Test Drive

Rain, rain, rain. Really, WHEN does it rain all day in Flagstaff. Hardly ever! Mike and pulled out the rain coats, put the matching yellow raincoats on the panniers and headed out, determined to make a go of it regardless. "This is a good test," I said. "We can simulate real East Coast conditions." And we hit the road.

Descending the gentle 3 miles into town, I resembled a drunk on a bicycle. Whoa - that front wheel has a mind of its own, and the road is very wet. Downtown, things deteriorated. No, I didn't get pulled over for drunk driving, instead Mike's front brake fell off. Evidently he forgot to put one of the bolts back in after he made some changes to the brake. Sort of embarrassing for a former bike mechanic, but we won't go there.

Now it's raining AND thundering, so we decide to go to Absolute Bikes to get a bolt and get out of the rain. Riding through town, stopping at the ATM, we have to endure embarrassing questions like:
"Hey where are you from?" Answer: "here"
"Where are you going?" Answer: "here"
People are befuddled (which goes nicely with my erratic, drunk-riding behavior.)

We start to question the whole concept of "dry run". Here it's wet, and we ask ourselves the very important question: "if we were ACTUALLY on the trip, what would we do?" The correct answer from any cyclist worth his or her beans is: "GO DRINK COFFEE." Which is what we do. Briefly, I feel bad and suggest that we should soldier on and go camping anyway - to see what else might go awry. Mike wisely points out, again, that, "if we were ACTUALLY on the trip, we would get a hotel on a day like this." Happily, we have a free hotel in town - our house! And so we head home, take showers, and go out for Thai food.

The good news - aside from great coffee and Thai food - is that the panniers and their raincoats held up very well. Despite the deluge, most everything was dry. I need to get a couple of covers for my front panniers - they were the only ones that didn't come with built in covers.

A brief confession. I don't know about you, but I find it irritating when couples wear similar clothing. Today, I looked over and there was Mike looking just like me - in a yellow rain jacket, with matching panniers, black rain pants, and the same blue Surly Long Haul Trucker (is that the best name ever, or what?) Ack! How did this happen? Mike offered the following consolation, "well your rain jacket has duct tape all over the sleeves, so we're not EXACTLY alike. And besides, with all that duct tape holding your jacket together, no one will think that you have anything worth stealing on the ride." Always seeing the bright side, isn't he? I'm thinking that with the erratic steering and the duct tape, I'm looking more like someone who should be picked up for disorderly conduct.

But actually, I got the steering thing down so things are looking up. Tonight we sleep in our comfy beds, and tomorrow we go for a really long ride.

Test Ride Eve

As I mentioned, this is all a bit last-minute, so planning has been minimal. (I rather prefer it this way...I'm not good at waiting.) We decided a couple of weeks ago that we should take a test drive - say, a weekend overnight to the Grand Canyon - sometime before we leave. But when? I was in Scottsdale with my parents a couple of weekends ago, and I was in Wisconsin for the Fourth of July holiday (and Sara's 40th birthday!), and so here we are just 7 days before lift-off and we are just now going on the test drive. Someone said, "nothing is more productive than the last minute", so we're gettin' busy tonight.

The Map

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The Route

This is a work in progress...don't want to be too tied down to an exact route/calendar!

CALIFORNIA
Day 1: SF to Davis, 52 miles (Lake Solona Cty park 800-939-7275)

Day 2: Davis to Placerville, 85 miles (Placerville Motherlode 622-0825)

Day 3: Placerville to Kirkwood, 58 miles (Silver Lake Campground)

Day 4: Kirkwood to Dayton NV, 89 miles (Dayton State Park)


NEVADA
Day 5: Dayton to Middlegate, 100 miles (hotel or camping) ALT – Dayton to Fallon, 50 miles

Day 6: Middlegate to Austin, 66 miles
(Bob Scott campground (+7 miles) or hotel); OR Fallon to Austin, 100 miles

Day 7: Austin to Eureka, 60 miles
(Eureka 2 hotels, 1 B&B 1 rv park; ALT – 88mi Illpah res campground. No water.)

