Oregon Bike Tour: Preparations

I consider myself a seasoned camper. Also, I ride my bicycle daily. So how is it that I would find myself rather ill-equipped for a "bike" tour that involves "camping?!?" It's mind boggling. In the week leading up to our trip, I found myself at either REI, Sports Basement or any handful of local bicycle shops about twice a day! What the hell did I get?

• Lightweight camping pots - Ok, I admit that I actually meant that I'm a seasoned car camper. I did not have a need for camping pots when I'm afforded the luxury of driving my Escalade right up to where I'm going pitch my tent, along with a cooler full of beer, fresh sushi and a fold-down 42" plasma screen playing the "business card" scene from American Pyscho on repeat.
• Lightweight camping bowls - ditto.
• Sunscreen - I didn't realize they actually sold sunscreen in SF during the summer.
• Water bottles - You probably have seen my daily rider from my previous post. Besides the fact that there are no water bottle mounts, I've never gotten very thirsty on my daily home -> Zeitgeist -> work -> Zeitgeist commute.
  
• Extra tire and tubes
• Bike computer
  

Here's an exploded view of all the gear I intended to carry:


Note the Foreigner T-Shirt.

Ok, now that I had fulfilled my consumeristic needs, it was time to celebrate our departure over on Seth's back deck.

My bike loaded (photo by jkoshi):



Seth's bike; about to get loaded (photo by jkoshi):



We used Seth's scale and weighed-in our selves, our bikes and our gear:



Seth's bike weighed 27.6 lbs, and he was hauling 43.2 lbs of stuff.

My bike weighed 30.8 lbs, and I was carrying 38.8 lbs of crap.

We're ready.