>>1066670Dunno where you bike but an hour of moderate riding here in the summer will cause most people to sweat enough to risk serious dehydration. One of the bike-specific 1.5 or 2 liter camelbaks provides enough water for trail use. I literally can't go "a few hours" without water from April to late September without getting heat cramps. Spring, fall, and winter, yeah you can get away with keeping it in your car.
I usually ride muddy trails so I don't like having a water bottle on the bike frame, it's always coated in the nastiest muck. Don't wanna put my mouth on that.
I prefer loose (loose, not baggy) shorts or long pants for trail riding around here, otherwise I get cut the fuck up from all the little branches and shit that overhang the trails. They'll gouge right through the spandex roadbike shorts. Yeah, occasionally I'll get hung up on the saddle, worth it IMO. They also provide a slight bit more protection against road rash if you duff it.
Flats are a fact of life. Even if you don't take it with you on the trail, have a pump. The little CO2 ones are about the size of a crack torch and weigh less than 3oz with a full cartridge, and usually cost less than a good floor pump (although if you use it a lot you'll spend a lot of money on the CO2 cartridges).
Tubeless is awesome, but not found on the cheaper bikes and kind of a pain to convert to (most conversions require an air compressor to install and change tires), and you'll still want to carry at least 1 spare tube in case of a catastrophic puncture. Again, awesome, but probably not the greatest idea for someone just getting into MTB.
I dunno why people hang so much shit off their bikes either. An all-day ride for me will be a small camelbak (mine's 2L), with my CO2 inflater and 1 spare tube. No electronics other than my cell phone (which stays in the bag), no "tool kit", no frame bag, hell since it's an offroad-only bike I even took everything but the front reflector off it.
