May 15th

Milepost 0

I’ve had a pile of travel gear growing for weeks on the floor of my bedroom. The pile, spread out, covered around 40 square feet:

After applying a half dozen compression sacks and some organization, it starts to look like a plan:

(for instance, that is all the clothes I am taking underneath the tennis shoes. And the two similar looking lumps on the bottom right is the sleeping bag and pad that would otherwise consume the entirety of my larger panniers, smooshed small)

And once packed up, I have the only things I can easily carry on my bike - 4 panniers, a tent, a helmet, and my foot:

I prepared for this trip far more thoroughly than my usual, and we’ll have to see what I forgot and what I don’t use but carry for the next several hundred miles to see how good a job I actually did of that preparation.

One thing I’m sure about is that I am excitred to be obligation-free for the rest of the month - all I have to do is nothing, all I get to do is ride my bike and watch the world roll by.

Milepost 4

Attached loaded bags to the bike for the first time and made it downtown early enough to get a bite to eat before the train rolled out. While this picture is from home, it’s what my gear “collapses” to in case I need to carry it off the bike:

The huge duffel bag will go unused at least until the other end of the journey and maybe entirely, and while it does crumple down to a smaller size than you’d think, it’s still the most wasteful thing I have onboard. Since my bags are quite full (not the best way to start - I’ll eat some food and replace it, but nothing else I’m carrying will get substantially smaller) I may mail it off home along with my passport once I get through my <36 hours in Canada (it may end up being less than 16 hours, depending on when the train arrives and how fast I ride tomorrow, but the US border is only ~35 miles south of Vancouver).

Written by Chris McCraw who resides in Portland, OR but maybe his heart is on the bike?