{"id":353,"date":"2010-06-16T23:46:26","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T07:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roderick.hostcell.net\/bike2010\/the-backpackers-mentality"},"modified":"2010-06-16T23:46:26","modified_gmt":"2010-06-17T07:46:26","slug":"the-backpackers-mentality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/the-backpackers-mentality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Backpacker&#8217;s Mentality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/files\/2010\/06\/nocomb.jpg\" alt=\"nocomb.JPG\" width=\"600\" height=\"507\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There seem to be some common threads in the mindsets of those who must carry everything on their back:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That flexibility, ingenuity, and humor more important than technology;<\/li>\n<li>That comfort is often more of an inconvenience than a necessity;<\/li>\n<li>That gratitude for little things is the best entertainment (think Survivorman eating a toasted W<span><span>itchetty<\/span><\/span> grub);<\/li>\n<li>To tread lightly &#8211; not only is it less work, it preserves treasures for later;<\/li>\n<li>And finally, to travel light &#8211; size and weight dominate thinking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Seriously, I&#8217;m debating not bringing a comb to save weight and space. But I woke up in the tent on our shakeout ride and my hair was all wild. This was bad, but not real bad. My hair is short, and I can brush it into shape with my hand (sort of). It&#8217;s going under my helmet, anyway. And my appearance is not crucial operationally. There are some women I know whose hair is an <em>asset<\/em> &#8211; to the extent they probably get freebies and better treatment because of it. That doesn&#8217;t apply to me. Merrianne wants me to take a comb. What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s less than 3 days until we fly to Fargo. Most of our stuff is staged, but not packed. Before disassembling the bikes, I weighed everything. I weigh 149 pounds. With the fully loaded bike in my hands, the bathroom scale reads 204. I took off all the packs, sleeping bag, tent, and water bottles, and weighed again. 173.5 . That means my bike is 24.5 pounds, including everything that is bolted to it. The rest of the gear &#8211; handlebar bag, rear panniers, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, tent, cooking gear, 3 pints of water in the bottles, and all the rest of my stuff &#8211; is 30.5 pounds. I was 15 pounds lighter on the previous tour 20 years ago. That&#8217;s like a pound a year!<\/p>\n<p>Elliot has less weight, both on himself, and his bike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There seem to be some common threads in the mindsets of those who must carry everything on their back: That flexibility, ingenuity, and humor more important than technology; That comfort is often more of an inconvenience than a necessity; That gratitude for little things is the best entertainment (think Survivorman eating a toasted Witchetty grub); [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,7,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}