Aug 13 - weigh-in

I'm working at my bike packing, trying to decide which pack to use. That is important, because I'll tend to fill whatever pack comes along. So far I'm leaning towards the new one I bought at Brant Cycle Sport a couple of months ago. It's only drawback is that it doesn't have a mesh area on top of the bag for coat ... but perhaps that's a good thing ?

This is what I have so far:

1) bike, loaded with tools, spare tire, lights etc. basically ready to ride -- 23 pounds

2) water bottles, add two pounds when full

3) pack -- so far just over 5 pounds, including some additional tools and stuffed with clothing -- long sleeved jersey, light jacket and heavy jacket, reflective vest. The latter is mandatory or you cannot ride. I'm still debating which jackets I'll bring, since the vest is a barrier material, the light jacket might be redundant with arm warmers. The weight doesn't include arm and leg warmers or wallet and cell phone, but most everything else.

So at this point I'm running just over 30 pounds, say 32 pounds when complete and assuming that I'm not wearing some of these clothes, which given the weather forecast, is quite unlikely (rain and cool).

I might also bring my rain pants, but that might be overkill. I can also pack some things in my drop bag that Sandy and Shab will bring to Loudeac and change-up my pack at that point.

As for the weight ... this also assumes that everything in the pack is dry. Add many pounds if it's all wet !

------

It was a soggy day. I fiddled with my bike, deciding to strip it down for packing -- removed lights, rack etc. -- and put the Neuvation spare wheels on for my next ride. It's hard to damage a wheel around here but why tempt fate. Hopefully I'll get out riding both today and tomorrow. Right now it's cool and gray, about what we'll have in Paris although Paris could also be wet.

I also broke up the paint/oil cabinet in the garage, replacing it with a set of resin shelves that I'd brought up from Florida a couple of years ago ... that had come from Radnor. That cabinet was made of particle board and it was rapidly disintegrating from moisture. Resin shelves won't have that problem !

Some day I need to go through all of this stuff and do some tossing. There are about 2 dozen cans of spray paint there which I'd have to exhaust before puncturing and taking to the dump. Cans and containers of wood preservative of various sorts -- green, clear, penta, creosote ... none of which can be disposed of, per se but could be used for various applications. I definitely have a lifetime supply of this stuff.

Some day I'll have to do some cleaning & organizing in the garage, perhaps this fall before putting Sandy's car away for the winter. When we get back from Europe I'll make a couple of runs to the dump with metal -- springs, rotors, paint cans -- and other junk. I can be brutal once I get going.

Sandy spent the day cleaning and packing. She complained that on bad weather days when it's good to clean, it's too dark in here to see ... but I said that being too dark meant that everything looked clean ...

She's pretty well ready from a packing standpoint, I'm a mess. Bike stuff piled downstairs, electronics etc. piled in the den, bike clothes piled in the bedroom ... and I haven't even touched clothes clothes. Yikes.

I did organize a car rental for the pre and during the ride period for Sandy and Shab. We'll swap that car on the 26th for the cheaper one for the ensuing two week period. The first one is more expensive since it's automatic -- Shab doesn't drive a manual transmission. That first one is a Mercedes Class A -- the cheapest car on the list and one that they don't sell in North America. When I went to the Mercedes web site, I found that the Class B and up are sold in Canada; in the U.S. it starts at Class C.

This is a clear case of the German sense of order -- lettered car series -- or numbered, as in the case of BMW ... vs the American cars -- Meteor ? Camero ? Mustang ? Avalanche ? These names are supposed to evoke feelings of ... what ?

Yes it's a gray day. It's so gray that ... the Christmas lights on the deck railing are still on at 7:14 a.m. -- since they're on a dusk-to-dawn timer.

For dinner last night we had the last of the crappie in the freezer. We still have a couple of meals of pike, caught ice fishing at Christmas but we're getting down to the wire.

Speaking of freezer, I emptied the freezer in the kitchen fridge and dismantled the railings etc. inside to be able to pull away the back sheet metal and see if the cooling fins were building up ice. Nope. Good news. I was expecting to see ice and having to defrost the fridge before we went away, but not this time.

... and that's about it. You can tell when I'm writing semi-random thoughts, like unconnected bullet points in a presentation, a laundry list of items.

Onward.