Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Packing

Here's my reading list for my trip:

#1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
#2. Stephen King's "It"
#3. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I actually had to think about these, because books don't pack well and space is at a premium (especially since I learned I packed wrong, more on that later). I picked It because, well, it's cheap and it's 1000 pages long. Don't get me wrong, It is the start of Stephen King's long slow spiral downwards, which ended with him crashing to Earth like a common commercial jetliner with the ending of "The Gunslinger". But it has a scary, scary clown and also has a scene where Swamp Thing rips off a 10 year old kid's head, so it's got some stuff going for it too. Being 1000 pages long is a plus, it'll take me awhile to burn through it.

I picked the last Harry Potter book because I haven't read it in over a year, it's the best one, and I have a soft spot for it because it's the one where Ron finally grows a pair and gives Hermione the Bad Touch. Good on you, old bean.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is probably the single greatest idea ever. The writer takes public domain books about boring nonsense like romance and class struggles, and inserts a bunch of random zombie mayhem. It's still the original book, which I've never read, but now there's the occasional scene where Catherine kills some ninja by ripping out their still-beating heart and eats it. So I'm like kind of culturing myself.

So about packing, yeah, I did it wrong. Two big, bulky items, my air mattress and tent, were gonna get bungeed to the top of my trunk bag. There's these bungees cords built into the top of it that you can slide stuff under. There's no good pictures of this thing on the 'net so I'm gonna have to do all of this with MS Paint.



That's like a top view of the bag. Those lines are the bungees. You can have things under them, like this.




Looks like a pretty solid setup, right? However my rear bag isn't waterproof. It has a rain cover that goes over it, for when it rains. I can't show this well in Paint without it being a big yellow rectangle, but it's just a yellow covering with elastic seams that slides over it.

The problem is that it fits pretty tightly, so the stuff can't go under it, and it covers the bungees. So now there's no way to attach them.




I could just use regular bungee cords, but then I also realized that the tent and air mattress (which CANNOT get wet or they'll grow mold) have covers, but they're not waterproof. So even then I'd be in trouble when it rained



So I might have to put some of those big items in my front panniers, which ARE waterproof, but then I obviously have less room for other stuff.


It's a little late in the game for serious packing problems like this, so I have to figure this out pretty quick. One idea is to just put both the tent and mattress in a big waterproof garbage bag before bungeeing them down, but that'd look pretty tacky and would probably vastly increase the chances of some random cop deciding I'm a homeless person.

Other than that, nothing much to report. The Surly is in the shop getting her one month checkup, so I'm back to the Trek. After this, I'm probably going to sell the old girl. I figured I could wait awhile to do it, but then I just realized this trip is only 2 fucking months away. TWO MONTHS!!

Effed up my ankle

So this weekend I was gonna do...something. I don't think I was ever seriously going to do a 50 mile plus ride, but I was certainly going to do something longer than my normal commute. Then I went to go play racquetball on Saturday, lunged after an 18 mph bullet launched by my friend's fiancee, and landed on the side of my ankle. Seriously. My foot didn't even hit the ground.

I heard a crunch, immediately got up, and limped around for a bit. It honestly seemed fine. A bit sore, but nothing extreme. I was even able to finish out that game AND do another one. When I woke up this morning though, it was still swollen and was turning some fairly interesting colors.



So no biking for me today. It still doesn't feel awful, and once I got up and was walking around for a bit it felt much better, so I don't think this'll be a serious problem, but I do seem to be getting banged up a lot lately. I've never thought of myself as particularly fragile (don't confuse that statement with me being stoic or anything though, if I get hurt I will do nothing but bitch and moan for days) so it's a bit disconcerting that I'm feeling constantly banged up somewhere.

So I spent today doing some home bike repair 101 type stuff. Currently I know how to change/patch a flat tire, do a quick-fix for a slashed or otherwise destroyed tire, kinda-sorta adjust a front and rear derailleur, and fudge with the brake and shifter cable tension. Friday however, I noticed my old Trek 7.3 had a busted rear spoke.

I don't really understand how it broke, the bike hasn't been ridden in over a week. Maybe it tried to kill itself out of shame. Maybe it was killed by ninjas for knowing too much, a la David Carradine. (I know it's way too early for that joke, but it's not really a joke. Ninjas are no laughing matter, young people.)

