7:50 a.m.
My project for yesterday was to convert one of my front pannier bags into a knapsack. To do that, I had to return to the bike shop and ask Eddie to drill two more holes – this time through the back of the pannier bag. That was done quickly, and then I fiddled around with my extra nuts and bolts and keyrings and other items to rig up an attachment point for the straps. I used two extra grommets that were part of my old tent’s spare parts kit. They worked perfectly.
While doing this, I had a sudden realization, and it illustrated how unintelligent I am. My brain isn’t able to think laterally, it seems. From the beginning, when I first wanted to convert my rear pannier bag to a knapsack, I was thinking in terms of putting metal keyrings onto the bag so I could click on the straps. I did this by drilling holes through large washers and then putting those washers on the bolts. I bent the edge of the washers upwards to provide room and then threaded the keyrings through the drilled holes. It was a big process. And it wasn’t even that satisfactory. So when I started working on the front pannier bag, I only thought in terms of getting large washers and drilling holes and attaching keyrings. Not once until yesterday did it occur to me that none of this was necessary. I didn’t need to use metal washers and metal keyrings. In fact, they were poor materials. They bent. They rusted. They got in the way. And to my surprise, they wore out. On one side, the keyring has nearly chewed all the way through the washer. Yesterday, it occurred to me that I could simply put a loop of strong cord around a bolt. It would be more than strong enough. It wouldn’t last forever, of course, but that didn’t matter. I could replace it easily and quickly whenever I wanted to. It never, not once, dawned on me before yesterday that I could use cord or any material other than metal washers and keyrings. I had tunnel vision. I get focused on one thing and I cease to see the full range of alternatives. My brain does that all the time. It’s a clear sign of a lack of intelligence. I become trapped in a perspective and lose sight of everything around it. I’ve noticed that it is a habit for me. I think the only way I’ve ever been able to overcome that is by sheer brute force. I can be extremely methodical at times, and through that, I sometimes stumble across a solution. But I really should have seen the solution right away. Just now, while looking around the room, I spotted the little tube containing the emergency spoke kit. I suddenly remembered that this cord essentially consists of indestructible Kevlar cord. If I assume I will never use the emergency spoke for its intended purpose, I can use that cord. In the Philippines, I had broken spokes, but it made no sense to use this cord since there were bike shops everywhere. It was easier to catch a lift to the nearest bike shop. So will I ever use this emergency spoke device? Probably not. But I suppose it is best to keep it just in case. Maybe I will do some actual cycling someday and be far away from a bike shop and really need it.
Thursday November 27, 2014
7:00 a.m.
At some point during the last two days, it occurred to me to look more closely at Arkel’s other pannier bags. I had decided to buy a set of waterproof Ortlieb bags despite their lower build quality, but I remembered that Arkel also made waterproof pannier bags. They are called the Dolphin line. The best is the Dolphin 48. It is quite large at 48 liters (hence the name), is fully waterproof, and weighs 2.4 pounds. The Ortlieb bags weigh about 2 pounds each. However (and this is a big however), the Ortlieb bags have no external pockets whatsoever. They sell a separate exterior pocket that you have to attach yourself, and this makes it as heavy as the Arkel Dolphin. It almost goes without saying, but the Dolphin is far superior to the Ortlieb bags. Here is a list of the advantages:
– – aluminum and indestructible hooks and cam lock system
– – bungee cord hook on the bottom to grip it in place
– – a large exterior waterproof compartment/pocket
– – two exterior mesh pockets with a drawstring
– – a stow pocket for wet items
– – the interior plate is on the outside to prevent wear and tear
– – large D-rings
– – larger volume of 48 liters (opposed to 40 liters)
– – a better and more efficient closure system
– – lifetime guarantee
I do have some concerns. For one, they are expensive. Much more expensive than the Ortlieb bags. They are also very tall at 19 inches. I don’t understand how they can be so tall and still fit on the bike properly. And being so tall, are they hard to get into? There is also something a bit ugly about them. I can’t put my finger on it, but they aren’t goodlooking pannier bags. And I’m not entirely sold on the cam-lock system. I remember I wasn’t thrilled with it when I saw it before. I can’t remember why. Perhaps I’d get used to it. I have a vague memory of it not working well with my Jandd racks. But I can replace those with other racks.
