Anticipation & Overpacking

August 21, 2025

The excitement is building. Tomorrow we leave for Venice. As if that weren’t enough, yesterday the car dealer emailed to say that our new car is on its way and will be ready for pickup right after I return from the trip. Two big projects about to start at the same time.

I’m really looking forward to the bike tour – but I’m also pretty nervous. I’ve never ridden this far, this long, on consecutive days. D has logged roughly twice as many training kilometers this year as I have. And despite multiple rounds of sorting things out, my packed gear still feels like too much.

I weighed everything roughly:

1.8kg clothing (1x bike wear, something comfy for the evening, bathing cloths, towel)
1.2kg hygiene (toothbrush & co, shampoo, sun screen)
1.2kg food (power bars & gels)
1.2kg chargers (phone & bike)
1.0kg rain convering (jacket, shoe cover, warm layer)
0.5kg tools
0.3kg first aid

I end up at around 10 kg. More than I expected. Over a kilo just for chargers alone feels absurd – although most of that is the e-bike charger. Still.

Food is another question mark. I packed everything we still had at home; it’ll get lighter day by day, and maybe I’ll leave some things behind tomorrow morning. Tools we’ll consolidate so we only carry one set. Hopefully that trims things down a bit.

Packing List Learnings

After the tour, I checked what I really used during the trip and noted:

for the afternoon and evening, I had a short trouser packed. I mean, it’s August and Italy, it’s supposed to be warm. This is need do change next time, definitely bring long causal pants
a second bib short was not necessary. This may be different if there would have been more rain, but we could wash it out in the evening and it was dry the next morning.
Bring a real towel. I DONT LIKE THOSE FANCY FAST-DRYING SPORT TOWELS
If you stay at hotels, very very little shower gel is needed. Hotels usually provide this
A rain poncho would have been nice
otherwise, we used almost everything - the list was solid