I woke, packed my gear before dawn and forced myself to eat my last Oark burger in the pre-dawn damp cool of around 50 degrees. I started riding wearing the long-sleeved t-shirt I had slept in as well as a neck gaiter under my rain jacket, reasoning that I’d change out of them when I warmed up. The “when” turned out to be a scant ten minutes later. A few hundred meters of climbing had me starting to sweat and I had to stop, strip off that shirt, and stow it, and put on my still-damp shirt from the day before. This was a foolish camping blunder that I didn’t make again the rest of the race. I am firmly convinced that for bikepacking or backpacking you need to have dry clothes that you only put on when you are off the bike and in a dry place. Those clothes must stay packed away in a dry bag while you are riding and generating sweat. While it’s no fun to put on smelly still-damp socks, bibs, and shirts in the cool of the morning to start riding, it’s the only way to avoid winding ...