The Mrs and I are gearing up to do some bike camping. Probably not touring for now - we'll start small with overnight or weekend trips close to home, then see how we go when we have some more experience.

I finally bought a rack. As I've mentioned before, I didn't want the official R&M rack because it's fairly expensive and I don't need a rear rack on a daily basis. I considered various seatpost racks, and ended up modifying a Performance Bike Transit quick release rack to fit (see thread on racks for large seapost diameters).

As you can see from the pictures, I'm not planning to fit panniers on the back. They would fit, since mine are really low-tech and have a bungee that hooks on at the axle. And miracle of miracles, my size 12 feet don't hit the panniers either But from what I've read here and elsewhere it isn't generally a good idea to load the back of the Birdy heavily, so I'm trying to distribute the weight. We'll see how it works after the first overnighter! Food, stove, clothes on the front - tent, sleeping bag and mat on the back.

And finally, I also just got a R&M kickstand. It went on easily and sure makes it a lot easier to load the bike up without it wobbling around!