READY FOR FRANCE

REVOLUTION TOURER LUBED AND POLISHED

As well as riding each day this week and partaking in the luxury of coffee and tea shops I have also been preparing for the trip to France. I will be using my Revolution touring bike for the trip so a full lube and a clean and polish was required. I say clean and polish - but the truth is I never let any of my bikes get to a point where they actually need a clean - I wipe the bikes down each time they have been used so I cleaned the Revolution just to out do the others on the 'who's got the shiniest  bike competition'..!! Talking of the 'others' - the others on this trip are Peter Calcut and Mike & Chris McEnnerney, all three are fellow members of the Backpackers Club. Unfortunately JD is unable to be with us on this trip as he has had to save all of his available holiday days for the UK2ROCK2UK trip that we are doing at the end of August and throughout September.

SPARE ROOM USED AS PACKING CENTRE

During this week the spare room has been used as my 'trip packing centre' with all the items laid out and ticked off on my list. The tent that I have decided to use on this trip is my Hilleberg Nallo 3GT. I have split the tent between the two rear panniers rather that load it on top of the rack as I did last year. Poles,Pegs & Footprint in one pannier and the tent & flysheet in the other. The reason I have done this is because as I now have the front panniers I am able to spread more of the load evenly across the bike. Also, if I didn't  load it this way I would have almost empty panniers due to the extra space that I now have.  The Nallo is in fact a three man tent with a huge porch area, as this is a touring trip rather than an endurance trip the extra useable space in the tent is an indulgent luxury - I do know that Mike and Chris will also be using their Nallo and Peter will be using his Hilleberg Akto one man tent.

EVERYTHING PACKED INTO THE PANNIERS

Anyway, everything has now been packed into the panniers and for those of you are interested in weights and things the following might be of some interest.
The front panniers have a packed gross weight of 6lb each.......
The rear panniers have a packed gross weight of 12lb each.......
The Revolution Touring Bike in it's current setup weighs 29lbs......
I must admit that I forgot to weigh the panniers before loading them up but obviously this gross figure is the important one.
Some of this weight is made up of a few items of food as an emergency back up...two dehydrated meal packs...coffee sachets and three servings of an instant porridge. I am also carrying a small pot of energy drink mix and a dozen energy bars.
When I do the UK2ROCK2UK later this year I don't see myself carrying any more weight than I am on this trip, even though that trip will last for about 5 weeks and this one is only for 11 days. The reason for that is because I will be taking my Hilleberg Akto Tent on that trip and it weighs half the weight of the Nallo at about 3lb.

HELMET FOR THE TRIP - CATLIKE KOMPACT PRO

Following the comment that Steve A left on my last post I thought that I would include something for all you Cycling Fashionistas out there....The helmet that I will be using on this trip is another Spanish Catlike Helmet..this time it is their Kompact Pro model in Blue, White & Carbon - just to match my cycling jersey's for this trip you understand...!

I will be sending some short posts( with a small photograph ) every day or two from France so that you know where we are just in case you want to follow our progress....but don't expect big miles each day on this trip. This is a touring trip not an endurance ride so I don't expect to be doing much more than about 50 miles in a day.
Cycling....Camping.....and finding new places and things to photograph is what we are going for and yes we will be stopping at more than one or two of the French version of the Tea/Coffee shop....the Cafe'.

If you wish to leave any comments whilst we are in France please feel free to do so but they may not be posted until my return. Also my mileage counter will not be updated until I get back.
When I return I will be doing some in depth posts about the trip with photographs as well as various equipment reports etc....

So...! All ready to go.  Tomorrow (Monday) just a few personal things to sort before I finally set off early on Tuesday morning... The ferry leaves Poole at 0830hrs and we should arrive in France at Cherbourg at midday.