Minus, as of Bordeaux, one French press, one folding chair, and a pair of jeans I should never have brought. What's left has earned its place — or is at least still arguing its case.
Reynolds 725 steel, built for a rider who values forgiveness over speed. It's heavy, it's slow to wake up, and on a long descent it tracks like it's on rails. I'd buy it again tomorrow. A frame you can have welded in a village is worth ten grams saved.
Bone dry through two days of Atlantic spray and every passing thunderstorm since. The roll-top closure is fiddly with cold hands and I've stopped caring. These will outlive the bike, and possibly me.
Added in Salamanca when the rear bags became a physics problem. Splitting the weight front-to-back made the bike steer like a bike again. I should have started with them.
Passport, phone, snacks, the one beautiful ceramic bowl from Marmande wrapped in a sock. The things you reach for without stopping live here.
A two-person tent for one person and a lot of luggage, which is the only honest ratio. Pitches in four minutes in the rain, packs down small, and the porch has kept a stove going through weather I'd rather not repeat.
Comfortable to about freezing, which has been exactly enough — barely — on a couple of Pyrenean nights. Down is a gamble in wet country; I keep it in a dry bag and pray.
Loud as a crisp packet, light as a rumour, and the difference between sleeping and merely lying down on the ground all night. I forgive it the noise.
The spirit burner is gloriously dependable and the gas adapter makes morning coffee a thirty-second affair instead of a ceremony. The whole nesting set is the most satisfying object I own.
The penance for mailing the French press home from Bordeaux. Lighter, unbreakable, and — I'll admit it through gritted teeth — makes a better cup.
The dromedary only comes out for the long dry stretches, but the day it's empty and you're still climbing is the day you wish you'd filled it.
Two pairs, washed nightly in whatever sink is available, dried on the back of the bike. The chamois on the older pair is held together by optimism.
Breathes well enough that I stay drier from the inside than most shells let me. The Landes coast tested it for two days straight and it passed.
What I become a normal person in once the tent is up. The gilet packs to nothing and has saved more than one cold evening at altitude.
You can clip in for the climb and walk into a café for lunch without sounding like a tap-dancing horse. The single most underrated decision of the whole setup.
Turns the front wheel into a slow trickle of power. On a long flat day it'll top up a phone; on a climb it does nothing but hum encouragingly. Quietly the best thing on the bike.
Navigation, journal, camera, and link to home, all in one increasingly fragile slab. Everything important is downloaded for offline; I trust no signal past a border.
The buffer between the dynamo's good intentions and the reality of three cloudy days in a forest. Charges from any café plug, which is most of where this journal gets written.
Runs off the hub, so it's lit whenever the wheel turns. I've ridden into more than one dusk grateful that there was no battery left to forget to charge.