Tomorrow morning, my wife and I leave for a three-week cycling adventure across Europe, and one of us is ready to go!

The other one of us is also ready to go. All he needs to do is start thinking about what to pack.

My wife packed her suitcase — I swear I am not making this up — two weeks ago.

Periodically, she adds or removes an item as she carefully considers exactly what she will need based on what she calls “clear, rational thinking” but I suspect is hormones.

I don’t trust this method. In my considerable experience, for a multi-week bike trip overseas, there are just a few essentials to remember:

• Underwear

• Bike helmet

• Uh … did I mention underwear, yet?

In my defence, let me say there are different-but-equally-valid approaches to packing for long and complicated journeys, each with its pros and cons.

For example, one way — let’s call it the “morning of” way — has the advantage of not requiring any thought or time or effort or hormones, except for a couple of terrible hours right before you leave for the airport.

Another way — let’s call it the “make me look bad” way — is pretty much what every expert traveller on the planet advises you to do. The major tenets of this approach are as follows:

Organization is........

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