Anyway, I want these Dolphin 48 bags. I think.
I did a bit of a weight experiment yesterday. I was curious about the percentages and whether saving 4 or 5 pounds of weight on pannier bags was significant in terms of overall weight. It was hardly a perfect experiment, but I came up with 52 pounds as the total weight of my gear at the moment. That includes all my camera gear plus the Hubba Hubba NX tent and Pro-Lite Thermarest and everything (except food, I realized later). In an odd coincidence, my bike plus pannier racks and pannier bags also weighed exactly 52 pounds.
52 pounds – gear
15 pounds – pannier bags
37 pounds – bike and racks
7-10 pounds – water
Therefore, my 15 pounds of pannier bags represent
22% of my total gear weight of 67 pounds
14% of gear plus bike weight of 104 pounds
The first figure of 22% is surprisingly high and unacceptable. It would be like having a packed backpack weighing 50 pounds and 10 pounds of that is the pack itself. It would also be like having a packed knapsack weighing 5 pounds and 1 pound of that is the knapsack itself. The weight to bag ratio isn’t right.
If I replaced just my rear pannier bags with Ortlieb bags, then the ratios change to 16% and 10%. My bags would then represent just 10% of the total weight of bike plus gear. That seems more reasonable. It’s still high, in my opinion, but it’s better.
One thing I noticed with this experiment is that when you weigh your gear, the small items weigh a surprising amount. I went through the process of weighing and listing all of my big items and those items in bags – tent, toiletries kit, tool kit, clothing, shoes, etc. You think that is the main weight. But then you still have a lot of small items strewn around loose. I gathered up all those items in a single bag and it came to 6 pounds.
Friday November 26, 2014
6:00 a.m.
Too early to be awake, but I woke up to go to the bathroom and I started thinking about gear. What else? Then I couldn’t get back to sleep.
I’m somewhat off the Dolphin 48 bags now. For one thing, they are expensive at $260 plus $60 for shipping. That’s a total of at least $320. That’s a large expenditure for a savings of 4.2 pounds in weight. But my larger concern is that I’m not totally convinced that these are the perfect bags. I haven’t seen them in real life, so it is impossible to be sure that I would like them at all. It’s a big risk to take.
I wrote yesterday that I found the bags to be ugly. And that feeling is significant. They really are not attractive bags, and that gets to their overall design and function. They strike me as shapeless and prone to bulging. They are rounded on the corners on the bottom. The front bottom is also rounded, which means they will be inefficient for packing. And they won’t stand up straight when you put them on the ground. One thing that appeals to me about the Ortlieb bags is the way they sit flat on the ground. Open them up, and they are just a big bag sitting there and waiting to be filled up – like a grocery bag. It’s efficient and simple. I notice this when people who use Ortlieb bags have them spread out in their hotel rooms. The bags are opened up and sitting there like convenient storage areas. My Arkel bags are difficult to access by comparison. Plus, when Ortlieb users get ready to leave a hotel, they carry their bags to the front door and then sit them all down, and they make such a neat and tidy group –a bunch of squares sitting there on their flat bottoms. My Arkel bags by comparison create a huge messy jumble.
I wrote to Arkel yesterday to ask if the Dolphin 48 bags sit on the ground or floor without falling over, and the woman wrote back right away and said that they didn’t. The rounded bottom means that they just fall over. She said, not surprisingly, that my question was a first for her. But I don’t think it is an irrelevant or trivial question. That simplicity is one of the keys to the appeal of the Ortlieb bags.
It’s disturbing how my opinion can change so drastically. Just a couple of days ago, I was convinced that I should buy Ortlieb bags to replace my rear pannier bags. That would save 5 pounds in weight. So I’d have Ortlieb rear bags and my Arkel front bags. The problem there is that I would lose my Survival Kit with the packpack straps. So I modified a front pannier bag to be used as a Survival Kit. I had holes drilled in the bottom to mount shoulder straps. But I did a brief experiment yesterday and I concluded that the bag was simply too small for that purpose. I remember now that I sent back the GT-18BP long ago for that very reason. I had hoped to use it as my Survival Kit, but I found it to be too small. Then I ordered the Bug. It had a much larger volume, but the poor design made most of the volume inaccessible.
