Weighing In

It's about time to turn the bike into the shop for cleaning and packing. Before doing so, I put up the tent -struggling in a 25 mph wind- and repacked the bike now that my tenting and sleeping equpment has been 'decompressed'. Using the family scale, I estimate the total weight of bicycle and gear at seventy pounds. It will be a bit more when I carry food. The Trek 520 lists at 26 pounds, implying 44 pounds of gear - bicycle clothes, street clothes, camping and cooking gear, repair equipment and medicines, camera, maps, telescope, and a few odds and ends. I took the bike out for a short ride with everything attached. It did not seem all that hard to control, so I'll save further practice for Oregon.