July 14, 2012
Gear Update
Our gear worked very well last year (www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/rivers). If you can’t be touring the next best thing is to buy new gear so we have made a few refinements. The problem of course is always weight. We fly Emirates who have a luggage allowance of 30kg each and carryon of 7kg. but if we were to take everything I fancied the plane would hardly leave the ground !
Ken is riding his Turbo Mountain Bike again. These bikes have served us well over our previous three tours with an absolute minimum of trouble. He has just got it back from Mark it has been well checked over, has a new chain, new brake pads and at long last it seems to be going easily into the lowest gear on the front.
I have a new bike an Avanti Discovery, being a step through it is very easy to get on and off so hopefully Ken won’t be 100m down the road by the time I get going. With the thought of the Alps the gearing has been changed to give me a really low gear. I am enjoying riding it and it certainly goes easily up the very steep part of the hill to our place. The next time the bikes visit Mark is for them to climb into their boxes for the long flight to Copenhagen
We have swapped our two man tent for a three to four man one. Although we haven’t slept in it, it seems wonderfully roomy and we are able to get all our panniers inside.Our threequarter length self inflating mats have been swapped for Neo Air thermorests. I have tried sleeping on one and I had a great night’s sleep. They are also extremely light and compact. A small gas cooker and a couple of lightweight pots have been added. Seating has been upgraded by replacing one of the three legged stools for a Helinox chair. It is amazingly comfortable weighing in at a little under 1kg. We have once more scoured Stanfords web site for maps and have excellent maps for the whole way. They are rather heavy though so I will have to photocopy relevant parts.
I do hope most of this will make the cut when we do the final weighing.
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