USB Charging on tour

[Philippa]

HI All
Need some advice re charging up all USB devices.
What do people recommend for off road and mostly off grid riding (week or maybe longer touring)

Hub Dynamo seems best but what make and will it charge sufficiently on slow off road? Or do I get a Huge powerpack and take a hit on the weight?

your thoughts please.

thx in advance

[Chew]

Depends where you're going?
How much power do you need?

When Greg was on the divide, he just used to charge up a power bank every time he visited a cafe/petrol station.

[Philippa]

Phone and Garmin, if I need them to Nav they won't last more than a day or two tops, so for a week with potentially no power (maybe odd place with power but it takes a while to charge things up)

General question really

[Alpinum]

I'd first focus on saving batteries first. One week of the grid also means you'll not get phone signals in most cases. So there's not really to worry about the phone, unless you want to listen to music all the time and watch videos in the evenings in the tent (yes, I know somebody who does that).
Most Garmins have a power save mode and thus go fairly long on one charge. Try google and your Garmin's name + power save mode. You should get a hit that will give you some good advice.

Then you might realise that 6000 mAh are enough for one week...

A dyno hub is quite a bit heavier than a regular hub. Drag is little, but it's there. My SON (only on my winter bike and mainly because of the lights) and the so called 'forumslader' run really well at low speeds but beyond about 25 km/h other systems are more efficient. But then if you mountainbike 25 km/h average is not going to happen.
If you plan to ride against the clock for longer distances the dyno hub can hardly be bet.

[Scattamah]

When Greg was on the divide, he just used to charge up a power bank every time he visited a cafe/petrol station.

This is what I've done on my two visits to the Divide, on the TNR and the Spanish C2C route. If I'm planning on night riding and will be out longer than 3 days, the power bank comes with me.

Greetz

S.

[Asposium]

Planning Le Jog next year over the two weeks; I intend to take two Anker USB packs, one large and one medium.
And an Anker 4-port charger for when I encounter mains.
The large Anker USB pack has two charge inputs so will recharge in double time. Very minimalist design, so very lightweight for its capacity.
Don’t quite see the point of dynamo hubs.

In July I was hiking /wild camping in the Icelandic highlands with absolutely no access to mains.
I have a single medium Anker USB pack (didn’t own the large Anker USB pack at that point), a Goal Zero Sherpa 50, and a Goal Zero Nomad 14 plus solar panel.
Fortunately the weather was sunny.
From the above I was recharging GPS, camera battery for a Canon 5D mk4 (was there for landscape photography), mobile phone, tracker, sat phone.
Worked well, though I did run the Anker battery low listening to music on the phone during a tent day ....bad weather day meant I didn’t move.
Since then I have purchased a second GZ Nomad 14 Plus panel ....the Sherpa can accept 30W input and has an in-built solar charger.

Depends where you’re going, how sunny it might be, possible access to mains, what to recharge.
For “only” a week keep it simple.
Would recommend two smaller packs that one large pack, might not be TLS; however, having two packs does give redundancy of a pack should break.

[Adventurer]

Whatever battery pack you choose to get, don't buy one large capacity battery pack. Make sure you buy two smaller capacity batteries.

I have now been in the middle of nowhere twice on a bikepacking weekend and have had a battery pack fail on me, thankfully I had the second battery that I could use.

[whitestone]

As Gian (alpinum) says, work out your usage and also look at every power saving mode you can. Also find out the capacity of the batteries within the devices, someone somewhere will have taken them to bits and published what they've found.

In May I managed five days with one powerbank battery of 20,000mAh but didn't use anywhere near that amount of juice. The phone was off most of the time except where I was sure of a signal.

Long rides off-grid need careful power management, one of those things that makes life interesting

[Adventurer]

I sometimes carry a USB charger so I can top up when in a cafe or pub.

I also like to stop off at a quite campsite. I find these campsites don't like you using their power so tend not to have power outlets. However I carry a MU fast international charger. You can change the head to a European head. This head then fits into shaver outlets at campsites. A bit cheeky but it allows me to top up on battery charge.

https://flic.kr/p/Tr2EeC

[Asposium]

I sometimes carry a USB charger so I can top up when in a cafe or pub.

I also like to stop off at a quite campsite. I find these campsites don't like you using their power so tend not to have power outlets. However I carry a MU fast international charger. You can change the head to a European head. This head then fits into shaver outlets at campsites. A bit cheeky but it allows me to top up on battery charge.

https://flic.kr/p/Tr2EeC

[Borderer]

Yeah we have done all our campsite charging in the loos too. We carry all sorts of battery packs so that you can leave them on charge in the toilets overnight and not be too worried about them getting nicked. Better than getting your phone or Garmin nicked anyway.

