Atadloco

So.... My first mini tour turned into a mini mini tour. I left early Wednesday morning on my fully loaded LHT complete with 40lbs of gear (I need new and lighter gear). This was my first ride on the bike while it was fully loaded, I have about 200 miles from just riding it after work. Yesterday I ended up riding 85 miles and the bike performed awesome.

I built the bike over the course of a few months, gathering information and asking many questions about various parts and configurations. I went with a SRAM triple mountain bike gears for the front which helped on the vast amount of hills I rode in central New Hampshire and Vermont. The Brooks B67 saddle is getting closer to be broken in, but still has a ways to go.

I made it to Ascutney, VT and stayed at the State park for the night. Wednesday was a beautiful fall day with a few white puffy clouds and lots of sun with temps in the low seventies. Referring back to my earlier comment that I will at some point need new gear leads me to 3:00AM Thursday morning when the what seemed to be torrential wrath of god type rain coming down onto my 15 year old tent with a less than waterproof rain cover.

I stayed in my damp sleeping bag until 7:00 or so until the point I decided to pack up and get back on the road. I decided it was best to ride back to NH instead of onto Burlington where I would be in a damp sleeping bag and damper tent for the next night.

So today's ride was wet and warm. Rained pretty much the entire day for the trek southward. Part of my purchase was LonePeak panniers that come with road sign crossing green for a rain cover which worked well in these conditions for both being seen by traffic and also kept my dry stuff dry and my damp stuff,,, well still damp. But not soaked. I also bought Ortlieb panniers for the front and those worked just as well without a rain cover.

So my first mini mini tour was a 165 mile round trip whichnwas a lot of fun even in the rain. I'm glad I went and very much looking forward to my week long trip next year..