So I learned how to replace a spoke today (fairly difficult) and also did some futzing about with my saddle. The saddle's been a sore spot on the new bike thus far (GET IT!?!?!?!?) but the initial effort seems worth it. For those not in the know, i.e. anyone with normal societal tendencies, Brooks saddles are formed from a complex process that binds high quality leather with pure liquid pretentiousness. Want to see the box it comes in?



It's a fucking BICYCLE SADDLE. My favorite part was the faux-1880's style newspaper that explains in detail all the of the various ways people have changed the world for the better with Brooks Saddles. I shit you not. Because I already have my camera handy:




No but seriously, the Brooks Bugle is a great newspaper. It's informative, edgy, and isn't afraid to get the tough stories. I'm not sure about their journalistic integrity, it seems like maybe Brooks Saddles, Inc. in particular seems to get positive coverage most of the time, but I still found it less slanted than Fox News.*

Where was I? Oh yeah, so it takes a lot of adjustments and finagling to get a Brooks saddle to feel good, because it's made of leather. Not leather like a leather car seat though, or like a leather baseball glove. It's the hardest leather ever. You rap it with your fingers and it sounds like plastic. And the first 30 or so miles on it were horrible. It felt like I was sitting on Anne Coulter's face.

However after some tilt adjustments, and some indentations finally being made, it's already 1000% more comfortable. It's now got about 150 miles on it, and it's perfectly comfortable, comprable to my old squishy saddle. What makes Brooks saddles great, and is why I'm willing to completely embrace the dark side of bicyclist douchebaggery, is that it never gets UNcomfortable.

The knock against squishy saddles is that they're great for short trips, but after a long time in them with your jubblies all sunk in, stuff starts to go numb and cramp up. What you want is something that comforms to your shape like a squishy saddle, but ALSO is firm and supporting. That's what leather saddles do. People who I've spoken with that tour all swear by this thing. They say it's virtually the only way to stay comfortable in a bike saddle for 6-8 hours a day. I wasn't sure about all of that (and God dammit this paragraph reads like that time I was explaining the difference between solid top guitars vs laminate tops and FUCK YOU for not stopping me back then, Stew) but I DID know I'd tried two different normal saddles and they were definitely starting to make certain anatomical bits start to feel a bit cramped and oxygen-starved after an hour or two, and with this thing that's not the case. Instead of gradually progressing from "ah this is comfortable" to "Oh shit it's turning purple" to "Oh SHIT it turned black and fell off" over the course of 3 hours, the Brooks saddle simply starts at "Hmm, not bad" and stays that way. So I'm sold.





* It's okay Conservatives, I voted for McCain in the primaries before he tapped that shrill, disagreeable retard as his running mate.. Also HELL YEAH asterisks are back!!!


edit:

I think Jill must've stolen my camera at some point, because I certainly don't remember shooting this. Man that thing's a beast! And by "that thing" I mean Asaf, he's totally spooning on that bed.

Oops

Hey so it's been awhile. Frankly, I'm not sure how many more times I could post "Gee whiz biking is hard" or "I sure do think redheads are hot" before it got grating. Besides, while updates here will be an every day type thing while I'm out on the road, you're just not missing much on a day to day basis here. It's been three weeks though, so here, let's take a journey together to discover what has usurped (editor's note: Douchebag "I read books which makes me smart" vocab useage alert!!) my time lately.

#1. If you're wanting to date an immature, catty 23 year old, then by all means do it (if she's cute enough). I mean, who're we kidding, right? We're all human. When the wheels fall off though, shrug your shoulders, make a mental note, and move on quickly. I think this is my roundabout way of saying it's hard to update a blog when you're spending 2-3 hours a day constructing elaborate theories to explain away giant gaping logic holes instead of admitting the chick you're seeing is a pathological liar.

#2. On the opposite end of the fun scale, it's also hard to update a blog when you're spending prime bike-riding weekends in Colorado, getting hammered on absolutely disgusting black licorice liquor. Bet you didn't know that kind of hell even existed, did you? I don't know why I segued from "not fun" into "fun" with drinking malted battery acid as an example, but... I dunno. Hey look here's Brett!



