Home Sweet Home

A primary concern for my pre-tour planning was to get the accommodations figured out as soon as possible. Considering I'll be spending 97% of my nights in this thing (Motels are for sissies) I figured I'd better put some thought into this one.

And think I did! There's no shortage of lodging options for the discerning camper. I considered the following possibilities: (click for bigger pictures)

Bivy Sack:



Pros: Super duper lightweight. Wicked easy to set up.
Cons: No room for changing in, or to invite foxy ladies over that you met at the local farmer's market. Can't spend a rainy night in there reading or whatever either
Reason ruled out: I'm not a filthy hippy lunatic.

Ultralight tarp:



Pros: Evener light than a bivy sack (At least this one seemed to be). Plenty of room.
Cons: No floor or walls. Needs poles.
Reason ruled out: I actually considered this, as it's SO much lighter than a real tent. The problem is those poles are hiking poles. So it'd be great if you're an ultralight backpacker, but hiking poles aren't much use on a bike. Also keeping dry in the rain involves luck, and digging a trench to avoid water runoff, a big environmental no-no.

Hammock:



Pros: Lightweight, very comfy, appeals to my intrinsic laziness
Cons: Needs trees, makes stealth camping tricky
Reason ruled out: I was seriously, 100% going to do it this way. It's got the same no walls problem that the tarp did, but any decent backpacking one has the tarp and a mosquito net included, so you're more protected from the elements than it might seem. A tent has no real insulation value for heat, and the lack of a tent actually keeps you DRIER by eliminating condensation issues. The problem? A lot of my route goes through some very tree-challenged areas.

A Normal Boring Tent:



Pros: Has walls and a floor. Plenty of room inside. Vestibule to keep my bike under.
Cons: Heavy. Interior condensation can be a problem. Not very "edgy".

It's not exciting, interesting, or apt to impress anyone, but let's face it neither am I. In the end, people usually camp in tents for a reason. Although I haven't come up with a firm packing weight, it's going to be somewhere between 30-40 pounds, and putting together enough stuff to keep you alive for 2 months isn't easy when you've got that little wiggle room. The tent pictured above is the actual one I'll be using (the other pictures are random stuff I found [Except the green tarp, my roomate made that herself and was showing it off] via a Google Images search, and holy shit does some weird stuff come up when you turn SafeSearch off. So basically half the photos were randomly picked. Except not really the bivy sack one, I found the girl in it to be oddly attractive.)

This tent weighs basically 5 pounds when you throw in the footprint. 5 pounds is pretty heavy. Apparently when it comes to tents, from my research, you get to choose two of the three following qualities:

1. Cheap
2. Durable
3. Light

I wasn't terribly interested in spending 500 dollars on a tent, and this tent will suffer some pretty serious pounding over the course of two months, so I ended up having to forgo a light tent. The tent I ended up with a Mountain Hardwear Meridian 2. Mountain Hardwear apparently makes VERY high quality stuff, so this baby should serve me just fine in the durability department, and it's a 2008 model so I got it for a good price on clearance. I chose this model because it's got some good features, especially for someone who is just barely mentally competent on a good day.



You can see the opening above the little window, it lets a lot of air in, which should minimize condensation issues.



There's exactly ONE pole, and it doesn't need to go through those infernal sleeves, the tent just clips to the pole. Pretty sweet, right? Makes it set up in like 3 seconds, and the process is...well, not idiot-proof, we'll say idiot-retardant. (Tee hee!)

In other news, I elected this weekend to rock back and forth enough to heave myself off my pudding-stained couch and actually do one of my "serious" rides. I didn't do it today, because, well, I just didn't feel like it. I can't do it tomorrow because TNT is showing the three Lord of The Rings movies back-to-back-to-back in HD so I'll be stuck inside for about 12 hours*. So I decided to take a day off work on Monday and go do it then. Look forward to my wheezing, out of breath report!








* OH MY GOD just reading that I want to punch myself in the face.

So here's the rub

If there isn't a pool going for what day I'll likely die on this stupid, ill advised trip, there really should be. To help the bookies, here's the part of the trip that I'm thinking is going to be where I have to take regular sitting down and crying breaks.


