purchases | Life in Travel

Front rack for bike: different types and how to choose the best one

There are many types of front rack for bike, different in the hold they can carry, the bicycle they can be mounted on and mostly in the use you are going to do with them. In this article, we'll analyze some types and then we are focusing on some bicycle touring front racks.

Gravel bikes: 10 (+1) best models of 2020 for your adventures

What are the best gravel bikes of 2020? If you are reading this article it is because, most likely, you are deciding to face the big step and buy a gravel bicycle . I will not dwell on what a gravel bike is or why you made this decision because these elements, although worthy of being treated, are not of interest to those like you who have to decide which gravel bike to buy.

Just know that in recent years more and more people have decided to marry this "philosophy" and try an intermediate vehicle between a racing bike and a mountain bike, for traveling or for day trips on the white roads near home. So I decided to do a short (and certainly not exhaustive) research, trying to understand which are the most popular gravel bikes and those that are used with more satisfaction by lovers of dirt roads. Then I recommend the best ten gravel bike models of 2020 .

Foldable solar panels for bicycle touring: the 6 best to buy

Which are the best foldable solar panels for bicycle touring? In the XXI century, let whoever can do without technology during a bicycle trip throw the first stone!

Nowadays, for better or for worse, technology surrounds us and we can hardly do without it, even in bicycle touring. In order to be able to travel in wildlands far from civilization for some days, it is necessary to find an alternative to electricity, to recharge our devices such as smartphones, GPSs, tablets, PCs... One of those alternatives is power banks or, better, foldable solar panels for bicycle touring: let's see how they work and most importantly how many alternatives we have on the market, in order to choose wisely depending on our needs.

Touring bikes: 12 best travel bicycle of 2020 that will take you far

Buying a touring bicycle is always challenging, especially because we usually travel one or twice a year and it's not easy to face a purchase - besides, heavy - for an item that will mostly live in our basement. Luckily during these last years, the concept itself of bicycle tour has been changing, and along with it, the bikes evolved as well, becoming everyday things.

This allows us to make a more thoughtful choice, and maybe pledge a higher budget for this mixed-use means of transportation. This year too I decided to do a short (and surely not exhaustive) research, trying to understand which are the most popular travel bicycles and which are used with more satisfaction by bike travelers. See below the 12 best adventure and touring bicycles of 2020.

Bicycle Dynamo Hub: an overview and information

We cannot hide behind our finger... in XXI century technology surrounds us and even us, bicycle travelers, have to deal with it. Even the most extreme and savage bicycle traveler has the need to be connected, everywhere and always. Other than the ethical question I'm not going to analyze here, this need is also practical: which are the alternatives to the electricity that can be used when this isn't available? In this article, we list some of the most common alternatives, like the dynamo hub connected to the lights system or, thanks to specific chargers, to your electronic devices, in order to charge them.

10 best bicycle touring tires of 2020

There are travelers who love cycling on asphalt and others who love dirt and mud or others who prefer gravel climbs... every travel by bicycle is different, and to deal with it it's necessary to choose the most adequate tires for our adventure... but how can one solve the travel tires eternal problem? In this article, I'll try and help you with this hard choice and I'll suggest some of which, in my opinion, are the 10 best bicycle touring tires of 2020.

10 best Touring Bicycle Saddles

One of the components capable of making the difference when riding for many hours is the touring bike saddle: choosing the right one can change your comfort during long excursions or short trips. These last years I've seen a lot of people with many types of touring bicycle seats, and I had the possibility to try most of them. Unfortunately, as usually happens, there isn't a universally perfect saddle for every one of us. There are some factors influencing our comfort, so the choice must be made carefully. Following you will find some advice in order to understand which factors to consider when choosing your seat, then a list of the best touring bike saddles.

7 best bicycle touring tents to buy (in my opinion)

One of the many accessories that we always carry on a medium length cycling trip is a bicycle touring tent to camp everywhere. It doesn't matter if we will use it for half of the nights during the trip, but we prefer to carry some extra kg but to be free to choose where to sleep. We have slept in the most different places during these years of bicycle touring, so we developed a pretty accurate awareness in this matter, and we try to share with you some thoughts in order to help you choose the best tent for your cycle adventures..

10 best bicycle touring panniers of 2019 (in my opinion)

Are you looking for the best panniers for bicycle touring? Well, I'll try and tell you, but before let's try to understand what we're talking about. In these last years, the number of bicycle tourists has grown bigger and bigger, and so has the offer of bags, panniers and bikepacking bags to carry our things on the bikes. In this specific case, I'll be treating the classic panniers for bicycle touring, the ones you mount on a rack, front or rear.

10 best bicycle GPS of 2019 (in my opinion)

By now using a GPS for bicycle, outdoor activities or trekking has become very important, let me say essential. We have been using it for 15 years now. We started with a non-cartographic GPS together with paper maps, in order to track our routes, to then switch to a cartographic GPS more similar to a cyclo-computer. Now we are using a more generic one, more outdoor-oriented than bicycle oriented. Enough talking: let's see which are the best bicycle GPS on the market in 2019 in my personal opinion and online research.

Locus Map: basic guide to the outdoor GPS App

Lately, I've been experiencing a lot of curiosity about outdoor GPS Apps, in particular for Android OS. In general, what I like the most about these apps is their facility of use: I don't always have a lot of time to study and learn methods to exploit my smartphone at its best during MTB excursions or bicycle travels, mostly because I use a dedicated GPS navigator that is complete and satisfying. For emergencies, curiosity or urgency I don't disagree about using my smartphone with a good outdoor App, and recently some apps are remarkable. Today I'll present one of the most intuitive apps ready to use: Locus Map, very convincing and really powerful in its free version.

How many touring bicycles handlebars are there?

It is one of the most underrated components of a bike. However, if we want to optimize our comfort, it is one of the most important. Let's see how many bicycle handlebars there are and which one to choose.

Bicycle touring panniers: how to choose the right ones for your next journey

One of the most important accessories when travelling are bike panniers and choosing the right ones isn’t easy or taken for granted: bicycle touring bags which are too small will cause a lack of space for the luggage; purchasing bags too big, vice versa, will invite us to fill them often transporting useless weight and items that will remain unused on the bottom of the bags themselves. Hereafter we’ll see in short how to choose the right bicycle bags, which characteristics to take into consideration and how to understand if they’re suitable for our needs.

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