At 1am last night I was on skype chatting to Chris Pike who lives in Chicago. In 2010, he and 5 friends circumnavigated Lake Baikal and he was kind enough to share some of his knowledge with me.
Today I've been busily removing my back break as he explained it's not going to be of much use to me in Siberia, particularly when the disk gets clogged with ice and snow and I don't expect to be using it must anyway. I'm very pleased to have removed a 1lb or 2 from the bike also!
I've also decided to subjected the Qoroz bike to a night in a freezer (pictured above) to see how it fairs. I'm pretty sure all will be fine.
I'm still trying to decide on the pulk, pannier or go fast & lite options. I met with a friend of mine last night, an experienced Arctic runner who has kindly lent me her pulk to see what I can do with it. The concern I have is that if strong winds get hold of the pulk, I'II be off the bike in a flash as it will have no traction. I was rather pleased when Chris said that even he, an experienced mtber, fell off his bike 50 times in one day due to the winds.....that won't make me feel so bad when I hit the deck for the 100th time!