It doesn't look that bad, right? A nice, relatively straight shot. It looks fairly uphill, but that's merely an optical illusion produced by the Mercator projection style of map, and the fact that "North" and "Up" have the same symbol. But, when one looks closelyer...





Now we leave the familiar yellow background and red lines of the political map and venture into the dark, frightening realm of the topographic map. Those dark green areas mean trouble. Let's look even more closleyer.



That brave little blue line has elected to cross straight through the Rockies. I mean just a straight, who gives a crap shot straight into the heart of that evil, wretched geographical feature. I've crunched number and played around with route all I can, but there's just not very many roads in that area, and there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid this route that doesn't add another 500-1000 miles to the route. Want to see how bad it gets? Let's look even MORE closeleyer! (Is this esoteric, obscure South Park joke doing it for anyone else? No? No one? FINE.)




Do you see that? That's called a "switchback". It exists because if you simply had the road continue straight, the elevation change is so steep you'd be driving at damn near a 45 degree angle upwards. It's ridiculous and there's no reason for it. The Rocky Mountains have no reason for existing there I said it.

Rough Draft of Routing finished

So a little bit earlier than expected, the rough draft of my route is set. It looks a little something like this:

San Diego CA - Tempe AZ 411 miles
Tempe AZ - Fort Collins CO 861 Miles
Fort Collins CO - Alexander KS 440 Miles
Alexander KS - Girard KS 335 Miles
Girard KS - Murphysboro IL 411 Miles
Murphyboro IL - Berea KY 410 Miles
Berea KY - Norristown PA 667 Miles
Norristown PA to Windsor CT 317 Miles
Windsor CT - Boston MA 104 Miles

Total = 3956 goddamn miles.

Or, according to Google, 32,000 Furlongs. Or 6.808972e-10 light years.

San Diego to Tempe, Alexander all the way to Berea, and Norristown to Windsor are all ACA approved and mapped routes, so I'll have nicely laminated maps that show me where I can reasonably expect to camp for the night.

Tempe to Fort Collins, Fort Collins to Alexander, Berea to Norristown, and Windsor to Boston are a little more dicey. As of right now I'm going with a simple Google mapping with the option for "Avoid Highways" selected. This means I'm going to have to get a bit more creative with my camping and stopping options. My fervent hope is that somewhere in Fort Collins and Alexander I'll come across some dilapidated farmhouse where the kindly ranch hands offer me a place to stay, while being expressly forbidden to nail the farmer's beautiful daughter. From my vast experience watching TV, this situation always ends well for everyone.

The ride from Tempe to Fort Collins is going to be a nightmare in its own right that I'll address in some other post when I feel braver. Even thinking about it terrifies me right now.

4000 miles is more than I had originally planned, I'd originally figured I'd go with a straight route where I just go from point A to B. This changed for a couple of reasons. A few people have offered to put me up for the night along the way, so with a quick and minor detour in their direction, I'll have a warm bed, a shower, and with the exception of crashing in Fort Collins, the oppurtunity to steal something cool.

There's benefits to be had here, though. People at the Bike Forums rave about the ACA maps and how easy they make it to plan your day. I'll be able to have the company and support of other bikers as well, BUT I'll have nice extended breaks from well-worn biking routes and the people who frequent them. If I'm any indication, bicyclists are arrogant, obnoxious douchebags who are only bearable in the smallest of doses, so I don't want to surround myself with them ALL the time.

It's not the distance that worries me, it's the time crunch. 4000 miles over 59 days works out to be roughly 67 miles per day, which is a pretty easygoing average ride. However, I can't simply bike every single day. I'm going to need the occasional day off. So I'm roughly planning on this schedule:

Crash in Tempe/Phoenix for 1 day.
Crash in Fort Collins for 2 days
Crash in Girard for 1 day
Crash in Berea for 1 day
Crash in Windsor for 1 day
Spend 3 days in Boston visiting friends and family
Spend 2 days at home recovering and peeing blood.

So that's 11 rest days, out of 59 total, which is roughly 1 rest day every six days. That, again, is a pretty normal ratio from what I've been learning. However now we're talking about doing this over 48 travel days, which works out to 82.5 miles per day.

