Pre-ride preparation

April 1, 2012

            Welcome friends and family to our Blazing Saddles bike trip blog.  Hopefully, our entries here will amuse you and allow you to join in our experience.  The idea for this trip has been brewing for a long time and now, perhaps 6 or 8 weeks before departure, is seeming like a reality.

            For those readers not very familiar with our lives I will give a little background.  Kelly and I have lately been working toward creating a life not centered around work. We have no children living at home and the kids are pretty much self-sufficient by this time.   Kelly left her position with the Superior Court of CA in January and has just completed her training to become a licensed manicurist.  When we return from our journey this fall she will be starting up her own business at the salon of our friend Dana.  I still have my engineering business but will be taking a bit of a sabbatical for the duration of our trip.  Hopefully, my regular clients will tolerate my absence and forgive the inconvenience.  While our bike tour is an activity we (hope) will enjoy it is also a kickoff for a change in attitude that will hopefully last forever.  To drag up an old saying...we would like to “work to live, not live to work”. 

            While our goal is to cross the country, the real goal is the journey.  After those of you who know me well stop laughing, let me say that I know this will be a stretch for me as I tend to be just a wee bit goal-oriented at times.  However, I am determined to RELAX!! DAMMIT!! and enjoy the ride.

Logistics:

            We have outfitted our bikes for self-supported touring.  Kelly will be riding her trusty steed (named Hope), a Specialized Sequoia.  This is a light duty multi purpose road bike with sufficiently low gearing for touring.  She has used it on tours of the San Juan Islands and the Oregon coast route.  To keep the weight of gear off her somewhat light duty frame she will be carrying her gear in a BOB trailer.  I will be using a heavier duty touring bike I recently purchased; a Surly Long Haul Trucker.  My gear will be carried in the same panniers I have used many times since I got them for a month long bike tour of New Zealand over 25-years ago.  Most of our camping gear is that which we have accumulated over the years.

            Our point of departure will be Astoria, Oregon on the mouth of the Columbia River.  We'll be driving our car to the take off and shipping it to my sister's house in NJ.  We wanted to drive back anyway (to see other places between) and the cost of shipping (about $1000) will be less than flying and shipping our bikes.

            The route we are planning will ascend the Columbia River to eastern Washington where we will head northeast to Sandpoint, ID for a visit with our friends Bill and Anita Bruce.  From that point we will head due east, staying near the Canadian border to the Great Lakes area.  Once there, we will either be heading southeast and crossing Lake Michigan on the ferry at Manitowac, WI (shorter) or going over the lakes and down through the Upper Pennisula of Michigan (longer).  We'll decide which way when (if) we get that far.  Once there, we will be passing into Ontario and popping out at Niagara Falls, NY.  The home stretch will take us through NY and PA to my home turf in NJ.  Doesn't sound so far when you say it like that!

            Anyone foolish enough to want to join us on any part of our trip is heartily encouraged.  We are not hung up on carrying our gear all the way and would not put up a struggle if someone with a vehicle came by for a few days.  We will be staying in touch via our ipad and our regular email addresses.  Mine are yrekaengineer@att.net or yrekaengineer@gmail.com and Kelly's is runnergirlkam@gmail.com.   Service for the ipad may be a bit spotty in the 'boonies' so be patient if we don't respond right away.

           

Training:

            As I write this on the last day of March winter has finally arrived.  We've had a very dry winter until recently and I have actually done more bike riding than the BC skiing I usually do in winter.  Of course, now that we would really like to get started with serious riding it has been raining and snowing nearly everyday.  For most of the winter I've been able to ride 2 or 3 times a week.  Mostly shorter, lunchtime rides in the 15-20 mile range with a few longer 30-40 mile rides stuck in there.  Kelly has had less time to work out because of her school schedule but has been able to stay in pretty good shape with some runs down in Redding, where she's been living for her schooling.  She is moving back home this weekend and we will be starting our training in earnest soon.  The route up the Columbia should be a good start since there are no serious mountain passes to climb and we should have a tailwind most of the time. (Even as I write that last sentence it sounds like 'Famous Last Words')  Our first week or so should be fairly easy and a good break-in period for our Blazing Saddles.