After that master plan was abandoned, I was excited about the Dolphin 48 bags. I nearly convinced myself to order a pair. But now I’m lukewarm on them. I don’t trust them – especially at that price. The big deal about them is that they are waterproof, but the waterproof quality is not important to me. At least I don’t think it is.
So now I’m back to square one. But this morning, I wondered if (at least for a first step) it actually made more sense to replace my FRONT pannier bags with Ortlieb bags. (I would get the Ortlieb Back Roller Classics and use them on the front rack.) I wouldn’t save nearly as much weight, only 2 pounds in fact. However, my sense is that these Ortlieb bags would contain much more in terms of volume. I like having the pockets on the Arkel, but there is no denying that pockets are less efficient. One loses a certain percentage of space in every compartment. They’re impossible to fill completely. If you have one single compartment of 20 liters and lose 10 percent of it, you still have 18 liters of volume filled up. But if you divide that 20 liters into several compartments, you lose much more space. For one thing, the smaller compartments by their very nature will be less efficient, and you will lose perhaps fifteen or twenty percent of each. Plus, you have the material dividing the compartments, which reduces the available space still further. And when you have small pockets – such as the small top pocket on the Arkel bags – you lose even more. And if the bag has a tapered shape, you lose more. Finally, having all the compartments makes sense only if you put stuff directly into those compartments, but I don’t. I put stuff into bags of various shapes and sizes, and then I put those bags into the pannier bags. It’s all bags within bags within bags. So if you put your gear into bags to begin with, it isn’t very efficient to the put those bags into other bags. Might as well have just one big compartment.
Anyway, if I’ve learned anything from Mythbusters, it is that assumptions and common sense are worthless. To know anything for sure, you have to do a test. I can’t do a perfect test since I don’t have an Ortlieb bag here, but I know from my previous test how my Arkel rear bags compare with Ortliebs. In fact, now that I think about it, I sort of did the test aleady. When I got back from the bike store, I took all the items that had been in the Ortlieb and tried to put them into the Arkel front bag, and they wouldn’t fit. I got the sense that there was almost enough volume, but being divided up, it wouldn’t work.
My other idea is to get rid of my oversized Pathfinder bag and replace it with another Deuter Tour 3. That is an experiment for today as well.
Oh, I went to Low Yat yesterday and looked at computers. What a nightmare. I couldn’t find a computer that seemed right. It was an exhausting shopping expedition.
Thursday December 4, 2014
The box arrived. It was a bit of an anticlimax since all of the items inside were replacing items I already had or have. So it wasn’t that exciting. I also found that the Hubba Hubba NX was a bit heavier than advertised. I weighed it at 4 pounds, not 3.5 pounds. The hubbed pole system is also crazily difficult to pack up. It’s very awkward – like trying to contain a stick figure terminator that keeps popping back into shape. It also makes an awkward bundle of poles. This is because there is technically just one pole made up of six poles connected with hubs and things. It’s really hard to pack it down and keep it organized. I also found that the tent floor is rather sticky to the touch. Not pleasant. It’s also much shorter and narrower than the Peapod. I knew most of this in advance, of course. The idea is to accept this compromise in exchange for the tent’s small packed size and lower weight. Anyway, it is all moot since I almost never have used a tent in the past. Will that change in the future? I don’t know. And for that reason, the lighter weight is a great trade-off. Why carry a huge Cadillac of a tent like the Peapod when I never use it? Better to have a small compact tent – easier to carry around.
It’s awesome to have a Kindle again. It’s very different from my other Kindle. It’s thick and squat and has a touch screen. My old one was thin and long and had physical buttons and a physical keyboard. My old one could also play audio and had 4G connection and other features. This new Kindle is the basic model with no extra features at all.
The real winner in this is the new Thermarest. I love its small size and low weight. That, at least, is a clear winner and MUCH better than my old one. I think it is thick enough for the times that I will use it. The box also contained the Mirrcycle. I wish I’d ordered two of them now. The Platypus water bag for use with alcohol fuel. A Primus stove spare parts kit. My credit card. Cutlery.