Off-bike preparations

Getting my legs and brain in shape for this ride is obviously a big part of my training but there is a lot more to it than that. There is gear to collect, campsites to reserve, altitudes to calculate, and routes to nail down.

So far my gear collecting has been super on the cheap, which is nice cuz....you know...recession and all. I got a 4 dollar water bottle cage at Target the other day and a 24 dollar tent on sale. I also got a 29 dollar wind shell jacket on sale. I'm borrowing a bike rack and panniers (thank you Heather Bendyshoe.) I found a camping stove in our garage which we got for our wedding and had forgotten about. I also found a camping espresso maker. (Woo! That may prove to be the single most important bit of gear I carry! Or at least the most likely to save my life!)

On the still to find really cheap list is an inflatable pad to sleep on, perhaps a handle bar bag, cookware, and I think I'm going to get new tires and tubes before I go cuz my current ones have been wonderful, but have about 1500 miles on em. I think they are going to get an honorable discharge before I leave.

I'm going to be camping on the way down and all the campgrounds have biker-hiker walkup sites that are about 4 bux a night. Day 4 I roll into Harris Beach State Park where Michelle and Ruby will meet me and we have booked a Yurt for two nights. Woo! Yurt! The Yurt has heat and....wait for it....cable television, you just have to provide the television. We...uh...won't. All the sites I'm staying at have hot showers, which will be awesome at the end of a long day. Most of them have 24 hour vegan donut carts as well.

No they don't.

So far so good!