How much have you carried on your back!? PICS!

I have been struggling with the best way to build a rack on the back of my bike that accommodates the Kepler Drive, and I think I have a pretty good handle on how I am going to do it, but in the mean time until this is build, my back is where my gear goes.

I went to Home Depot the other night and bought the wire fencing that I will use to put on the inside of the structure I will build so I have something to lash gear to, and I decided to weigh my current pack load.

It wasn't comfortable, but it didn't kill me either for the 6 miles that I road with it on my back, but I was shocked to realize it was 45lbs!?!!! :lol: :lol:

I only consider carrying things on my back as a last resort when I will be going cross-country, but if it will help shape me up, why not practice.

****EDIT PICS!*****

SO am I the record holder?! especially for the size/shape of the load? (I mean for people on this board, I have seen the pics from China too of the guy with the 2 truck tires almost taller than he and his moped he is "carrying" it on?

Well, I haven't carried anything more than a backpack full of groceries that wouldn't fit on the rack or the cargo pod (or baskets) (because they were also full), since I started using baskets, racks, and cargo boxes/pods. I'd guess that the most I've had on my back in that time is 25-30lbs.

However, back in my pre-cargo-bike days (years before I thought about an assist), I didn't have a rack or anything, and I carried home all sorts of dumpster-dive stuff, some of which weighed so much I almost couldn't get on the bike, or stay upright to pedal. I don't know what it weighed for sure, but my limit for lifting straight up and down without carrying it around is about 110lbs (more if it's positioned right, but not much), which is what some of the dogs I've had weigh. Heavy enough that I'd have to tie everything up in a bundle and set it up where I could back up to it to put my arms thru the shoulder straps, because I could never have put it on normally! So I dunno--at least 70-80lbs, maybe a lot more. I just never wanted to leave any stuff behind, and so packed in as much as I could.

Generally it was stuff like copier and computer parts; some of the copier stuff was really dense aluminum blocks that had toner heaters in them; worth it for recycling and sometimes for repurposing. Also transformers from things, especially big server UPS units (and sometimes the whole unit if I could lift it, though I often had to leave the batteries behind, or go a second and third trip for those). A few times it was stuff from the print shop near my house--boxes of stationery, or Apache helicopter service manuals (just becuase they had nifty diagrams and whatnot), and sometimes heavy rolled-up printing "plates" made from some sort of dual-layer rubber matting that had a tough cloth/weave ingrained into one side, and a very smooth (except for the engraved parts) light-chalkboard-green surface. Old cable-descrambler boxes; office telephone systems with really heavy (but powerful) power supplies and bajillions of little SMT red and green LEDs.

I also fell of teh bike or crashed a few times with loads like that, sometimes hurting myself and often breaking stuff in the load.

Sorry I don't have any pics, as it was something like 15-20 years ago last I did much of that stuff (before they passed the anti-dumpster-diving laws). So feel free to ignore this attempt at a record.

Don't have a pic to hand, I'm afraid (it was a while back - a pic was taken but I'm not sure if it still exists, will post if I can find it), but when I got my Antec Solo PC case, I was on a racer with no rack... I tried carrying it under-arm (yes, I have quite long arms) but that got old after about 2km, so I was forced to actually figure out how to use the two belts I had along for that purpose to attach it to my backpack, which also had misc computer bits in it (turns out you only have to snag two corners of a big flat box to hold it securely with a simple strap).

That's the most awkward I've done, but my dad said one of his high school friends was a fitness freak who (in the late 50's, I think) once toted a full size wardrobe on his bike. I thought that was apocryphal, but after seeing pictures some of the ridiculous things they carry on bikes in Asian countries, I'm thinking it may actually have happened...