Categories
bikes european bike epic general

planning for europe

As I’ve been whiling my time away looking at accounts of bike tours, it suddenly occurred to me that my two rear panniers (Deuter Rack Pack I think they are) probably wouldn’t carry enough stuff for cycling round Europe for four months. Even if I lashed things on top of them. There would be water and food and camping gear, and maybe, just maybe, tying everything to the back of my bike would be do-able, but would not necessarily be very rideable. Lots of people seemed to have front panniers. Also, I would really need somewhere to put my camera bag. I could get a basket and tie it to the front of my bike, and put the camera bag in that. This solution wouldn’t be very waterproof though. Or dustproof. Or shakeproof. So I got all consumeriffic and started looking for things online. Then somehow managed to order everything, just like that…

So I’m soon to be the proud new owner of a small Ortlieb rackpack/duffel bag:

 

 

Ortlieb Classic Front Roller panniers:

 

 

A Tubus Tara Lowrider Front Rack Black to carry them:

 

 

And an Ortlieb Ultimate 5 Classic Bar Bag – to be padded with foam to provide a nice solid camera carrying case:

 

 

The plan is not to fill these all up, just because I’ll have the space now, but instead to have spare room available for extra things like food and water – so we don’t always have to be reliant on food shops being open, or water being where you need it. So now I have all the bits I need for cycling wherever I want. Hurrah! The most horrifying part of all of this is that my order came to about AUD$340 (with postage free) – but pricing these things at Australian shops comes to around AUD$700.