82 miles per day on average is a VERY high number. There are some freaks who can probably do that while weaving a basket with one hand, but for an out of shape slob like myself that's going to be cutting it extremely close. I can shave off a rest day or two here and there, but there's not much wiggle room in that list.

This is a problem I'm not 100% sure I know how to fix. It's an agressive pace, but not insanely so, so I can't just abandon this route and start over. But I'll have no way of knowing if I'm in shape enough to handle it or not until I'm basically out there. In the end though, I think I have to err on the side of Boldness. Worst case scenario if I scrap this route and start over is that the new route is completely unacceptable for unforseeable reasons. The good part of this proposed routing is that most of it is VERY well travelled by bicycle folks and known to be workable. The worst case scenario if I just say "Fuck it" and go with this route is that I go to hell because I swear too much. The second worst scenario is that I run out of time in like PA or something and have to take the train the rest of the way home. It'd suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Awww Hell Yeah

A week ago, big news came down from the glowing, disembodied head surrounded by fire that is my office manager: My request for a 2 month leave of absence was approved from August 20th - October 15th. What do I intend to do with this time? No, not learn how to brew crystal meth out of my car's trunk. I'm going to hop on my bike and travel from San Diego to Boston.

That's a bicycle, not a motorcycle (which would probably make more sense). And yes, that's me doing this, not a person of even marginally impressive physical fitness (that would also make quite a bit more sense)

I requested the time off basically as a lark, I didn't expect for a second they'd actually approve it. My company is pretty cool, but I didn't think they were THAT cool. Usually leaves of absence are reserved for getting married or having a nervous breakdown or something.

So now I've got 7 months to plan this, get into shape, save up a lot of money and vacation time, and settle all of my affairs in case a bear eats me on the way. It's quite the list of stuff to do. I decided to make this my hybrid training/planning journal and journal kept on the way itself. It's not going to be the most updated journal of all time, as there will be months during training where I'd write nothing but "I biked 15 miles today as a test and my left kidney ruptured oh God I'm so doomed" and various points on my trip where even the unlimited, omniscient reach of THE INTERNETS cannot find me. So basically it'll be like that ...other... blog I used to write in, except now when it doesn't get updated for 11 months at a time people can and should assume I died.

I've kind of formed a rough plan of what I need to do beforehand, and in what order:

By the end of January:
- Buy a bike
- Pick an NPO to start talking with about sponsorship
- Plan a rough budget for the next 10 months
- Decide how I'm going to pick a route (Whether I use ACA maps, Google Maps, releasing from San Diego a pigeon captured in Boston and following it, etc...)
- Sell car

By the end of March:
- Decide on how to outfit the bike (Components, panniers vs a trailer, blah blah)
- Have relationship with whatever NPO established so I can start collecting
- Performed at least 1 60 mile day trip

By the end of June
- Have final draft of route planned
- Perform at least 1 80 mile day trip
- Convert bike from commuting to touring componentry
- Start loading bike fully during commuting for practice

By August 15th
- Perform a 100 mile day trip
- Have packing list completed and all supplies purchased/stowed
- Find Cat-sitter
- Invent new breakfast cereal

I'll start by addressing the first "Huh?" response this list likely elicited. Yes, I'm selling my car and going bike-only. There's a multitude of reasons I shouldn't be driving at this point, but I'll focus on two here.

#1. I am supremely, utterly lazy. I can realistically see myself driving to work every day and not even touching the damn bike until August, and then desperately trying to will myself into shape for this. I'm planning on doing 70-80 miles a day, including going straight through the horrible, accursed Rocky Mountains, and I need to get in every single bit of training I can, starting now. With the car still in the picture, that's not gonna happen.

#2. Tucson is rated like #3 or #4 in terms of "bike friendly" cities in the entire country. Getting to work, the store, the local S&M leather hangout, is all very easy. There's no excuse to not ditch the car. I'm going to be biking through downpours, 110 degree heat, and 40 degree cold at various points on this trip, so if I can't hack it for a 9.1 mile commute to work, I'm certainly not going to be able to do it over the course of several thousand miles. Therefore, no car.