The story of a 9-year-old boy and his dad as they cross the USA by bicycle.
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LA2JAX
| dep LA | | 3/04/03 |
| arr JAX | | 5/12/03 |
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Friday, September 13, 2002
Pre-trip preparations
Our preparations are going well. We could probably leave tomorrow if we had to. We've been preparing for our March 2nd departure for over a year already. We're still tweaking our final pack configuration. We decided to keep our food in an Ortlieb pannier so it will always be segregated from our camping gear. We will try to never bring food into the tent with us; bears and raccoons have been known to rip through a nylon tent to get to a Snickers bar. I think we'll store cold/rain wear in the other pannier, for easy access. The bag that's in the trailer is hard to get to during the day. So for now, we have the big yellow Bob trailer bag, with our tent and sleeping bags lashed on top; the two Ortlieb panniers; and some kind of bag that Bilenky (our bike builder) has promised that goes between the stoker seat and captain handlebars. Should be plenty of room.
We're considering a GPS purchase. A colleague of mine showed me his Garmin GPS V, and it's about the coolest thing I've ever seen. Besides being a foolproof navigation aid, it will provide info on restaurants, lodging, attractions, etc. With a couple clicks of a button, it will give us the way (directions, distance, time, etc.) to the nearest Chinese (or Italian, or pizza, or fast-food, etc.) restaurant. It may be indispensable with helping us find and secure lodging.
We're still working on some routing issues. We may cut east from Oceanside, California, and meet the Southern Tier route a couple days later, rather than continue south along the coast to San Diego.
Sunday, September 08, 2002
Pre-trip training, etc.
Will and I did the 50 mile version of the Harmon Hundred in Wilmot, Wisconsin, today. They offered 25, 50, 75 and 100 mile routes. It was fun, but hilly. We needed to use our newest granny gear (19.7") and we didn't even have a load! They had some great rest stops, with sushi, pies, cookies, sandwiches, etc. We stopped at a beach about a mile or so from the finish to swim for 20 minutes. We didn't rush at all, spent plenty o'time at the rest stops, and completed 54 miles in about 6 hours or so. We hope to keep a pace like that for our crossing, and it looks like we can.
We met Doug and Diane Jones from our church on the ride. They are just starting tandeming, but have already done some impressive trips, like SAAGBRAW, a 6 day trip across Wisconsin.
I'm a little out of practice for these century rides. When I did them more regularly, maybe 10 years ago or more, I would have been prepared with a few beers on ice in a cooler in the car for the finish. That would've been great today!
We also met Norm Hanson from the Barrington Bicycle Company, who has been great in helping me keep my bikes in top shape. He and his "roadie" buddies left the start about 30 minutes behind us, did 100 miles, and passed us on the last mile coming in. As Norm said, they were "men on a mission". I bet they didn't stop to swim.
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