I've tripped the past three summer with an Allez Comp. I used a backpack to carry everything. This year I ended up getting my hands on a Secteur and put kitty litter buckets on it. I notice the addition noise that comes from the rack versus the backpack. Even though I'm riding without the backpack this year I'm sweating worse than ever before. You can use about whatever you want to use to get from point A to point no matter far apart A and B are. I did the 5200 mile trip last year with the backpack and this year looks like it might be closer to 7000 miles with kitty litter.