Day 8: Eureka to Ely, 80 miles (or 37 miles from Illpah)

Day 9: Ely to Baker, 62 miles (or 99 from Illpah)

UTAH
Day 10: Baker, NV to Delta, 95 miles NO WATER, NO SERVICES
(Best Western, 435-864-3882)‎

Day 11: Delta to Mt. Pleasant, 80 miles
(Mt Pleasant Country Motel, 30 W Main 435-577-2893; ALT - 92 to Natl Forest)

Day 12: Mt. Pleasant to Helper, 70 miles (Price Canyon Recreation Area; ALT - 107 miles Starvation State Park, 435-738-2326; ALT – 36 miles, Scofield State Park)

Day 13: Helper to Vernal, 100 miles (78 miles from Starvation S.P., 78 miles from Scofield)

Day 14: Vernal to Maybell, CO, 102 miles (Maybell Bridge campsites) Most of day is through BLM;
ALT – 130 miles to Craig, Loudy Simpson Park or South Beach)

COLORADO
Day 15: Maybell to Steamboat Springs, 72 miles
(campsites in National Forest; ALT - 55-65 miles to Craig)

Day 16: Steamboat Springs to Gould, 80 miles (Aspen Campground, National Forest)

Day 17: Gould to Fort Collins, 77 miles (Hotel)

Day 18: Fort Collins to Sterling, 85 miles (North Sterling State Park, 10 miles north of Sterling)

Day 19: Sterling to Champion NE, 82 miles (Champion Lake 8 sites w/ Water 308-394-5118; N.B. Champion Lake State Historic Site, working water powered mill 308-394-5118)

NEBRASKA
Day 20: Champion to Cambridge, 105 miles (Medicine Creek State Recreation Area)
ALT - Champion to Trenton, NE…Swanson State Recreation Area, 56 miles)

Day 21: Cambridge area (Harry Strunk Lake) to Ayr, 108 miles (Crystal Lake State Recreation Area)
OR Trenton, NE to Ayr, 148 miles

Day 22: Ayr to ~Kramer, 98 miles (Olive Creek State Recreation Area)

Day 23: Kramer to ~Riverton IA, 74 miles (Waubonsie State Park)

IOWA
Day 24: Riverton to ~Villisca, 54 miles (Viking Lake State Park)
ALT – Riverton to Spaulding…Green Valley State Park, 93 miles)

Day 25: Villisca to Chariton, 94 miles (Red Haw State Park) OR Spaulding to Chariton, 64 miles

Day 26: Chariton to Rubio, 85 miles (Lake Darling State Park)

Day 27: Rubio to Muscatine, 59 miles (Great River Days Parade, concert, food and art fair: 3rd week of Aug.)

ILLINOIS
Day 28: Muscatine to Kewanee, IL, 74 miles

Day 29: Kewanee to Odell, 94 miles (Camping in city park)

Day 30: Odell to Kankakee, 40 miles (Kankakee State Park)

Day 31: Kankakee to Fletcher, IN, 96 miles (Fletcher Lake, in town)

INDIANA
Day 32: Fletcher to Monroeville, 95 miles

Day 33: Monroeville to Grand Rapids, OH, 76 miles (Mary Jane Thurston State Park)

OHIO
Day 33: Grand Rapids to Huron, 82 miles

Day 34: Huron to Lyndhurst, 70 miles (Nancy & Niki?)

Day 35:

Day 36: Lyndhurst to Conneaut Lake, PA, 75 miles

PENNSLYVANIA
Day 37:

Pedal Power

Mike and I have been thinking about the possibility of riding our bikes across the country for about a year now. Actually, Mike's been thinking about it ever since he rode his bicycle across Pennsylvania as a 16-year old. Me - I just like the idea of it: the open road, getting "unplugged", and the challenge - will we make it?, what does 8 weeks of non-stop togetherness do to a relationship?, etc.

I started a bike journal on crazyguyonabike.com. Sadly, it seems like his server crashed. Evidently, everyone and his brother is touring by bike this summer! Or perhaps just everyone and his brother is reading about people bike touring. Anyway, I'm starting over here.

The Where, What and Why

"The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry." -John Jensen

Ride a bike coast to coast. Why not? This was a dream of Mike's since he rode across Pennsylvania as a 16 year old sometime in the early 80's (I think it was 1980).

Me - I just like the idea of it. Slow down, unplug, see America. And I like the challenge: will I make it? will we be married at the end? 8 weeks of just the two of us? Sheesh - that's a lot of togetherness!

The fact that we can go on vacation and spend very little money on gas is a bonus. We do have to get to San Francisco from Flagstaff at the start, and there's the flight home from Philly at the end - but other than that the only gas on the trip will be exuded from Mike after his favorite black bean burritos.

It's all a bit spontaneous since we didn't really think we could actually go until just a few weeks ago. Up until then, it was a "wouldn't it be nice if we could someday ride cross-country" type of thing. But opportunity and very VERY generous bosses (thank you Betsy, Mason, Barry!) made it possible. Now it's a mad dash to get gear, deal with bills, work etc. We'll do a test ride/overnight this weekend. More later.