Overnight bike tour

This upcoming weekend is a long weekend, as Monday is Victoria Day.  Since I'm tired to staying around town, I wanted to do something crazy that involves leaving PG.  After bouncing ideas back and forth with some fellow hikers, it was decided that we should do an overnight bike trip to Purden Lake which is 65 kms (about 40 miles) from here.  Since there is a very good chance campsites at the lake will be sold out, we may bike further to Hungry Creek road and rough it. I'll be following this exact same route in July when I'm on the Tour De Jasper


Since I've got all my light camping gear now- ultralight tent, sleeping bag that's under a kilo, lightest sleeping pad I could find, and the other necessary lightweight stuff that I used for backpacking, I"m all set to carry all my gear.  I thought we'd have a vehicle going out, but we won't.  This will be a good test on how bulky gear will be and how it all fits on my bike.

I'm using my basil panniers as they are a pain to remove, and I think that they will be ok for this trip (put clear plastic garbage bags from work in them to make them waterproof).  Above is a test packing.   I decided to create a little extra space on top by attaching one of my smaller daypacks on top of the bag with a  bungee cord. On the 4 day bike tour in the Summer, I will borrow a friend's panniers as I don't want to buy another set unless I get into bike touring.  I wouldn't need them around town as my Basil bags are SO practical!