What We Wear

One thing I’ve noticed consistently is that each cyclist has his/her own preferences for clothes, so it’s hard to say what you should take with you. All I can do is give some idea about what we have packed (and each of the four of us like different things), and you can take it from there.

Cycling clothes

Shorts: We live in our bicycling shorts! In fact, we’ve opted to get rid of underwear altogether and only carry bike shorts. That being said, we have a large variety of bike shorts. .

John: John’s preference is for Ibex wool bike shorts . He finds them comfortable, even in the heat of Central America. He also has a pair of Pearl Izumi shorts, but he reaches for the Ibex pair way more frequently. He carries only two pairs, and washes them when he has a chance. .

Nancy: I have discovered the joys of wool as well – but I am not using padded shorts at all. My favorite are the Ibex wool running shorts , with another pair of shorts over the top of them. I used to find my padded cycling shorts smelled so badly by the end of the day I couldn’t stand to be around them, but with the wool, I could even wear them more than one day if I had to – no smell at all! I carry four pairs of my wool shorts and two pairs of over shorts. .

Davy & Daryl: We’ve found the best fit for the boys are the Performance Kids Bike Shorts . They prefer to wear the bike shorts with another pair of shorts over them. We also bought a few pairs of the two-in-one shorts before we left but, in retrospect, I wouldn’t get them again – it’s way easier to deal with two separate pairs of shorts rather than one connected pair. .

Shirts: For the most part, we prefer cotton. Plain ol’ 100% cotton. We carry three t-shirts each, all of them cotton. I also have one wool t-shirt that is wonderful, but I hate sleeves when it is hot so I don’t wear it much except when it’s cold. I really should cut the sleeves off it – but I can’t bring myself to do that. .

Socks: John and I prefer wool. We each have a few pairs of wool socks that we wear all the time – when it’s hot and when it’s cold. The wool dries quickly and is very comfortable. .

For the boys, we’ve opted to get cheapo cotton socks from WalMart. I had some good socks for them at one point, but they are both so hard on socks that they wore them out in a couple months. I just make a point of picking up a few pairs every month or so when I find a good store, and they are good to go. .

Shoes: John wears clips while cycling. He finds the added advantage of utilizing his entire pedal stroke to be invaluable while pedaling the heavy tandem. He also carries another pair of sneakers for walking around the campground/hotel, and sandals for when it is hot. .

Nancy: I decided I didn’t want to deal with clips on this journey. On our last trip, I wore clips while cycling and changed into sneakers once off the bike. But – I found it was more hassle than it was worth. I hated having to change my shoes every time we had to walk over a bridge or up a steep hill or through the supermarket or… Besides that, I only wanted to carry two pairs – and I wanted one pair to be sandals. Now I wear sneakers on the bike and sandals once I’m off. It works for me!

The kids: The kids wear regular sneakers as well. They tend to be so hard on shoes that we replace them on a regular basis. We’ve tried a lot of different ones and haven’t noticed a huge difference between any of them. They both have a pair of sandals as well for when we go to the beach.

Cold Weather Gear

Layers, layers, layers. I had always read that one should go for layers, but I didn’t truly understand it until we were out on the bikes. We have run into every conceivable type of weather conditions, and have utilized every conceivable combination of layers we have. Although we each have a slightly different set of layers, the basic kit for each of us is: .

• Thin cotton long-sleeve shirt
• Thin wool long-sleeve shirt
• Felted wool sweater vest – we went to a thrift store and found some nice merino wool sweater vests a couple sizes too big, then threw them in the washer with HOT water, lots of soap, and on the longest cycle possible. They felted down to a thick, warm layer for our torsos.
• Jacket – we’ve tried the gamut here. In the end, our favorite is actually a great big thick wool sweater that has been felted as described above.
• Rain jacket – depending on the wind conditions, we might put a rain jacket on top of all the above to serve as a wind break.
• When it was really cold, we used two pairs of tights each, but that didn’t happen very often. Generally speaking, one pair of tights (I prefer wool) has been fine. We do carry rain pants, so could put those on if needed for an extra layer, but we never needed to.
• Socks – a thin pair of wool socks and a thick pair of wool socks with shoes that were a bit too big seemed to do the trick. Daryl tends to get cold feet very easily, so sometimes we added a plastic bread bag onto his feet before he put on his shoes.
• Hats/gloves/face protection – we’ve found the wool gloves and hats are the best. Wool even keeps Daryl’s fingers warm! We carry a lightweight liner pair and a thicker pair for each of us. We also have hats that can fit under the helmets, and neck gaiters that we can pull up over our faces.

Rain Gear

We each carry a rain jacket and pants, but we try hard to avoid riding in the rain. So far, we haven’t found anything that truly works for our feet and hands when it’s raining – if we get caught in the rain our hands and feet simply get cold until we can get out of the bloody rain! We have tried plastic bags, which work to an extent, but not completely. .

Extras

We don’t carry a lot of clothes for our time off the bike – we just wear our cycling clothes most of the time. I do have a lightweight skirt that I can put on if I’m going someplace where shorts aren’t acceptable. John carries a pair of sweatpants. The boys simply wear the same clothes they wear on the bike. .

One extra that is worth its weight in gold is a sweatband (how much weight would that be, anyway?). Both John and I are using Headsweats Topless Headbands under our helmets to keep the sweat out of our eyes. These things have been invaluable here in Central America! .