Shaking Out The Gear

The past week has been a relaxing blur of family meals, original Star Trek re-runs, sleeping in, running errands, tuning up and fixing my dad's new-to-him vintage Schwinn, drafting power of attorney documents for my uncle, drafting my final will and testament, becoming an official resident of the Evergreen State, and tying up loose ends.

Quick father-daughter bike ride to test out my work on his vintage Schwinn.

And last but not least, I spent a day shaking out all my bike touring gear in the obnoxiously pink room my mother decorated for my niece.

The gear.  All of it.  So much pink.

Gonzalo and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful sunny 70 degree weather to my first fully loaded test ride.  While I've done shorter bike tours with rear panniers, I've never done fully loaded touring with the addition of the front panniers.  From everything I had read in other trip blogs, I knew there would be a learning curve with respect to how the bike handles with the front panniers.  Most people practice first on flat pavement.  Not thinking particularly clearly, we headed out to Badger Mountain, a local mountain biking and hiking spot.

All geared up at the trailhead (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Well, true to Badger Mountain's name, it was truly a little mountain with a gravel trail that went straight up.  I quickly figured out that I had forgotten to attach the bottom of my handlebar harness, I had put too much weight up front in an overly zealous effort to keep the bike balanced, and the inclusion of all my wishful thinking items had thwarted my efforts to keep my bike tour not-so-fully-loaded.  After rearranging my panniers to move some weight back and to take a few things out that weren't essential or could be easily procured on the road, we started out again.

Nope, not riding up this (photo credit: Gonzalo).

We realized quickly after I nearly crashed out several times that maybe a steep loose gravel trail was not the best place for me to get used to the handling of a fully loaded touring bike.  So we headed to the road and biked alongside the beautiful vineyards of the wineries nearby.  

Much better... too bad we didn't get to taste any wine at this winery (photo credit: Gonzalo)!

I'll definitely need some more practice rides to get used to the handling with the front panniers, but that will come soon enough.  We're off to Seattle tomorrow to visit my brothers!