preRA: Weighing and Waiting
Jack sent an email the other day describing a ‘practice pack’ he’d done. Jack’s bike, with filled water bottles, some extra water, and some rations, came out at 89 pounds. I wondered how much mine would be.
Spent this afternoon gathering everything, doing some categorical weighing, and then a full load measurement. Unlike Jack, I did not add food or extra water, but did include 3 filled water bottles. Results below:
The 12.2 lbs for racks and containers always sounds high. You’d think with aerospace materials and high strength modern fabrics, the container weight wouldn’t be such a high percentage of the total payload.
Distribution around the bike depends how it’s packed, but for the trial I ended up with about 60% of the weight in the rear. Common wisdom is to slightly overweight the front for stability reasons, but my rear panniers are a lot larger than my front ones, so they just end up carrying more.
‘Clothes’ includes all riding clothes, all rain gear, and all warm weather layers.
‘Electronics’ includes a netbook, camera, journal materials, cell phone, various chargers, and some playing cards and a cribbage board. Clearly the most frivolous category – this may get pared down.
In terms of volume, I should have enough extra space in each of the six containers for camp food.
Interesting how close Jack and I came out.
I didn’t see “Cribbage board” on Frank’s universal gear list.
I just checked out the Cascades pass (SR20) website. While our opportunities to give up the lunatic plan are quickly evaporating, our chances to prove our lunacy abound. Those guys are using howitzers to trigger avalanches and the HIGH temperature in the last 24 hours was 33F.
The cribbage board is clearly the MOST frivolous item. Do you play?
I really want to ride through the Cascades area, and so I’m hanging onto the plan, well, like a lunatic. However, we may have to consider other options: a) Just wait until the road opens, or b) start from somewhere else like Astoria, OR. We should probably be making this call by end of this week so those flying can consider their options.
I never have played cribbage, but that doesn’t mean I won’t…
I agree with your thoughts on the Cascades. I want to hear the latest update when they post at the end of the week