Well the advice came fast and furious, just in a couple days. The good news is that I have about three months till I plan on leaving, giving me plenty of time to learn the basics of maintenance, which I think is a good idea just as a general principle. If I was maintaining my bike properly all winter, I wouldn't have had an expensive repair just recently (5 months of exposure to road salt basically disintegrated the bottom of my bike).

As for all those breakdown possibilities, its looking like I could handle almost all of them with just a small handful of tools, and the bulkiest item I'll have will be extra tubes and tires.

The length of my tour will be two weeks, starting in Tucson, AZ, then going south to Tombstone, and then north all the way to the Grand Canyon. I've mapped out a route which would have me hitting a small town every other day, so I only need enough food for a single day at a time before I can restock at a store. Compared to some of the more hardcore tours out there, this probably means I can afford space for other things that are slightly less essential (or I can just carry less).

The longest leg of my tour, between towns, will be Tombstone to San Manuel at about 70 miles -- doing that in two days allows me to take a meandering pace and make stops along the way. And if I had a serious breakdown, I'd be passing right near Benson along the way. I'll definitely have my bike in top shape before the tour, and if it takes damage from UPS ground, I can have it fixed at a bike shop in Tucson (I did some reading and found people recommended express shipping for the better treatment of packages, but that may be out of my budget).