heavy as a tank).

[+AwayWeGo.US]

When Spring arrives, I'll again strap the bike to the backside of the tractor on my 18-wheeler. It makes it a little easier to get around and go caching while waiting for my next load assignments. With limited parking for big rigs, the bike sure has been a great addition.

[+Chuy!]

Put a lanyard on your GPS and wrap the lanyard around the handlebars. When I used a 60CS, it would pop off the cradle when I hit a strong bump. I now use a Vista which has not popped out yet, but I learned from the 60CS experience to always use a lanyard.

 

For night riding, I found this flashlight handlbar holder; this one is made by Two-fish. It's very useful in that I can quickly and easily remove the flashlight to find a cache. For smaller diameter flashlights, there is a smaller holder for u-locks that works for flashlight also.

 

Edited January 23, 2009 by Chuy!

[+Manatee Mamma]

Love bicycle caching but here in Minn. it is not quite time yet. Soon, tho! Check out http://www.instructables.com/ for DIY gps mounts. Just do a search.

[+striderx]

Funny thing, I just placed a big order for mounts to use my Garmin Oregon on all my vehicles just this afternoon. I've been a huge fan of RAM products for a long time. I've been using one with my Garmin Street Pilot III on my street motorcycles for years. The mount is bulletproof and holds the SP III like a vise. If you're familiar with that unit you know that it's both sized and weighted like a brick.

 

I received a Garmin Oregon for Christmas which now let's me play the geocaching game that the SP III couldn't (that thing wouldn't last 30s away from vehicle power). Anyway, initially I looked at the Garmin vehicle mounts and found them to be lacking in robustness.

 

Then I checked out what RAM has for my unit (I would've arrived there eventually) and not only did I find exactly what I wanted, but I was absolutely blown away but the sheer number of different, custom designed cradles for nearly every GPSr sold in the past ten years.

 

For my mountain bike I got the RAM Mount Plastic Handlebar rail mount, RAP274U, $4.46. Combine that with a cradle for your specific GPSr (the one for the Oregon cost $9.02) and a lanyard to serve as a tether and you're in busness for less than $20.

 

I read a review about the RAM Ez On-Off Rail mount and decided against it as the reviewer said it didn't hold up well.

 

You can see their products at RAM Mounts, but to purchase them you have to go to their resellers websites. I used GPS City.

 

Their customer service was outstanding. I had a live chat with a rep to help answer a couple of questions and was given a discount code to get 5% off my RAM products (the 5% didn't apply to the entire order, only the RAM portion; PM me if you want the code without dealing with the chat). I ordered it today, Jan 23rd, knowing that one of the items wouldn't be in stock until the 29th. They give you the option to wait until all items are in stock to ship in one order or to have them ship what's in stock and then the rest later for an additional $2.99. I chose the former because I wasn't in a rush. Within about 15 minutes of placing the order I received a phone call from them. Their rep told me that when assembing my order they found they had one of the mounts that was was listed as out of stock and a couple of other items (geocache boxes) were actually out of stock. He offered to ship me what they had for no additional charge! He said that sometimes they have a run on the little stuff on the weekends (like the Geocaching.com pin) and he wanted to be sure that my order got filled. Now that's customer service!

 

I hope this helps!

 

striderx

[+Parabola]

I enjoy taking a ride on a bike trail and doing some caches. In fact I got my mountian bike just for caching. We do have quite a few bike trail's around here though. But I've found sometime's a bike is pretty handy.