Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 11,186
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.
Mentioned: 47 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 3455 Post(s)
These are just random thoughts on some of your plans.
You said nothing about your cycling background, but I assume when you refer to your wife's bike as an endurance based road bike, that it is a randonneuring type of bike (I call that a rando bike). Thus, I assume you have some cycling background for longer distances, but without carrying much of a load.
I think a rando bike would work well, but putting the weight up high on a rack could lead to poor handling. I try to pack my panniers so that the most dense stuff is in the bottom, lightest weight up higher. That way I get my center of gravity as close to the frame dropouts as I can.
Some campers want to carry more than others, I can't comment on volumes when I have no idea how much you typically would carry for a camping trip. When I go backpacking, my pack usually weighs more than 30 pounds without food or water, but I have some neighbors that backpacked the AT and when they finished it their backpacks were 12 and 15 pounds for the two of them. They obviously carry a lot less than I do.
Two weeks of food is a lot. I almost never carry freeze dried food, thus my food is heavier and bulkier. A year ago while cycling in Iceland interior, I started with two weeks of food and it filled my 31 liter Ortlieb duffle, plus I had a couple days of overflow in another drybag. That two weeks of food was for me, not two people.
Another trip - I got home a few weeks ago from a two week kayaking trip on Isle Royale. Since it was kayaking and my kayak handles well with a load, I did not have the weight concerns that you have for cycling. I had over 30 pounds of food (four drybags) for those two weeks but that included 15 cans.
Compression stuff sacks, it is impossible for anyone here that does not own the sleeping bags you cite to know how big a compression sack has to be. For sleeping bags, I always put them inside an Ortlieb waterproof pannier. But I have two waterproof compression sacks that I use for kayaking that I like, both made by Granite Gear, but I am careful to avoid getting them wet even though they are labeled as waterproof because I really do not want a wet sleeping bag. If you do a google search for - granite gear event compression - you will find the ones I mean.
Photo of my bike with two weeks of food on it. The drybag in between my Ortlieb duffle and seatpost is the overflow drybag with more food in it. My opinion is that you need to adjust your plans to either carry less food or scale up your carrying capacity.