Originally Posted by
Rowan
Water is as variable as the amount of food that is carried. It depends on the conditions, distance travelled and the distance between services. I would imagine that for the sake of this thread discussion, we are concentrating on the fixed weight a person would expect to carry.
That's one angle on it. But I have indeed wondered about the incremental cost of weight that I might decide to take on, or not. I do want to point out that I agree with others here that there are many factors to consider related to bringing something or not. It would be a mistake to try and reduce it all to a mathematical formula. I'm not looking for math to be the total answer. I only look for it to give me another perspective.
Let's say I I'm keeping my eyes open for a big well equipped grocery store to pickup supplies for an upcoming part of the tour where I expect to find little. I could decide to go ahead and stop and load up with 15 pounds of stuff. But if I do then I have to take on the burden of hauling that extra weight.
I also have the alternative of continuing on if I think the odds are good I'll find what I need further up the road. But if further up the road is nearly flat, and I know the 15 extra pounds will only take 0.1 mph off my average speed, then the cost of stopping while I'm at an ideal spot to stock up is very low.
On the other hand if 15 pounds would take 2.0 mph off my speed, that might influence me to accept the low risk that I won't find something this good further down the road. The numbers matter. My intuition or "gut" feel can appraise the real influence of the weight inaccurately.