Equipment - North from FoCo in NoCo - CycleBlaze

Equipment

The next couple of pages detail "the stuff". That's what I'll be hauling up hill and down dale, and constitute all of my supplies (except food and water) for the trip.

I'm worried about weight and have tried to minimize the load, but I'm also concerned about cold temperatures at altitude. I'm not going into the wilderness or some third world country, so I've been sort of skimpy on the bike tools. But I'm bringing a warm jacket, and perhaps have some redundancy (for example) in both biking tights and long underwear. I've chosen to bring the tights for biking (duh...) and want the long johns potentially for sleeping, and I don't see those two uses as compatible. I also am keeping open the option of mailing some items home. I expect my first day to be a steady uphill, and will really feel the weight on the bike, so that may provide some motivation for getting rid of stuff! I should also note that I don't have a huge volume in my panniers, so space is a concern, too.

The weight can come from unexpected items. For example, I'm bringing some trash compactor bags to line my panniers. The panniers are not waterproof, and trash compactor bags have been recommended as more durable than regular garbage bags. I weighed 4 bags on my kitchen scale, and they come to half a pound! Those fractions add up, so I'm thinking twice about the compactor bags. I'll let you know later what I decide!

Anticipated profile for the first day's ride...uphill...that's motivation for trying to keep the load light!
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