It’s my last weekend before heading off, and my last major piece of gear arrived this week (a tent off FB marketplace)! So I packed it all onto my bike and set off for a “shakedown ride” (what cycling types call a practice ride with all the gear arranged).

First, there was a lot of rejigging as my original packing plan faltered in the face of reality. I realise that very little fits on the seat tube or down tube without threatening to get in the way of the pedals. Also, nothing really fit on the top tube except the skinny tent poles without blocking the drink bottle (I know, that’s what side release drink bottle cages are for). The sleeping mat on the front forks kept rotating around towards the rear, like my Nalgene did, and nothing else worked on the other front work without a cargo cage.

My tent fly and down quilt (sleeping bag equivalent) ended up going on top of my rear rack. That was very stable, but it meant that while I could still take my pannier bags off easily, I couldn’t get them back on without a lot of jiggling.

Handling-wise, it felt all right. Hard to tell whether it was wobbly because it’s so much heavier than what I’m used to on my daily commutes, or if it is indeed packed badly (too rear heavy, weight is too high, poor use of frame triangle). I’ve got some ideas for what I’ll try next.

Things I’ll actually do:

• Buy two cargo cages from Decathlon Malaysia (during my 1 week stopover) for around $20 NZD, and put my Nalgene and compressed down quilt on the front forks.

• With the down quilt gone from the rear rack, have just the tent centered on the rear rack and not touching the outer rails, so I can get the pannier bags off/on without removing the tent.

• Try strapping my sleeping mat to the top tube with my tent poles, leaving the handlebar spot free for strapping my uniqlo handbag for easy access snacks (my top tube bag is pretty small and has a zip that’s too fiddly to open while riding).

Things I could do but probably won’t bother:

• Buy side-release bottle cages

• Buy those squeezy water bottles that actually fit into those side-release cages

• Buy/make a frame bag (I actually bought an old opshop tent to do this, but I’ve run out of time)

• Buy a proper handlebar bag for snacks & water access

Having said that, Decathlon Singapore/Malaysia has all of these things at very good prices, so we’ll see how my anti-consumerism holds up in the face of nice bike gear on my stopovers.