-
Yeah, I hear ya. Im off for an over nighter with my new bike and gear for a wee test run. 120 miles out, 120 back...will be a good tester. Will be taking a Magnum motorcycle cable lock that I use round the waist in the city, its 900g or so and will sit nice on top of my Tailfinn pack.
Im new to touring so fairly happy to learn on the go. Big trip in spring.
Stoo61-
120 miles is good going! In the few tours I've done, I found I generally did about 10 miles / 16 km per hour, with total distance per day simply a function of how many hours you cycle. This of course includes stopping time (I cycle faster than that!) - but you need to count that in for things like stopping to read maps, backtrack, interpret signage, deal with poor gravel tracks, go to the toilet, have something to eat, buy food, etc etc etc. Where are you going in spring? I hope you have fun, I'd love to go on a big tour (i.e. more than just 2-3 weeks), I'm very jealous...
d0cA
I travelled across France in the middle of August. Honestly, I didn't notice the extra weight from this lock, and I did get a lot of piece of mind from it! I'm sure there was more variation across the day from the 4 bottles of water I was carrying: 3 in constant use, one spare hidden inside a pannier - I was probably drinking 10-12 bottles a day, and easily finishing 2 or between opportunities to fill up.
Specifically, I was very glad of the lock when I unexpectedly spent 24 hours in Lyon and had to lock my bike up outside (admittedly, not on the street, but it was in an internal courtyard with quite easy accessibility to a lot of people I didn't know); it went through both wheels (front is quick release) and the bike rack which I was very pleased about.
I was also glad of it one night when I couldn't sleep next to my bike: I found a perfect place to (wild) camp that was in a field, tucked away from the road and out of view of houses - only issue was it was 25m away behind a closed gate. I left my bike outside the gate, hidden and locked, and had a wonderful night's camping.
My general feeling is that you don't need a lock if touring with more than one person, but if you're on your own and you want to prepare for every eventuality then I would highly recommend. And, ultimately, weight is much less of an issue touring than, say, racing - I averaged about 150km per day, with a max of 210km (and wouldn't have said I'm particularly fast although I guess a lot of people would disagree).