To Cover or Not to Cover?

I am not sure about whether I should take a bike cover with me. Opinion seems to be divided on this with security of your bike being compared to the amount of space a bike cover takes to carry when touring.

Essentially it comes down to this – where are you going to park your precious and maybe beloved bike overnight when on the road? Will it be safe where you leave it? If you think it will be safe, then go without the cover. However, my guess is that you will never really know if your bike will be ok – even parking in what seems like a very safe area doesn’t mean the bad guys don’t go there.

I have bought a lightweight bike cover for my tour (http://eztouring.com/). As can be seen from the photo below, it does a great job of covering the bike. This cover is made of the same material they make parachutes from – it seemed to me that parachutes get packed really tightly so a cover made from the same material should roll and pack into a similarly small space. The first photo below shows the cover packed ready for carrying on the bike – hmmm, this is small, but even this takes quite a lot of space, so I am not sure if I will have room for it. I guess I will make my mind up when I have packed everything else and see what room I have left.
















This photo shows the cover on the bike.