I spent my first night post-retirement on a shakedown run to Boyd Lake State Park. It was only a 13 mile ride each way, but gave me an opportunity to ride the bike loaded, check out some of my camping equipment, and acknowledge my new status in life.

I used just my front panniers, to test out a proposal for stuffing my sleeping bag directly into the pannier. As a method of storing my sleeping bag, that worked out alright, but even with my sleeping mattress and a warmer jacket for the evening in the same pannier, my panniers ended up really unbalanced and I had to be far too careful riding, so I'll reconsider that approach. I do not want my stove or food or other dirty things in with an unstuffed sleeping bag.

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

I did not cook dinner, just heated some water for tea in the evening using my Trangia alcohol stove, and ate some snacks I had with me. I also heated water in the morning for coffee and oatmeal. I used up the alcohol I had with me! Good thing I hadn't cooked my dinner! It was really windy, so the little Trangia wasn't very efficient, but I'll need some more practice with the alcohol stove, and may consider bringing a different stove with me. Now I need to research availability of other fuel types in eastern Europe!

There was a lot of condensation in my tent overnight. It had been chilly, so I had it zipped up except for a couple of inches at the top of the fly. And I slept upside down, with my head at the low end of the roof, away from the door, since my initial judgement of "level" had been a bit off. This is a nice, lightweight tent, so I'm going to stick with it, but I need to work on improving ventilation to prevent condensation.