The rear pannier a Tubus Logo is new, above it can be seen under too much gear, well a very small potion of it can be seen.

The Ortlieb Classics are new, I had Back roller plus before and although it might be early to judge them, I prefer ed the back roller plus, they are lighter and I have a serious cut/ tear in the new ones already and have no idea how it happened.

Im happy enough with the weight in the two panniers, but the camping gear which is in the dry bag on top is too much, its only 6Kg but its 6kg too much.

As the new rack sits further back giving me great heel clearance, the bike handles like a Mercedes C Class estate circa. 1995 – which is to say like a poorly designed boat when the dry bag is fitted. I will try with it mounted transversely to see how much this improves the behaviour.

Ive resisted for years, but have finally ordered a front rack. Ive chosen an Old Man Mountain – Sherpa, which will get the 6kg of camping gear, but Im not looking forward to how this will affect the handling.

Ok this all seems little dry, Im off to bed, lets see if tomorrow really is the day of departure.

Vladimir and I, following in good engineering tradition rebuilt the bike in my kitchen using XT 760 throughout.

The bottom bracket (BB) was the only real challenge, while planning the trip I needed to decide whether to use my old bike/ frame as it has approx. 25,000km on it so I had it checked over by the local “reputable” bike shop in Lund.

They over-tightened the fixing it making it impossible to remove by hand. Im so glad I decided on a complete rebuild before I left as it would have been a major problem on the road.

CykelCity were less than friendly when I arrived at the shop and not particularly eager to solve the problem. They did after 20min effort manage to remove the BB, but made no further check and just handed it back to me.

I had not been impressed with them on my first visit as they returned the bike to me with the chain jammed between the front derailleur and chain set, so I had taken the new part with me to check all was well before leaving the shop. It was immediately obvious that the thread was damaged and I had to insist they re-thread it, which they did with absolutely no grace or enthusiasm. I wanted to be nice, but just cant help myself – Wankers.

Ive changed to XT brakes, for this first section, really to give them a try as Ive always used Avid 7 before, the XT brakes are trickier to adjust but Im interested to see how they work.

The bike feels very positive, the new pedals and BB are excellent, thanks Vladimir for all the help.