[Bearbonesnorm]

I find it a little surprising that hardly anyone is mentioning lights - just charging things, that with a degree of forethought and a little compromise, they could largely live without

[Philippa]

Thanks for all the comments guys, a lot to digest

[whitestone]

I find it a little surprising that hardly anyone is mentioning lights - just charging things, that with a degree of forethought and a little compromise, they could largely live without

Stu, my calcs included charging my light along with two to three hours' usage per day. I chose the most economical programme on the light (Exposure Joystick) to help eke out battery life. Even riding all night on the last night I still had at least 50% charge in it. Phone usage was a few texts to and from my wife and Mr May (nothing going on, honest dear!). Biggest usage was the GPS which was needed both for navigation and recording the route I'd taken but that was specific to that event really.

I'm not one for listening to music whilst I'm riding either - much prefer listening to the sound of the vultures circling overhead

[Asposium]

I find it a little surprising that hardly anyone is mentioning lights - just charging things, that with a degree of forethought and a little compromise, they could largely live without

On the bikepacking trips I have done thus far I not ridden after dark (*) so have not even taken lights.

—-
(*) BB200 excluded, though that was more race than trip; especially when informed there was a black badge for a sub-24 hour finish

[johnnystorm]

Have just skim read the above so apologies if duplicating info....

Also look for batteries that have quallcom quickcharge input and output. That means they'll charge your items as fast as it possible and your 30 minute food and wee break at a cafe is as efficient as it can be charge wise.

When my dynamo failed on the TD it meant that my lights and battery packs needed to be charged overnight to be full for the next day, a lunch break top up wouldn't cut it.

[Trail-rat]

we did 4 weeks touring in the summer up and over BC(UP Vancouver island - boat to prince rupert and the highway of tears to jasper and down Alberta to banff with a good chunk of remote unserviced camping.

The first 3 weeks were grand as my igaro d1 was charging my battery pack during the day which i used to charge our phone/ipods/garmins at night.

I broke the usb charging cable heading into jasper and couldnt find a suitable length to replace it with in town so went without and thought ill just charge the battery pack as i go along.....

The next week was a pain in the arse having to find a charging point every couple of days even with the phone off and just keeping the garmins and ipods charged we still tanked the battery packs.

truth is having ability to charge on the move does take away one element of planning required. + having dynamo lighting means no worries about night becoming day and batteries running out

Arguably i could go without all three of those devices but I'm a convert to dynamo lighting and so would be carrying the dynamo anyway.

[jameso]

Arguably i could go without all three of those devices but I'm a convert to dynamo lighting and so would be carrying the dynamo anyway.

Ditto. I'd go as far as saying that a touring bike w/o a dynamo and ideally a USB charger really isn't as good a bike as it could be. The freedom from power-stops is great. But off-road when your wheels aren't spinning as fast the advantages are reduced. I can charge a garmin 800 to full under 3hrs on my all-road bike on smoother surfaces but on 'proper' off-road terrain that may take 6 or 8. Still, better to have it with a battery pack back up than not have it.
I don't have one on my MTB yet for a couple of reasons but I also rarely use a GPS for long on that bike, yet the faff of battery packs as my only power supply, or at least the thought of limited power use, is a negative. The good thing is that I tend to ride off-road w/o gadgets and with no fixed route plan, appreciate that's not practical or wanted by many though.

[whitestone]

This article popped up on bikepacking.com yesterday, http://www.bikepacking.com/bikes/brian- ... -el-gordo/, there's a short section where he discusses charging devices (including a laptop!) while on a 2 year trip around South America.

[Asposium]

...But off-road when your wheels aren't spinning as fast the advantages are reduced. I can charge a garmin 800 to full under 3hrs on my all-road bike on smoother surfaces but on 'proper' off-road terrain that may take 6 or 8...

This ^ is why I am still undecided about a dynamo hub.
A large battery pack (with dual charging input) and the four output travel charger felt more versatile and certainly cheaper.

[Trail-rat]

Depends on length of the tour I guess

Don't forget that a big battery pack reduces the number of times you need to stop and charge but you need to stop longer to charge

[postierich]

Any links to power chargers that people would recommend for a weeks use

Rich

[Bearbonesnorm]

I'm a fan of the Zendure packs Rich. Not the cheapest but very well made / robust ... try Amazon.

[metalheart]

Stu, one of these?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zendure-10000m ... power+bank

Or a different rating?

[ScotRoutes]

I have a little Zendure A1 that will re-charge my phone if necessary. It came with the lightest/shortest USB cable I've ever seen ;-)