Superficially, multitools are very attractive. They’re small, light and there’s definitely a Swiss Army Knife wow factor as you unfold the various blades, revealing one handy function after another. And this… for removing a stone from a horse’s hoof!

But just as you wouldn’t want to sit down to the twelve course tasting menu at a fancy Michelin starred restaurant with just a Swiss Army Knife by way of cutlery, you’d be very unwise to go on a cycle tour with just a multitool to fix any mechanical problems you might encounter. Multitools are designed for weight-conscious sporting cyclists who carry everything in a tiny pack attached to the back of their saddle. All they want is a way of keeping their bike on the road until they get home to fix it properly or, more likely, take it in to a bike shop to be fixed.

Mechanical ineptitude or disinclination should never be a barrier to enjoyable cycle touring. In most parts of Western Europe there’s usually a bike shop not too far away. Eventually though, you will find it’s easier to know how to fix the most common mechanical problems. It’s just part of the self-reliance that is one of the attractions of touring. Have bike, will travel. Don’t fear. The bar is not set very high. If you can mend a puncture and put up a tent then you have the mental acuity and physical dexterity required to replace your brake pads and adjust your rear mech. As Eben Weiss (aka Bike Snob) observed, most bicycle repair tasks do not require any voodoo, just loosening and tightening certain bolts in a certain sequence.

Many touring cyclists choose to make their lives easier still by selecting bicycle components that are durable and easily repairable. This is why they shy away from mysterious components like STI shifters and hydraulic disc brakes that require all manner of exotic, proprietary tools and fiddly spare parts.

We’re all after an easy life and fixing your bike is a lot harder if you’re using a multitool. The screwdrivers and allen keys (hex wrenches, for stateside readers) aren’t long enough to reach the bolt head and can only make a quarter turn before the bulky body of the multitool obstructs any further rotation. You can’t use two tools at once as is necessary when tightening a nut and bolt from both sides. The tyre levers are too fat and lack leverage.

The person who invented multitool could just as well have been looking for a way to turn a moderately proficient bicycle mechanic into a ham fisted klutz. After a frustrating session of fettling what you’ll need more than anything is a stiff drink. Which may be why every multitool has a bottle opener, though never a corkscrew.

Leave the multitool at home and instead fill a little canvas tool roll with the following:

– A set of Allen keys of the sizes required for the bolts on your bike.

– A pair of small screwdrivers (one flat, one cross headed) or a screwdriver with interchangeable heads like this one which costs just £1.

– A pair of metal tyre levers (plastic can snap). Why do tyre levers come in threes? I’ve never used more than two to remove a tyre.

– A small pair of good quality pliers with a cable cutting blade.

– A chain tool. I recommend one made by Park Tool that’s designed to prevent you from pushing the rivet out of the chain entirely.

– A small, lightweight adjustable spanner or ‘monkey wrench’.

– A spoke tightening key. You may not know how to use it but you might meet someone who does. Ask her to teach you.

This is enough for 99% of people. Rugged folk embarking on ‘epic’ tours into the wilderness might want to take spanners for adjusting wheel bearings and headsets, or crank extractors and bottom bracket tools. But for everyone else, those are tasks for the bike shop.

This post is part of an ongoing series in which I share what I’ve learned in half a lifetime’s cycle touring adventure and misadventure.

Not long ago, someone discovered that cycling water bottles (or bidons) contained a toxic chemical called BPA that was potentially seriously harmful to human health. Some, though not all, bidons are BPA-free, but even if they are, it doesn’t stop them making your drink taste all nasty and plasticky nor providing an excellent long term breeding ground for all manner of unpalatable, and possibly unhealthful, fungi and bacteria. This latter problem is particularly bad if you fill a bidon with anything other than water, particularly sugary drinks. I don’t expect milk is much good either.

Cyclists who return home after a ride can wash out, or even boil their bidons to keep them tasting fresh. For touring cyclists this is more difficult. And that’s one of the reasons I really like the Topeak Modula XL water bottle cage. It is designed not for cycling bidons but for your standard-issue mineral water bottle. This is the kind that doesn’t taste of plastic and that can be easily recycled & inexpensively replaced if it starts to get a bit whiffy.

More than that, mineral water bottles are bigger than normal cycling bidons, which makes them ideal when you’re wild camping as it’s always nice to have a plentiful supply of water for cooking, making tea, brushing your teeth and all that kind of thing.

