Panniers and Other Prep

May 11, 2021

By the way, I've signed up for a site called buymeacoffee.com which I'm to understand is a bit like Patreon but with less fees. My username there is meigui. However, in terms of suggesting that people contribute towards my awesome lifestyle, I'll probably continue to point you at the print on demand shop I have on RedBubble (username brucianna) which is full of patterns made off of things photographed on the road.

I didn't do any real riding the whole time I was in Haikou. In fact, I think the longest I did in one day was about 20km by sharebike. That was the day I went to not one, but two, Decathlons. Being as I took my bike shorts to the tailor downstairs to be mended, I shouldn't have needed to go at all, but she forgot that I had previously said "patches to non-denim items go on the outside", and when she ran out of the dead bike short provided for cannibalization, she just used random other bits of material.

Not Happy. I've now got five pairs of bike shorts that aren't "nice enough" to be worth wearing over an undershort and which have had this done to them to reinforce the bit where holes in the fabric form at the edge of the chamois

Some of them will still be usable with a super lightweight pair of Decathlon shorts as undershorts. The others will be kept around so that the next time I bring her a load to patch, I can have examples of why I'm being insistent (and to cannibalize for fabric).

This time around, I noticed that the sign above the shorts indicates that my undershort weight bike shorts are "entry level" for rides "1 to 2 hours in length" around "5 to 10 times per year" which probably explains part of why they start falling apart as quickly as they do but also, who needs bike shorts under that kind of circumstances?

I'm still not sure where my red fabric Vaude from 2008 wandered away to, but the blue Roadmaster Fronts from 2012 have been getting strained in places. The front pocket has now been replaced/reinforced with a two zip embroidered coin purse I got in Guizhou last Tour and the strained fabric at the edge where the plastic frame permanently attaches is reinforced with the woven trim that was the purse's strap.

Sadly, the double walled anodized titanium cups I bought for an expansion/modification of the Coffee Kit turned out to be too small.

In theory, this not only gives me a better (and better organized) location for keeping my meds that is neither a single giant Ziploc nor the bottom of my handlebar bag, it also will serve to clearly mark at the end of a long tired day which pannier is supposed to be going to the hotel room.

I've also got another new dynamo powered headlight of the sort that's supposed to be dynamo powered, a USB outlet, another battery headlight, a massive power bank that will keep everything charged for at least two nights of camping, and a lightweight travel charger for my laptop which manages to offset some of the ridiculous weight of the power bank.

I've also decided to gift/sell the gimbal/selfie stick to a friend since taking videos is a massive enough time sink as it is and setting up the gimbal is another five minutes each time. I'm sure though that I will now end up regretting this due to having things I want to video that are three feet above my head.

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