What I Learned From my 234 RoundTrip by Bike
As I rode over the 60 miles of the C&O Canal towpath, 44 miles of the GAP (‘Great Allegheny Passage’), and 8 miles on a country road to reach the town close to which I grew up in, I continually thought of what I would change on my next long distance, overnight trip. My Velotric Breeze 1 e-bike performed admirably and I learned important lessons about battery usage, power management, and derailleur gear usage from it. I had prepared myself well for what I would need to charge each night and, fortunately, brought all the necessary plugs and cables. Check! I packed all the right clothes for making this ride as well as attending three different social events to celebrate my 1963 high school classmates on their turning 80. Check! However, on future such rides, it’s likely I won’t need as many “dress” clothes at my destinations so I now want to rethink my bike packing options.
While riding along, I reflected the most on how better to pack my essential electronics and related accessories, my clothes, my snacks and - if possible - packed food for lunches, plus other important items such as rain gear, a first aid kit, and reading and sketching materials to balance the load across the back and front of the bike. Though I’m also an avid photographer, I decided for my recent trip not to take one of my “real” cameras and simply rely on my iPhone. On future trips, however, I may want to take either my Olympus or smaller Fuji micro two thirds camera. Since I usually intend to record my rides (I use the Insta360 X3 360° camera mounted on my handlebar), I also have to think about additional camera batteries, micro-SD cards and, of course, my 12.9 iPad Pro to edit my recorded videos plus a tiny hard drive on which I can save files. Some of these things are heavier than others and, unfortunately, on my recent roundtrip ride of 234 miles most of my heavier items were in front in my basket. They rightfully belonged in the lower, rear panniers for better bike balance. Hopefully, the addition of two front fork bags will provide me with additional space lower to the ground for these heavier items, freeing my basket for such light and easily accessible things as my lunch pack and rain gear.
The other concern is when one leaves one’s bike unattended for a few minutes to visit a toilet or longer to go into a store or restaurant. You want to take essential valuables with you, especially if you’re in a busy place with lots of people. Being able to do that easily and quickly is important. I do have one of those shopping bags that, when rolled up is tiny, so that’s my current strategy to address this issue. But it would be nice, as it was in the old days when I would carry that stuff in my handlebar bag and just take it with me. So far with my e-bike, I haven’t found such a workable front handlebar bag to be able to do this because of all the wires in front.
I packed my various types of clothes in different sized stuff sacks but put them together in larger stuff sacks. However, it was not easy to fit them into my two rear panniers without really stressing the zipper seams. I might try different sized packing bags instead but maybe I just need to put the various smaller bags directly into the panniers. Using packing bags just helps with better organization, in my opinion.