South America 2014: Final preparations underway!

After a relaxing couple of weeks spending the holiday with our families, the final preparations for our tour are underway.

We have a packing list with over 200 individual items on it in an excel spreadsheet! The number of items highlighted in red, signifying that we still need to obtain them, is dwindling every day. Both Santa Claus (in the US) and the three kings (in Spain) were kind enough to help us with some of the last minute items, thankfully. We're hoping to take care of the rest of the small items later today.

Packed up and  ready to go… testing out a new hi-viz at the same time.

We had a go at packing everything on the list, albeit not 100% as carefully as when we do it for the final time, and took our bikes out for a test spin. Even with the added weight of a few days of food from Alberto's parents' pantry, I still did not feel the bike was much heavier than it has been on previous, much shorter, tours. I haven't used front panniers before, though, so I imagine getting used to having weight at the front of the bike will take some time.

Alberto was carrying most of the extra stuff like the additional electronics and toiletries, but even so the bikes were pretty manageable - though it will probably take a bit of time to figure out a packing configuration that both gets the weight distribution right and is logical enough that we'll be able to find what we need quickly.

Making some on-the-road adjustments

With basically everything packed, we still had tons of empty space, which is probably not helpful to our packing process as it means we are finding it harder to be ruthless with what we take, even though we know the lighter our load the better off we'll be.

Although we had previously researched insurance options, we have started again in earnest to make sure we are finding the best possible deals. In this respect, it is a lot easier for me; as the US is my country of permanent residence now, there are actually very few companies that will ensure me for an yearlong cycle tour where I am not departing from the US. Alberto has more choice, but with it, more homework to do before he decides!

The insurance complications of long-term cycle tourists are so intricate that they merit their own dedicated post, and indeed a number of bloggers have given extremely helpful deails of their own experiences, including Travelling Two, tour.tk, and Shane Cycles.

Trying out the rig on some off-road sections

There are a couple other last minute things to sort, like making sure our banks know we'll be using our cards abroad, gathering together and photocopying our important documents, and cutting my hair short (!). But all in all, it's getting very very real!