Day 0 - departure from Sydney

After a stressful night before extracting a seized carbon seat post from the steel frame, I packed the bike into the cardboard box and it came in at 17kg total....under the 23kg limit. No problem getting the bike box as check in luggage, although it exceeded the "158cm" limit (from web site) my hand luggage is compact as it all goes on the rear rack.

Pat drove me out and Karen arrived after work to farewell me.

Its 11 hrs to Beijing and then 7.5 hrs stop over and on to Frankfurt. I hope to get a quick trip into Beijing to see how it's changed since our visit in 1985 for our honeymoon (any cycling trip!)

Time to board and see if there is inflight entertainment or I start watching the 3 movies on my iPhone. I board a battery booster to recharge the phone.