Still suffering from an utterly evil cold and worse is, today’s my birthday. Hope it’s gone until the weekend… the cold at least - I would wish birthdays extend to birthweeks in such cases. All the colleagues at work express their worries, but I suspect there is more worry about the missing cakes now. I promise, I bring them on Monday!

But at least I got a few more things for my journey to Norway next week: a new Mammut windstopper cap (I wish I had that in January when I was cycling to my office through -10° C), a new Icebreaker Bodyfit 150 shirt as well as new warm socks from Falke, T1 and T4. One pair is expedition level, you never know what kind of weather you get to know in Scandinavia.

The European Outdoor Film Tour 2008/2009 stopped in Münster on Saturday evening. It showed a nice selection of the best outdoor short films, ranging from bouldering over kajaking to mountainbiking.

My favourites have been the alpine documentation of the Expedition Manaslu, Seasons (MTB) and the English parody Touching the stairs.

It was well worth the visit, so I can recommend attending the event, if it comes to a town where you live.

Today I bought a new backpack: a Gregory Palisade 80. It fit perfectly. I also tried other backpacks from Macpac, Lowe Alpine and Deuter, but I felt uncomfortable with them. At least when loaded with 15 to 20kg load.

The worst one was the Deuter AirContact Pro 70+15, no fit at all. That’s quite interesting, because for years I am now using exclusively Deuter bike packs (currently Trans Alpine 25) and also got a good fitting Deuter Futura 42 for short travels. BTW, the Trans Alpine also swallows a 13.3” MacBook without any problems. At least I can recommend the bike pack for daily biking to work.

So, my preference has been: Gregory > Macpac > Lowe Alpine. I cannot await packing my new backpack for my planned trip to Norway in March next year. So why such a big pack? Well, I have to get the alcohol with me…

Gregory’smarketing claim is Legendary packs for an extraordinary experience. So now I am officially an extraordinary experience. Hmmmh, I am not sure I like that claim for myself.