I’ve had a few people express interest in how my bike is configured and how I carry gear on the bike. Chris has her own bike and panniers which I will cover in another post.
The bike is steel and is a general purpose/touring/gravel bike. Touring bikes generally are not fancy or expensive. The name of the bike is AWOL (absent without leave for non Americans) which fits me. It has very low gears to make it easier to climb hills carrying a load. The front chainrings are 36/24 and the rear cluster is 10 speed 11/42. Those are low gears!
The front panniers carry all the camping gear for Chris and me, and the rear panniers carry all my personal clothes and my part of food for the day. The frame pack carries tools and spare parts, spare tubes, chain lube, pump, hiking poles, water and other various items that I might need during the day. The handlebar bag holds the lock, snacks, sunscreen, passport and other stuff.
The camping gear is:
2- Klymit sleeping pads, 2- Big Agnes sleeping quilts, 1- silk sleeping sack, 1-Big Agnes bike packing tent, 1- inflatable pillow, 1- 230 gm butane cylinder, 1- Snow Peak titanium pot, 2- collapsible silicone cups and 2 plastic glasses, 3- plastic plates, 1- Soto wind master camp stove, 1- lighter, 2- Ortlieb gravel pack panniers, 1- Packtowl and some other little stuff! All the camping gear and front panniers weight 13.5 lbs.
In my rear panniers I categorize gear into 3 groups, each in its own plastic bag: clothes for cold/wet conditions, everything for the night or camp, and bike clothes. Not sure what the rear panniers weight, and it varies by what we carry for food. The bag on the top of the rear rack with the net is for shoes: my flip flops, hiking shoes and Chris’ sandals.
rear rack
My handlebars have a bell, a light, and a holder for my phone. We use GaiaGPS for navigation. I’ve downloaded the EuroVelo routes in GPX and in addition we each can add new routes and they sync to the others phone. Chris and my phone sync so our routes are the same.
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