We’ve always travelled with a full load of touring gear.
Multiple books. Food for a few days. Electronic gadgets. These are just some of the things that weigh us down.
Sometimes we feel a bit guilty about it. Maybe we should be trying harder to choose lighter things, and weed out all the non-essentials?
With this in mind, I had to laugh when I saw this sign in a bicycle workshop over the weekend. I think we’ll keep all our stuff!! What a great excuse for our slowness…
28th September 2010 at 3:55 pm #
If you look at most cyclists (including us!) photos – you see that most of them are made while climbing the hill / mountain pass and not in the downhill section. Of course all of those photo stops were because there was a great view and not because we were tired and wanted to rest…..
28th September 2010 at 4:14 pm #
And that’s the beauty of long distance touring! It’s not about performance it’s about experience. We always load ourselves down with way too many things, but then again we usually don’t have an overly ambitious mileage target for the day. Slow and sweaty.
28th September 2010 at 6:14 pm #
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Briana 🙂
28th September 2010 at 7:14 pm #
The extra weight helps balance my wife and I out. She’s relaively new to cycling whereas I’ve been pretty avid mountain biker and endurance racer for years. Go ahead and load up my trailer and bags with the heavy stuff and pack the raingear and toiletries in hers — it just means we can ride together more! And I get a better workout. LOL!
29th September 2010 at 7:20 am #
I saw a really extreme version of this recently. He was carrying four panniers. She just had a rack pack!
28th September 2010 at 8:18 pm #
The heavier your gear the less money you’ve spend and therefore the more time you can tour:)
That and your damn stable as you charge down a hill at 80km/h (shh dont tell my mum!)
13th August 2023 at 6:28 am #
679895 895422Just a smiling visitor here to share the enjoy (:, btw excellent pattern . 137605