How I set up my bounce boxes, what worked and what didn’t.

I started in Whitefish, MT with four big bounce boxes and a big Schwalbe tire box full of backpacker dehydrated food shipped directly to my sister in Texas.  I had one small bounce box waiting for me in Silver City, NM.

 The starting bounce boxes that initially went to Whitefish contained the following items (generally):

-Initial dehydrated food resupply
-Bike parts and other specialty repair items/tools that would have to be shipped in otherwise.  Alex (The Fixx) and I ordered in all the Intense frame specific parts that could possibly break, over $150 worth of parts.  I bagged them up and had them in the box the whole time.  I also had the PUSH specific rear shock rebuild kit in there as well.
-An extra tire and extra tubes
-Extra personal items, like a clean change of clothes (something to wear when I launder my other stuff) hygiene supplies, 110 chargers for electrics if I am hotelling it at the drop point, and some backup misc gear items.

 
Basically what happened as time and travels progressed was 1.) I decided that the dehydrated backpacking food was not what I wanted to do and 2.) I got tired of hauling the boxes back and forth from the post offices on ‘rest days.’  I sorted out the non-essentials and shipping them back to Boulder at various points along the way.  I ended up mostly with just bike parts, the extra tire, tubes, bike maintenance accessories, the guidebook, and a few other odds and ends when I entered New Mexico.  You live, you learn. 

One tip - If someone is picking you up at the border, Silver City, or whatever, it might be a good idea to send them some "travel back clothes" with shoes and fresh socks.  Make sure they bring a belt, things probably won't fit real well after several months on the road! 

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