Getting Ready

The maiden, laden voyage

Well, with the action (or inaction) of the past few weeks of lock-down orders you would think that I would be more than ready for this upcoming trip.  Not so much. Work doesn't slow down just because you change the place you do it.  Actually, I think it takes more time to try to do your normal work load and maneuver the new rules and restrictions and try to keep in all together.  We've been blessed by having some business continue through this crisis.  Being a supplier to logistics centers, essential businesses, means that we are in turn an essential business.  We can work, but I'm trying to have everyone do it from home to maximize distance and safety.  Many of the businesses I see in our hometown of Lakewood are restaurants and bars, the types of businesses that have close to zero income during this time.  I really hope they can come back from this.

So, am I crazy to leave and go for a 2-3 month bicycle journey during the middle of a crisis?  Perhaps. But the more I hear of horrible stories of people who were taken before their time, it makes me want to, or need to, do what I can in my life while I have the chance and physically can.  I have competent people at my company who will make things run.  My daughter Caty has agreed to work at the company during this summer doing some of the bookkeeping tasks I normally do.  My wife Patty's agreed to sign checks for the business.  So, I think I've got the right people in place to do this, and certain motivation for a "bucket list" event. 

How do you prepare?  Well, first thing on a long bicycle adventure would probably be... a bicycle.  Seeing that I've put thousands of miles on my bikes over the years, and my "newest" road bike was put together in 1989, perhaps it was time to invest in a new machine.  Fortunately my friends at my local Lakewood shop, Beat Cycles, were very helpful.  They had a variety of choices and some new ones coming in this year.  I decided to look into the latest road bike trend, a gravel bike, named because it is sturdy enough to be ridden on gravel roads without pavement.  It is sort of a mountain bike in its toughness, but road bike in its manners.  Seeing how long I normally keep bikes, and knowing that when this trip is over I'll use this for years, I think this is a wise choice.  We have local bike trails such as the Towpath trail, the old Ohio and Erie canal, that currently runs from Cleveland to New Philadelphia, Ohio, and we're not far from the GAP, the Great Alleghany Pass, stretching from Pittsburgh all the way to DC, and both are gravel tracks, I'll get some use of it.  I ended up choosing a new Salsa Vaya, a gravel and "light touring" bike that is tough and has plenty of connection points to add racks and accessories.  And it's available in a really cool red-orange "salsa" color. 

Now that I have the bike, it's been weeks of putting together what I'll need to go on this trip.  I have some things such as bike clothes and some tools, but it might be time to update some of these things too.  They're as old as my existing bike collection.  1989 was a high water mark for my bicycle life.  I was riding, racing, spending my money on my favorite hobby.  What happened after that, you ask?  No blame here, but I got married in 1990...

So I put together a list of things needed.  I Googled cross country bike trips and got a lot of opinions on what to take and what to leave home.  Fortunately most of these opinions were really similar, and almost all said to minimize, minimize, minimize, so we'll see how this goes.  Perhaps I'll post a list later of my final list.  After the trip I can tell you what really was worth it and what was dead weight.  Speaking of weight, that's the #1 factor in everything going on this trip.  Dragging around extra stuff over 4,200 miles isn't really a good idea, so everything has to be lightweight.  We plan to do as much hotel camping as possible, so not a huge amount of weight is spent on camping gear (will this be a mistake, and will hotels be open this summer?). I guess there are stores everywhere and Amazon and REI will likely deliver to spots on the road, so we can adjust if needed.  Still, who wants to be loaded down with the wrong stuff?

I purchased racks and bags, combined with some (very) old existing gear, and put together my traveling circus.  Two rear bags (panniers), two in front, an under-the-top-bar bag for road repair items, and a front handlebar bag to carry stuff like phone, wallet, and stuff I'd need to grab quickly.  I haven't weighed all of this stuff, but it is certainly the heaviest bike I've ridden since my Murray cruising bike with built in headlights when I was about 10.   In order to try all this out to see how it will feel, I took the bike/bag combination out today, weighed down with a representative collection of clothing and trip items.  I went through the Metroparks, representative because a quick trip includes a few hills and is close-by.  I was surprised how well the new bike handles with all of the stuff.  It's amazing what 31 years of bike making progress has produced.  It also showed me that it's definitely time to ditch the old sleeping bag and invest in something lighter and more compact.  I couldn't even fit it on the bike!



With a deadline of May 29th, I'll continue to work on the gear list and work out the bugs on this moving collection of stuff.  It will be here before I know it.  This week we purchased groceries, and even the milk expiration date is after I leave.  It's time to get serious...

Jamer