Well the sun was shining so I took a punt at fitting everything to the bike, mostly to check I hadn’t completely screwed something up and that it would fit as expected. And hey ho, it did! I managed to get both panniers on plus the dry bag on top.
Ridley loaded up
The left pannier was loaded with the tent split in to two separate dry bags, one for inner and one for fly and pegs. There was also some other stuff in there like spongey pillow thing that will probably be left out in the long run. The rear right pannier was loaded with test “junk” just to pack out the bag to match the weight of the left one. The dry bag on top was stuffed with the compressed Vango sleeping bag, plus the Vango Ultralite sleeping mat, strapped down with a cheapo Halfords luggage strap.
As you can see from the picture this means everything is loaded over the back wheel which is making the back very rear heavy. I didn’t have time to take it for a spin, so not sure how badly the handling has been affected. It has inspired me to think about figuring out how to shift weight forward, which isn’t going to be easy. The bike is fitted with Tiagra gears so the cables pop out of the sides of the shifters, meaning fitting a handle bar bag is a bit tricky.
Ridley loaded up, rear view
Bikepacking on a budget 