Washing and drying tip
 

When riding in hot weather I need to wash my base layers and socks every night and remembered this tip on how to speed up the drying process.

After you wash your clothing and have hand rung it out to remove the excess water, get a towel and lay it on a flat surface. Then lay out as many clothes as will fit on the towel, with no overlaps.
Then fold over the long edge of the towel and roll the clothes up into a long roll.
Take the tube and stand on one end of it, then twist it tightly and pull. This will squeeze out excess water much more strongly than you can do it directly and also without as much chance of tearing the clothes.

When you release the roll and open it, the clothes are as dry as possible and will then likely dry overnight ready for use the next day. Most hotels give you two towels so you have one for your body and another for you clothes.

Wet Towel?
 

Heard of this technique before and even used it a couple of times in hotels, however on the road it does have one major draw back, its turns a dry towel into a wet one.

Well, in that case you could take a towel, lay it on a flat surface... :rofl:

Well that is rather the point of having a towel, it dries things. And since the towel comes from the hotel you just leave the wet one behind.

Well yes, on those occasions when one stays in a hotel--specifically, the kind of hotel which gives one or more towels with your room--this technique works just fine. However, I believe the point made was that not everyone stays in hotels, much less the subset which provides towels. Or maybe that's just me....?

Mark

Which is when you move to use travel tip #42, the one where you put your wet things in a mesh bag on the back so that the contents dry as you ride along:cool4:

Thanks for the tip. I've never heard of this and will certainly give it a try.

Better a damp towel than damp 'nads...

Travel towels from camping shops dry out very quickly though and don't take up much room. Saying that, a lot of the places I went were so hot, clothes dried out in minutes anyway.

The other one I heard was to get a small dry bag, fill it with dirty laundry, warm water and washing powder, strap it to the bike and you've got your own mobile washing machine.

doing laundry
 

I take a small hair dryer, wash whatever and spend a little time blowing them dry !

I just smelt bad, travel light!

No excuse for that, even on the road. Very antisocial. Take a solar shower.:D

I like to use a "Sham wow" or similar type fake chamois to dry my undersmalls n socks, similar method, except you don't want to wring it so hard, you don't need to.
Also... I use that instead of a towel to dry myself and sometimes even the bike chuck it in the laundry with the clothes to keep it smelling fresh.....

LOL now that is funny!

Im gonne try this!

One of the best tips for drying clothes that I've ever heard is as follows. After you have washed the cloths and wrung them out, hang them up, then on the lowest part of the piece of clothing pin an additional piece of cloth to the bottom using a safety pin. It can be a small face towel or a bandana. Gravity will pull the water to the lowest part of the material which will be the piece of material. Then your clothing can air dry on it's own. It has worked for me.

These are both great tips I will surely put in use. Thank you for sharing.

I must stay too long in the one place. I would just wash them and hang them up all over the tent or bike. Almost everything dried or mesh bag while riding. Of course I was always somewhere sunny..or at least not raining all the time.

Good tips though

i like it, definitely going to try it. Less time spent washing clothes = more riding time! :mchappy:

Instead of wringing, its easier to step/walk on the clothes/towel bundle and force the water out that way. If your clothes are of artificial fibers, they will be so dry that you can put them under the sheets and sleep on them and they'll be dry/wearable next morning.