Repack, repack

When you’re trying to carry your whole life on a motorbike, you need many things and can take few. If you’re camping, you to be able to unpack your kitchen and bedroom; if you’re travelling for the foreseeable future and hope to create a whole personal and professional life on the road, you’ll need your living room and your office; and if you’re not followed by a support crew or overladen by excessive financial resources, you’ll also need your whole garage.

Many an experienced motorcyclist told me before I left: lay out all your stuff, then halve it, then pack.

So I did that.

What they forgot to mention, it seems, is halve it again. 

This was the scene a few weeks into the trip, when I took a deep breath and halved it all again.

You’ll have noticed that I’m set up with some fantastic bright orange soft panniers, very kindly supplied by Giant Loop to get me on my way. They’re the RTW Panniers and they seem to be an excellent, durable luggage system so far. However, as the Giant Loop slogan says, “Go Light. Go Fast. Go Far.” The first bit being pretty important: no amount of awesome design of your luggage system can save you from just having too much crap strapped to your motorbike. You won’t be going anywhere fast or far.

So, I stopped and repacked, and I’m liking the set-up a whole lot more now.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-vj-qiEuKo&w=560&h=315]

And look: Giant Loop’s super-cute boa fender straps even saved me, in the end, from having to leave without a book. Because what’s travel without a bit of history and a bit of Bukowski?

And, a further guilty pleasure: see that little blue bag strapped to rear fender? That contains the last of my cigars. There’ll be some night soon, under a bright starred sky, when I’ll smoke the last fragrant reminder of a different life.