Equipment and preparation

The whole trip was not decided upon or booked until six weeks previous; in fact it was conceived on a Sunday afternoon and booked the following morning! This meant a lot of preparation in a very short time and cycling was stepped up to 160 miles a week for the following five weeks.
The touring bike I had for a year or so was made up of an aluminium aeron frame with a 105 chainset compact double on front and 27 on rear; I just about got away with this in the mountains. Wheels were Mavic kysrium elites, not exactly made for touring or off road but performed perfectly and remained true.
After a tyre fitting session with a freind in a garage one night trying out many types of tyres I decided on Schwalbe blizzards for their ease of popping on and off the rim, no levers needed.
For luggage I bought the complete set of carradice super c: front and back panniers and bar bag, some of it I managed to get second hand, though the new rear panniers have the superior klik fix system for easy detachment, very handy. The front panniers really help to balance the bike and the bar bag can be easily detached and used as a shoulder bag.

For camping I decided on the wild country duolite tourer specially made for cycle camping. Though it weighs 2.8 kilos it has a large porch where the bike can easily fit and better if the front wheel is removed. I did find this tent quite small and really during the trip was only used for sleeping in though it was easily erected and fitted inside a pannier. For a mattress I had a thermarest and a lightweiht sleeping bag. Everything went inside the panniers including tent. Total weight of the luggage was 15 kilos and the bike inside its cardboad box which inlcuded tools weighed 16 kilos at the airport, so without the box the whole rig was just under 30kilos on the road.