Customise your favourite outdoor gear
A kayaker and his brother painted shark jaws on the front of their kayak. A long-distance cyclist attached mirrors and lights to his handlebars and frame. RV campers often customise by adding portable solar panels to recharge their camper batteries.
No matter what sets you free in the outdoors, you can make the outdoors your own by customizing your gear. With summer here, now is the time.
Across the spectrum, here are some ideas how to make your outdoor gear your own, plus somesecrets that can help every trip. I have employed many of these.
Vehicles
The fastest way to make your vehicle your own is to add a rack or two — that is, racks for bicycles, kayaks or camping supplies. If you have a pickup truck, you can build a bike rack out of PVC pipe or buy a kit with a steel rack to fit in the back. Add a rubber nonskid bed liner, and you’re ready to head out. Racks are made to fit on top of SUVs, cars and pickups with camper shells, and also in hitch mounts designed for the front or back of rigs.
or long miles, you can add seat support for perfect posture and lumbar reinforcement. You can upgrade your tires for off-pavement use, add a loud horn to ward off wildlife along the road ahead (they don’t know you’re coming, of course), and strap an altimeter watch to the rearview mirror.
One cool customization is to mount as-bright-as-possible fog lights out front, rigged with a set-aside interior switch. On two-laners, when oncoming traffic is approaching in your lane or it looks like someone on a side road could pull out in front of you, flip on those lights to get their attention.
Pro tip: When a vehicle rolls to a stop at a diagonal with the potential to turn in front of you, watch the wheels and not the relative motion of the vehicle. If the wheels are turning, the vehicle has not stopped.
Cycling/mountain biking
On your handlebars, mount a phone holder (you can track your rides), trip computer, strobe light and mirrors. On your seat, mount a flat repair kit, blinking red light and an LED red/orange light and reflector. Brent Jacinto, with more than 40,000 miles and no accidents, taught me this. One of his bikes even has red tires. Keep a CO2-powered inflator in your kit to inflate a repaired tire in the field. Get the ergonomics of your seat and handlebar heights perfect, where bigger people can use spacers to raise the handlebars; it should feel near effortless to pedal and propel forward.
Pro tip: Do not mount a bell or horn on your handlebars with the intent to get walkers out of your way. It is not their responsibility to avoid you. They have the right of way. Slow or stop, call out, “On …
