I have ordered a few pieces of camping equipment for the RAGBRAI L. I purchased the items while they were on sale. Saved a good chuck on money on these items.
For the tent and footprint, I went with Big Agnes. My biking mechanic said that he had good luck with his Big Agnes camping gear. The tent is a Blacktail 2 Hotel Bikepack model. What specifically drew my attention to this tent is that the poles break down to 12 inch length sections. This will be helpful when mounting the tent bag to the handlebars or the rear rack on the bike. I also go the associated footprint from Big Agnes to protect the tent from the ground and any rough services.
Also from Big Agnes is the Q-Core Delux Pillow. When I have camped before (in my younger year), we used just a regular bed pillow. Now with bikepacking, need to be aware of weight and packability of everything. So this is a very small, size of a soda can when packed up, inflatable pillow.
I don’t want to sleep on the ground, so I went ahead with a Klymit Static V Luxe inflatable sleeping pad. Again, this was on sale. This is similar to my younger years when camping, but packs ups smaller. And since I am tall, I got the long version with a length of 76 inches and a width of 30 inches.
The last item purchased this go around was a Rumpl blanket. I am not a fan of sleeping bags. And since the RAGBRAI will be in July, I don’t think a sleeping bag is needed. The blanket for a test run is pretty warm. The blanket packed down will either mount to my handlebars or on the rear rack of the bike.
Next buying round will be for the rest of the mounting equipment and a set of panniers for the rear rack. I am still researching handlebar rack, panniers, and voile straps. The plan is to get all this equipment over the winter months and once spring hits get the bike out and start riding with all this stuff on the bike to get used to the extra weight on the bike.