(I'd like to say that was a completely random, out-of-character "That's what she said!" comment at the end, but alas. We still think that's funny and use it as substitute for punctuation.)

#3. New bike hotness!!

Okay so if you'll recall, the beast of burden I chose for this trip is a Trek 7.3fx. A fine bike, a real man's bike. I think I also mentioned I was about to blow 4-5 hundred bucks swapping out various components to make it tour-worthy. It needed drop handlebars, a new drivetrain, a new saddle, blah blah blah.

I was already torn about spending the money to upgrade my current bike, or just getting a different one. My Trek is a great commuter, looks sharp, and let's not forget the awesome black on black color scheme. It matches my dark soul perfectly, like those edgy lyrics the goth kids used to write inside their Steino notebooks in high school before they went home to sniff glue and burn things.

On the other hand, it just wasn't built for this kind of thing. I mean it COULD work. Sure I COULD pay for 3 million dollars worth of plastic surgery to return Debrah Messing to her previous levels of hotness, or I could just throw 20 bucks at her younger, hotter protege Isla Fisher. And never doubt it, Isla Fisher would throw me a bone for 20 dollars. She's currently getting pounded by the same guy who dressed up as an angel and teabagged Eminem, and 69ed a 500 pound Latvian guy. This isn't someone with preposterously high standards.

So where was I? Oh yeah, I ditched the Trek and bought a Surly. BOO YEAH!!! (As always click on the picture for a decent view. Blogger, post-2004 thumbnail technology, have you two met?)







The Surly Long Haul Trucker is the Honda Civic of the Touring world. They're dull, conventional, and about as stylish as one of those giant Australian termite nests, but God damn they're built well, and even if you look like a tool on it, you'll be in good company because like 80% of everyone touring uses one. They are NOT cheap, but I actually got a discount from a local bike shop, in exchange for the humane society pimping them out, so I could kind of sort of afford it. It's hard to explain why they're perfect for touring without getting into horrible topics like "chainstay length" and "fork rake" so you'll just have to take my word for it: I am in way better position now than I was before.

Also, check out the GPS unit attached to my handlebars! It's like being in the glass cockpit of a fighter jet!! I'm still keeping my Trek for the time being, because I'm petrified of the new being stolen, but I'll obvously jettison it to some worthy individual before I leave.

So all that in mind, what's my current situation? We'll divide my end of May report card into bite sized segments I like to call Training, Planning, and Equipment Obtainment.

Training: F

There's no other grade I can reasonably give myself now. I've upped my weekly mileage from 100 miles per week to about 120-30, but that's still not really the point. Even 100 miles per week would be fine, IF I was knocking out the occasional 50-60 mile ride as part of it. Sadly I just haven't had a day lately where I was like "I've got 6-8 hours to kill, I might as well spend them on my bike!" I think I could do it without a problem, but I just can't be sure. There's a big difference between spending an hour in the saddle straight, and spending 6. It's similar to the difference between Eric Wolpert's penis size, and that of a normal human being. An ignorant girl with Eric might think he's all right, but as soon as anyone bigger than Vern Troyer comes along she's gonna be worried they'll shatter her spine with it.

My analogies are definitely getting worse. :(

Planning: B-

So far so good here. I've got places to stay lined up in Tempe, Fort Collins, New York City, and Boston, if I can find one place in Missouri or Illinois somewhere I think I'll be golden. My route's all firmly mapped and I'm starting to peruse Garmin's City Navigator 2010 maps to pinpoint camps, cafes, and other essentials along the way. Somehow, someway, my budget is still holding up as well. I still need to find a place to live for when I get back, and sell the remainder of my worldly possesions, but most of the big stuff has been taken care of.

Equipment: A-

I'm doing really well here. I'm basically done. A few eagle eyed readers pointed out my list of stuff to pack was more complete than the picture of it, and using a small tupperware container to stand in for "tool kit comprehensive enough to fix any bike problem that is the size of a very small paperback book" is easier than actually making said tool kit.

However, there's really not much I need now. There's a few random one-off things I still need, like 5mm socket cap bolts, bailing wire, and spare cyclocomputer batteries, but I daresay every major, difficult purchase has been made.