No, not my body weight, but my luggage weight. Crossroads, the ride organizers, don't give a fig how much body mass I'm carting around. That's my problem. They do, however, care a great deal about how much my luggage weighs.
They give each of us 2 small duffel bags. That's all the luggage we can take. The total weight of all our stuff, minus what we carry on the bike, has to be less than 30 pounds. I wasn't sure that I was going to make it. My laptop and carrying case are 10 pounds, and they really frown on bringing them.
I did a sample packing run the other day, and the grand total came to 29 pounds. Never a doubt. I have essentially no frills, just the bare neccessities. I'll post the actual packing list at some point, once I have it finalized, but the only somewhat extra item I'm bringing is a sweatshirt. It looks like I'll be doing laundry every 3 or 4 days!
Sunday, March 18, 2007
7 weeks and counting
Launch day is 7 weeks from today. To be perfectly honest it doesn't seem real yet. I'm reminded of that great scene from the first Lord of the Rings movie.
Aragorn: Are you frightened?
Frodo: yes
Aragorn: You're not nearly frightened enough...
It still seems a little surreal that I'm actually going to ride over 400 miles a week for 7 weeks. No particular day scares me all that much. Maybe the 115 miler across the desert in week one, the day after riding 100 miles. That one is a little scary. But in general the one thing that I worry about is how I'll hold up doing this day after day. I ride 80 miles in a day all the time, but I never follow it up with another 80 miler the next day. I keep hearing that I'll "ride myself into shape". Time will tell. In the meantime I keep thinking that I should be more concerned than I am...
Aragorn: Are you frightened?
Frodo: yes
Aragorn: You're not nearly frightened enough...
It still seems a little surreal that I'm actually going to ride over 400 miles a week for 7 weeks. No particular day scares me all that much. Maybe the 115 miler across the desert in week one, the day after riding 100 miles. That one is a little scary. But in general the one thing that I worry about is how I'll hold up doing this day after day. I ride 80 miles in a day all the time, but I never follow it up with another 80 miler the next day. I keep hearing that I'll "ride myself into shape". Time will tell. In the meantime I keep thinking that I should be more concerned than I am...
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Bike changes
Part of preparing for an adventure like this is making sure that your bike is in tip-top shape. I took my trusty steed into the local bike shop for an overhaul. It didn't really need an overhaul, since it's just a year and a half old. The good news was that they saved me a few bucks since it didn't need much work.
I did make one concession to old age though. I changed my rear cassette to include a 27 tooth low gear, up from the 25 tooth I had been using. It may not sound like much, but that low gear will make hill climbing 10% easier. At some point in the Rockies I'll be pretty happy about that.
I did make one concession to old age though. I changed my rear cassette to include a 27 tooth low gear, up from the 25 tooth I had been using. It may not sound like much, but that low gear will make hill climbing 10% easier. At some point in the Rockies I'll be pretty happy about that.
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