Packing/ carrying
- camping gear
- cooking gear
- a couple of changes of clothes
- toiletries
- tools
- a couple of spare tubes
- some electronics
- Bike cover and lock
- some other miscellaneous items.
This time around I decided to pack a little differently, before loading the bags I weighed every single thing, then looked to see if I had anything similar but lighter or if I needed to take ‘said item’ at all. The end result was a total pack weight including the weight of the Mosko R80 loaded with gear at 35.8lbs and around 50 liters, this would easily cover me not only for coast to coast and back, or TBH it easily enough if I were to carry on RTW, impressively light, maybe…but not to George, he packed lighter.
…mine looked like this, my jacket is under the rear bag so it makes it look bigger than it really is
What Mr. Wyman packed –
• A set of warm clothing
• Money
• water bottle
• cans for spare oil and gasoline
• a Kodak Vest Pocket camera
• a cyclometer, for roughly judging distance traveled.
• various bicycle tools and spare parts
• a long-barreled .38 Smith & Wesson revolver constituted his total luggage.
and it looked like this
Do you notice a couple of differences between our two different packing lists, firstly I carry camping gear, George doesn’t…but why?
The obvious reason is the size of equipment back then versus now, but there is actually more to it than that. In 1903, may 17th to be exact, the day after George Wyman left San Francisco, President Theodore Roosevelt went camping with John Muir, this was the turning point for America to become interested in camping.
Prior to this meeting, there were only a few National Parks, Yellowstone had only become a National Park in 1872, others that opened after Yellowstone was; Sequoia in 1890, Yosemite in 1890, Mt. Ranier 1899, Crater Lake 1902, Wind Cave in 1903 and this meeting is known as ‘the camping trip that changed the nation’ and made Roosevelt realize more needed to be done…but in 1903 camping really wasn’t a thing!
The Goodman Publishing Company who owned ‘The Motorcycle Magazine’ would cover George’s expenses and he’d be in hotels and boarding houses along the way.
The other obvious difference is the long-barreled .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. I’m not a gun person, but I had to look up what the laws might have been in 1903 and being able to carry a weapon across state lines. Strangely it seems in 1900 the laws became ‘more relaxed’ in some areas
I wonder what the reasons were to relax some laws at that point in 1899, I understand the reason for making some tougher.
…and George will use that revolver later in the story.
rtwPaul 