In preparing for the trip, I tried to cut weight from my gear in lots of different ways. Reading other cyclists’ blogs gave me good ideas on how to do this. I didn’t take things to the extreme (I prefer having a full length tooth brush and tools with handles long enough to get a good grip on them), but I did try my best to shave off a little bit of weight where I could.
I left behind tent stakes (and still have 3 too many, I think), removed extra wrapping/packaging from new items, removed the large metal emblem from my digital camera’s carrying case, left behind my heavy, metal Mach 3 shaving razor handle and just took a few razor blade cartridges (my folks made fun of me for this, but shaving is no problem holding just the cartridge between my thumb and forefinger), removed tools from my bike multi-tool that I didn’t need or that didn’t fit the specific bolts on my bike, trimmed down my maps and only took map pages that showed my planned route, etc.
If you click the image below, you’ll see one little way I saved weight on tape and wire.
This might not be interesting to anyone other than someone getting ready for a trip, but I know a few of you are out there–you’ve been emailing me! Just trying to give back some of the tips and info I stole from other travelers out there…
Posted in Bike trip: East coast America, Preparation