The bottle cage is vertically adjustable so it will take a variety of different types of water bottle. I’d recommend using sparking water bottles as they tend to be more durable than most still water bottles which are a bit flimsy.I’ve used one for years, though there are reports of the cages breaking when ridden over rough ground. Being aluminium, they’re lightweight but difficult to repair. Maybe someone will come out with a steel version.

Another approach is only to use bottles up to a litre in capacity, so as to reduce the strain on the cage, or not to put more than a litre of water into the bottle unless you absolutely need it. For cycle tourists heading to really dry, rough or remote places, it’s worth considering taking a water bag to supplement a frame-mounted  bottle for drinking while riding.

I really like stainless steel waterbottles. They’re super durable and don’t have any nasty plastic coatings. They’re easier to find than ever, and cheaper too. But I’ve never found a way of keeping a metal water bottle securely fastened in a frame-mounted bottle cage. Maybe a leather or neoprene wrapper would help. Any suggestions?

When you’re heading off on a cycle camping trip, you’ll need some kind of cup to drink from. Unless, of course, you prefer the rugged Bear Ghrylls drinking-from-waterfall-with-cupped-hands look or you take your inspiration from Ray Mears and prefer to fashion a sturdy and sustainable container for your beverage by weaving together a mess of dock leaves picked from the hedgerows.

But if you disregard the TV survivalists and get serious for a moment you’ll want to pay attention to this recommendation: if your intention is libation and you have an appreciation of insulation, there’s no better creation than… the Lifeventure thermal mug.

The merits of this mug were first demonstrated to me by Dixe Wills, a sturdy cyclist and author of the highly original and deliciously mirthful Places to Hide, as well as a very handy guide to Britain’s best tiny campsites. Dixe is a very moral man and a strict vegan. He won’t even drink a pint of beer unless he knows for certain it was brewed without the slightest harm to a sentient being. Before I met Dixe, I was ignorant of many things. I knew nothing of the Lifeventure insulated mug and I had know idea that some beer was vegan and some contained ground up sheep pancreas or some other unspeakable horror of industrialised food production. Spend a few days with Dixe and I’m certain you’ll learn many new things about the world. Alternatively, you can follow him on twitter.

Given his lefty leanings and vegan ways, I was somewhat surprised by the the eagerness with which Dixe told me the that very same Lifeventure mug as was cupped in his mitts is widely used by the British armed forces: a group not known for an anarcho-syndicalist Weltanschauung nor an aversion to violence (killing is part of the job description, after all). Anyway, Dixe told me that it’s common for soldiers to discard the crummy standard-issue Army drinking vessel and fork out for their own Lifeventure insulated mug.

If a piece of equipment meets with the approval of both a bicycling vegan who scrapes a living writing books about visiting tiny islands and towns and villages that begin with the letter Z and a bunch of tattooed hard nuts who scrape a living promoting peace and justice down the barrel of a gun in the Hindu Kush, then it must be worthy of consideration on any cycle tourist’s packing list.

So what does it do? Well, perhaps a better question is what it doesn’t do. It has a lid that doesn’t leak. It’s vacuum insulated so it doesn’t burn your hands. It’s made of stainless steel so it doesn’t break if dropped. Most importantly it will keep your  tea / coffee / hot chocolate / soup / hot toddy / mulled wine (delete as appropriate) hot for nearly half a day.

So how do I use it? Well, it goes something like this. When I’m camping I’ll usually boil some water first thing in the morning, perhaps to make some porridge and a hot drink, to have a shave or do the washing up from the night before. Call me a effete sophisticate but I draw the line a using the same water for washing up and shaving, though I imagine residual grease in the water could provide some additional lubrication for the shave and an interesting eau de cologne for the rest of the day. I’ll leave such antics to the TV survivalists.

It’s a trifle to fill my mug with a hot drink for later in the morning. A couple of hours down the road I’ll stop, sit myself down in a flower meadow, inna Laurie Lee stylee, dig a flapjack out from the deepest recess of my pannier and partake of the fine British tradition of elevenses, or as our Italian cousins call it, la merenda.

The Lifeventure insulated mug costs less than £10 and is available in no fewer than eleven colourways including the eye-catching US Navy Seals “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Special Edition (pictured, right).

This post is part of an ongoing series in which I share what I’ve learned in half a lifetime’s cycle touring adventure and misadventure.