Overweight and well prepared or...

[Jon Y]

underweight and under prepared?

When you're heading off on a long journey do you pack for every occasion and cope with a heavy bike or would you rather pack light and make do with what you can find en route?

[f2uk]

What about the third option??

Correct weight and prepared? or am I living in an alternate reality again?

[MidnightSerenity]

But can you ever be prepared for every eventuality Mr Perfect?!

Think I would probably be MEGA, MEGA overweight AND then have to add bits as I travelled! I mean, can you imagine if I forgot my hair straigheners?!...unthinkable, but if I did...I would have to add as soon as possible! :silly:

[f2uk]

Not perfect just practical.

When all is said and done you can do a trip with two things, apart from the bike and associated gear, a toothbrush and a credit card with a decent amount of credit on it!

Seriously though, I have been pondering this one since I got back from a 4 day jaunt to Scotland. I didn't take a lot to start with and still brought back stuff I hadn't used!

Just what do you need to take?
What can you get away with?

Years ago I used to do bike rallies in the UK, you know the ones where you turn up on Friday night, pitch your tent, get drunk and then go home on Sunday ..... always wondering what happened to Saturday :silly:
It started out with tent, tank bag, panniers and everytime you would go home without using half of what you took. I stopped doing them when I simply turned up on the bike hmy: :X

So there are the two extremes, firstly too much, secondly no where near enough!
What is the happy medium?:huh:

[Treadtrader]

Very much depends where your travelling to.
If it's Europe there's no shortage of shops and garages.
Now Africa would be another thing.

[snaphappy]

I'm comprising my packing list now for a fortnight tour of Sweden / Norway, all my clothes fit in a freezer bag from Woolworths, which almost fills one pannier, with space for walking shoes washbag and cooker.
Tent, sleeping bag, airbed, airpillow/pump, jacket and food for ten days in the other, at the mo' the topbox is empty bar the chainlock, in my tankbag I have maps first aid kit and wipes for visor and personal bits along with camera, snacks and a Camelbak
Strewn all over the bike in various cubby holes I have a; compressor, tyre repair kit, tyre changing tools, issued tools plus socket set and a screwdriver set. Spare bulbs and clutch lever including cable repair kit.
I'd prefer to go lighter but I'm a tight sod so taking food for the journey and camping rough will be cheaper than using Norwegian Kroner to buy food and hotels. When the clothes need washing I can wash them and hopefully I'll have a break in the Scandinavian weather so they can dry, failing that I stay smelly and use more Mycil foot powder to stop rot.
Not the best of company if you bump into me mid tour but if you stick around you get used to the pong

[Lolo]

Ive decided not to do a list for our 3 week mini adventure

Im going to get up in the morning we set off throw everything I can think of on the bed and any thing that does not fit in my top bag isn't going !!!!


As long as I can fit knickers, chocolate and bug repellant Ill be happy :laugh:

[davsato]

im lucky, my varadero already weighs so much, what i pack onto it makes no difference to the fat old girl, she just shrugs her shoulders and gets on with it. saying that, i dont like to take too much gear mostly out of a bit of pride, and some practicality.
pride in putting together a good set of kit that you can trust, without needing the kitchen sink, and practicality, in that what you take you have to account for and pack again every time, the less you got, the easier. and if you have spare room you can maybe take a few luxuries, which for me is a bigger than needed tent and a folding chair (camping), or keeping the topbox empty to use as a 'boot' for jacket+lid when i stop somewhere. after a light fingered episode in rennes once i like to keep my kit locked away out of sight.

[Alun]

When it comes to packing for an overseas trip humans are programmed to think along the lines of 'too much is not enough'. It's embedded in our DNA, you can't fight it, and it applies just as much to the hiking and climbing reader of Adventure Travel as it does to ABR'ers.

In practice it works like this: give someone a 100L rucksack to hike the Pennine Way and they'll fill it with 'essentials'. Give that same person a 45L rucksack to hike the Pennine Way and they'll just pack the essentials.

The same principle applies to motorcycles; the bigger the panniers/top box/tank bag the more 'essentials' we fill them with. If all you've got is a bin liner, that's all you need.

There are very few places in the world where you need half, or even a quarter of the stuff you think you need to survive and be happy. You can buy a Coke and a pizza within a half days hike from Everest Base Camp, there are Bedouin and Berbers living in the middle of nowhere in the Moroccan, Algerian and Middle Eastern deserts who will sell you a Sprite – at a surprisingly decent rate too.

I know people who've set out packed to the gunnels to travel down through 'darkest' Africa and have returned home having never unpacked their tent – there's always a guest house, it may be made out of mud and corrugated sheets, but it'll be there.

Unless you're heading above the Arctic Circle in winter or taking on serious high altitude conditions all you really need to pack is, er, a spare pair of socks and some chocolate (just in case you come across Lolo). The rest you can just buy along the way as you need it – and what's the betting you'll not need it.

Right then, I'm off to pack my 100L rucksack for the Pennine Way.

[Lolo]

Lolo wrote:

Ive decided not to do a list for our 3 week mini adventure

Im going to get up in the morning we set off throw everything I can think of on the bed and any thing that does not fit in my top bag isn't going !!!!


As long as I can fit knickers, chocolate and bug repellant Ill be happy :laugh:

Revised this decided a list will be needed dont want to make the GS too heavy its already 4x my weight. I thought that was quite alot but my partners adventurer is 3 and bit times his weight.

Plus if the chocolate is as bad as you say I definately need supplys.