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Old 10-18-20, 07:44 AM
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Tourist in MSN
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 11,214

Bikes: 1961 Ideor, 1966 Perfekt 3 Speed AB Hub, 1994 Bridgestone MB-6, 2006 Airnimal Joey, 2009 Thorn Sherpa, 2013 Thorn Nomad MkII, 2015 VO Pass Hunter, 2017 Lynskey Backroad, 2017 Raleigh Gran Prix, 1980s Bianchi Mixte on a trainer. Others are now gone.

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In the photo, that was the shortest tour I have done in over a decade, only five days and four nights. I carried the food and kitchen for two of us, but one day was restaurant food. When the photo was taken, most of the food had been eaten and I no longer needed a bag on top of the rear rack for food, the only bag on top of the rack was tent poles. Weather was cool enough that I ... looked like I look in the photo, long pants, cover over helmet, long finger gloves, rain jacket, etc. Thus packed warm gear for use in a chilly campsite, probably the kind of weather most of us in the northern part of USA have now in mid-Oct with potential to freeze at night, possible rain but snow unlikely, etc.

I made no real effort to pack light, but I never do. The bulges in the rear panniers suggest that I had enough excess room I could just dump stuff in and close them up without carefully packing them for efficient use of space. So, four panniers and handlebar bag, no big bag on top of the rear rack, the sum of volumes is probably around 70 liters not counting water bottles. From the photo I can see rain pants strapped on top of the left front pannier, but that is only a liter or so of volume outside the panniers.

I have no clue what the weight would be for the gear in this photo but I am sure that the four panniers, handlebar bag and all of the contents would sum to well over 30 pounds.



As a side note, when touring I always bring a tool bag that most would consider too heavy to carry. And the second day on this tour (before the photo was taken) I needed to use my cassette lock ring tool, fortunately I had it along with the wrench for it. Being only a five day trip, it is tempting to leave stuff like the tool bag out, but in this case I was fortunate that I brought the tools that I would want on a long duration tour where I need to be self sufficient. Otherwise I would have been stranded far away from a bike shop with an unrideable bike.
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