...any way to lighten the load?
I kept looking through my stuff all summer, looking for more items to send home. I found a few, and as you'll see in my gear list I did send things home. Well, some things I sent home, and others I sent to my parents because I figured they'd send them back in a hurry if I changed my mind!
The one area that really sticks out is camping gear. When I started this trip I intended to camp, but that went away pretty quickly. I did send my cooking gear home, but I kept (and needed to keep) the tent, sleeping bag, and pad. My stuff is pretty new since I bought it for my first solo biking trip in 1998, but even camping gear has changed over the past few years. Before I do another trip like this one, I'll probably take a look at the latest camping gear to see if I can shave off some pounds. My sleeping bag is pretty light at 2 pounds 10 ounces, but I just found a bag that weighs 1 pound 5 ounces. My tent is good for a 2-man tent, but there are solo tents that weigh less. Ideally the next time I will either make more use of the camping gear or I will leave it home all together. It really depends on where I am touring.
Then there are the bicycle supplies. I started out with spare cables and spare brake pads, both of which I sent home. I also had a spare tire for both the bike and the trailer, and spare tubes. I wasn't comfortable sending the spare tires home. Both are odd sizes, and not something I could easily pick up in a bike shop. It's not likely that I'd need to replace a tire - more likely that I'd need tubes. But I've had a tire sliced by glass on a previous trip, so the spares made me happy. As for the tubes - maybe 4 spare tubes for the bike was a bit much. I had 3 flats, and was able to patch the tubes in two of the instances. The 3rd involved the valve stem separating from the tube - not something I could fix. I probably could drop down to 2 (that would probably make me nervous) or 3 (probably a realistic number!) spare tubes for the bike and have more shipped to me as needed.
Let's see, what about clothes? Believe it or not, I used all of the layers that I had with me. If I were on a shorter trip in a region with more consistent weather, I might have been able to leave some of the cold weather layers behind. On this trip, I needed them - so it was worth the weight. I was also happy to have 2 sets of off-the-bike clothing with me. My reason for carrying 2 pairs of shorts and 2 shirts was to have something to wear when I do the laundry. Even though I did most of the laundry a little at a time by hand, I still used the extra set for laundry days. Since I was using mostly synthetics (cool max, etc.), these clothes didn't contribute too much to the overall load.
I got used to the load very quickly, but it is always nice to lighten things up a bit!
