Where's the map?

A number of people have asked me where the map for the trip is.
Well, those kind people at the Adventure Cycling Association have pulled this together for me already. Check out their route thatI hope to follow here .....

http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/sierracascades.cfm

Ah....it's no big deal....

My thanks to Peter for his encouragement this morning.  Thirty or so years ago he cycled across the US (East to West, the hard way) and reassured me that my planned 75km a day is perhaps going to be too little.  "What are you going to do with all that day left at the end of the ride?".  Ok, so it's going to be alright for me is it?

Apart from.....the dogs.  These gave Peter some run arounds in the US.  Ummmm.  I hate dogs.  I think I'd rather face the bears than uncontrolled American dogs.

Getting too cocky eh?

Hmmm.  Had a little run with the touring bike on Saturday. Clocked 97km on the roads around Bodmin and the Camelford trail.  That's respectable enough but I had no hills to speak of nor any weight to carry.  The next two days I was feeling all feak and weeble.  Am I going to be up to cycling an average of 75km in the mountains with a fully laoded rig every day for two months. 

Suddenly I am a little less confident........

Now I know how high I am.....

"about five foot eight", I hear you say. 

Yes, ok...but I can now tell how far this is from sea level and, critically, how far I have ascended today.  And I can tell my heart rate, my distance travelled, my cadence, the time to the next waypoint, when the sun rises and sets ("early every morning and every evening" I hear you say...) and lot's more besides.

And if you you don't realise just how satisfying this all is, and just how crucial this is for cycling then, I'm afraid, you just don't understand cycling.

Hurrah for the Garmin 705 bike computer that's arrived this week :)

p.s. am I getting too nerdy?

I've been rumbled.....

Yes, Biddy's now confirmed what she's suspected all along.  This bike tour thing is merely a sophisticated wheeze to buy more bike stuff.

'What's wrong with that?' I hear you say.  Well, um, absolutely nothing really.  There's always really sound, solid and justifiable reasons why a man needs to buy sports equipment and bike gadgets.   And that's just what I am doing, because it's NECESSARY to do so. Honest.

Latest acquisition...a Garmin 705 bike computer that'll make sure I make the rights turns travelling through the towns (even if they are only one-street towns....) of the US. It'll also tell me how high I've climbed and how far I've traveled.  An essential tool, I am sure you will agree.

Ok...next project. How am I going to charge the batteries if they last only 15 hours and I am two days from the nearest source of power.  Do I need to be surfing ebay again for a solar charger?