Retrobike Touring.

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Great tour and account. Just what we need.

When I toured I used an MSR white gas stove, had a compact cooking kit, a sleeping bag and a 5 lb North Face 2 person tent and an ultralight therma rest as my main camping kit. Quick dry towel, tools, clothes, toilet kit, rain gear, change of shoes and some freeze dried food. Carried everything in two rear panniers and three bottle cages. Extras went on top of rack wrapped in plastic.

you could go lighter with a bivy bag or one of those super ultralightweight bicycle tents. They aren't free standing so I opted for a real tent because the ground tends to be rocky here.

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Brief rundown of my camping gear;

- Berghaus Peak 3.1 tent - 2kg - £65 - A little short for me, I'm 6'2" or thereabouts. Nicely made though and easy to pitch/pack
- Lidl inflatable camping mat - 0.5kg - £17 - quite nifty. I need to sort a pillow out though. Again a bit short for me.
- Normal roll up camping mat
- Stove - Alpkit BruKit - borrowed from a friend. Unsure of weight but a brilliant piece of kit!
- Millet's own brand 1/2 season sleeping bag (£3 from a car boot!) - 1.5kg
- Panniers - "Hi-Gear" - £3 secondhand off ebay! Useless clip system - got to make sure the bungee cords are super tight or else they will move!!
- Clothes, wash bag, food, water, book, camera etc.

All in all I think I carried around 8 - 10 kg but bear in mind I didn't need many clothes or much food for a one night stay in summer!

How do you guys secure your bikes overnight ? @ Joe, didnt you write you had a walk to the pub in the evening ... what did you do with the bike ?

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The campsite owner had stables so let me put it in one of those overnight.

To save weight I didn't take my U-lock, instead I took 2 very cheap & thin cable locks, just as a deterrent really. There wasn't anything to lock the bike up to in the stable so I just locked the front & back wheels to the bike and hoped for the best (they didn't lock the stables over night).

I had originally assumed that I would have to rig the bike to my tent overnight - I'm a light sleeper so any movement would wake me up.

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When I went, my friend and I both had cable locks. We camped in the corner of the site and locked the bikes to a fence just a few feet from the tents.

I'm thinking of getting a folding lock, some are a bit lighter than my long cable lock, they can't be cut in two seconds with wire cutters and, importantly, they fold into a much more compact and easier to stash shape:



No where near as secure as a beefy U lock, but fortunately, the countryside isn't as full of thieving scum-bags with bolt croppers and angle grinders as inner city London.

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I like the idea of the Litelok, however they're £100!!

https://www.litelok.com/

xerxes":18unqdfr said:

No where near as secure as a beefy U lock, but fortunately, the countryside isn't as full of thieving scum-bags with bolt croppers and angle grinders as inner city London.

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Yeh once I got into the quiet area's, any paranoia of thieves pretty much dispersed. My bike is pretty old and not in any way fashionable, it's dirty & very heavy with the panniers etc, so I try not to get too worried about it.

Obviously location is everything though I guess.

I'm with you Joe - a light cable lock deters the casual thief, the rest of the time I'm close to the bike. Would I park it like that in a city centre? No.
But I don't tour in city centres.

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I like the idea of the Litelok, however they're £100!!

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At ~1.4kg, they're not that lite(sic) either.

This is the one I was looking at, half the price and a third the weight and a nice small shape that should be easy to tuck away somewhere: https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/abus-bordo- ... er-2662628

I have a mid weight combination cable lock sold secure for touring.