Just 5 days till I fly to Frankfurt, to meet Robin and Geoff who are spending 6 weeks to riding from Amsterdam to Prague.

My time is limited to 8 days of cycling, due to my role in an IT implementation at a large customer in Sydney.

My plan is to ride the Romantic Road along the Main River (a Rhein tributary), from Wurzburg to Bamberg.

The 20 yr old Lemond is the chosen bike for this ride. A new 13-25 rear cassette and 52/39 chainring was fitted. The 52 gearing is much better, combined with 13-25 cassette instead of previous 12-25.

The rear tire was changed from 700x23 conti gp4000 to 700x25 conti 4 seasons, for extra durability.

The Arkel Trailrider bag and Randonneur seat post rack arrived ok from Canada and fitted easily. It's expensive shipped to Oz ($245). It looks well designed and I plan to limit my luggage to 4-5kg.

Also, I  bought a front handlebar rack and trialed a ride with it. Not sure if I like the extra weight of 600gm + mount+ content, as it impacts the bike balance more then the tail post rack and bag.

Robin and Geoff are regularly posting from the ride through Germany. It is wetter and colder then expected and I have investigated taking a train to meet them in Wurzburg, on the Romantic Road.

Karen's kitchen scales have been used to weigh everything and record into a spreadsheet for selecting the lightest mix of gear and clothing to take

A bike box for my travels (3.5kg) was obtained from the local bike shop. The luggage limit of 23kg should be ok. The total dimension limit is 158cm, so I may need to do some talking to avoid excess baggage.

Test ride with the handle bar bag, which I decided to leave behind. The Arkel tailbag fitted

Test ride with the handle bar bag, which I decided to leave behind. The Arkel tailbag fitted