Over the last few days, I have done some research on loading a bike. Without a doubt there are few basic rules. Travel light, keep the weight down and distribute the load across the bike.

My original load was centered much too high and too far back. The bike was top heavy and rode like a camel. I sent out an appeal to the internet forum on the Easy Racers (the manufacturer of my bike) website. Sandra Martin from Easy Racers advised me of an item written for the Easy Racers Recumbent Club (ERRC) magazine by her husband Gardner, the designer of my bike. Laurie Smith of the ERRC (www.geocities.com/e_r_r_c) faxed me a copy of the article which showed a rather creative load configuration involving hanging the panniers diagonally from the seat struts, thereby moving them forward. Unfortunately my panniers are of an unusual design so I cannot use this option. She also, suggested breaking up the tent package a bit and stowing some of the contents such as the poles farther forward on the frame.

I also searched the crazyguyonabike.com website where I came across a journal by Steve Fox who rode his Tour Easy across the country earlier this year. He talked about moving the tent forward into the void in the seat back. I also searched the journals for the words 'sent home' and found a wealth of suggestions about what is superfluous on a bike tour. My repacking was right on the money.

So last night when I got home from work, I took the seat back bag off my bike and loaded up my tour gear. I secured the tent to the seat back using elastic webbing I bought on a whim a couple of weeks ago. As before, I put my sleeping bag in the void in my handlebars. I loaded the Thermarest sleeping pad on the top of my rack. Then I reloaded my panniers pushing as much of the weight to the bottom as possible. I also found that now that the tent was off the rack I could scoot the panniers forward another several inches. Fully expecting to have to tweak this configuration, I went for a quick spin around the block. Voila! Problem solved. Just by moving the weight forward of the rear axle, the bike handles much better. It feels almost like an unloaded bike. (I didn't climb any hills so I am sure I will eat those words.)

The only downside to the configuration is I lose the bag on the seatback. I was going to use this for food and water, but it was so compressed by the load that I could barely get in it anyway. So it's not much of a loss.

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I made another discovery yesterday about my route. It seems that the rail trail in PA is a heck of a lot longer than I thought. On a highway map it looks like a straight path from West Newton to Meyersdale. Paul Dentel, a friend from work who used to live in Pittsburgh, gave me a brochure for the Allegheny Trail Alliance (www.atatrail.org/ata-home.html), the umbrella group for the rail trails I'll be riding. The ATA says that West Newton to DC is 300 miles. I had thought it was about 230. I looked at the map in the brochure and it is obvious why. The trails in PA go one or two miles laterally for every mile they go forward. This trip may take a few days more than I had planned