When Bicycle Touring, daily laundry is just something you
have to do. Some people get around this by buying and using Wool Jerseys, which
can be worn multiple days without stinking up, but that only makes the problem
worse: wool dries slowly so when you do have to wash, your drying time is much
increased. My preference has long been synthetics, which dry quickly if you
wring them using a towel.
When traveling with a 6 year old who can’t be expected to do
his own laundry, your laundry load doubles. This time, I decided to experiment
with Eucalan, a “no-rinse” detergent originally designed for delicate stuff
that has to be hand washed. The cost is considerably higher than say, carrying
a bottle of Tide from home, but at $5 per bottle (or $6.70 from Amazon) from the local dye shop, the
cost is negligible compared to the cost of plane tickets to Munich (The most
direct competitor, Soak, costs a lot more)
I have to say that Eucalan works. Any parent of a 6 year old
can tell you that the kid gets way dirtier faster than you can imagine. At the
end of the day, whenever I washed, I’d notice that the drained water had so
much dirt in it that it would stain the wash basin. I was skeptical that the
detergent was working, and one of the problems is that you can’t easily
calibrate how much you’re using, but the bottle survived the entire trip with
just a tiny bit left at the end. The wash process is much simplified by not
having to rinse, and the scent isn’t noticeable, at least, not in the amounts
I used.
Needless to say, my next tour will include a bottle of
Eucalan. Highly recommended.
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