European Bike Tour

Getting ready for my big trip this summer which will be a self-contained bike tour in Europe carrying a 45-50 pound load. I'll fly to Birmingham, England and stay with friends in Market Harborough about 40 miles away. We plan to shuttle our bikes south to Portsmouth on the English Channel and catch an overnight ferry to St. Malo in northern France. From there, we'll ride our bikes south to the Loire Valley region, then travel east along the Eurovelo 6 Route, an establish bike path which meanders east from western France to the Black Sea following three of Europe's largest rivers, the Loire, Rhine and Danube Rivers. Our ending point is Passau in southern Germany, a distance of around 1,000 miles. There will be 9 riders, 4 from the U.S. and 5 from the U.K. The last time I rode with members of this group was during our 2010 End-to End Bike Tour in the U.K. Many thanks to our U.K. friends for organizing this tour. I'm definitely looking forward to our adventure. Don't know if I'll post any pictures along the way since I don't know what type of phone data service I'll get, but see how it goes. Pictured below is my Bike Friday set up for the tour before everything is disassembled for packing. Since we will be camping a lot, I decided to try using a Goalzero solar charger to keep my electronics running. I attached a Nomad 7 solar charger to the top of my rear panniers and will be charging a Guide 10 Plus Power Pack during the day. In the evening, I'll use the power pack to charge up my smartphone. This will be a good test for the product. Cheers.