It is coming up fast on us, on all of us. Jim and I fly to Bar Harbor, Maine on September 16 to start our cycle adventure down the East coast. And once again I will be absent from my family for an extended period of time, which seems to be harder on them than it is on me. "Have you seen the lawn? Someone needs to cut it, where's Dad?", or "The pool is turning green. Why is our pool boy cycling down the East coast?" Last year I spent three months in Guatemala on a mission trip and when I returned I was firmly told I would not be allowed to take another extended trip like that again, no way!
But here I am again, less than two months from RTR (Ready To Roll) on our East coast cycling tour. Jim estimates it will take eight weeks from when we leave Bar Harbor, Maine until we reach our destination of Key West, Florida. Jim, as usual, is the planning guy on this trip, similar to his role when we cycled from Canada to Mexico on West coast in 2011. I am more the "that's a good plan, even an excellent plan, but may I make a suggestion" guy. And it seems to work well for both of us. Well enough that after pedaling the West coast together, we want to pedal the East coast together. Many of you followed my blog about that ride (CanMexPacRide.blogspot.com) and I hope you follow us on this blog. Note: I am no longer going to name my blog for the event. I was considering a Maine Florida Atlantic title for this blog, but MeFlat does not work for a major bike ride. So I decided to go with MahvelousMahv.blogspot.com for this ride, any future ride, or future fishing trip or future whatever.
Right now Jim and I are debating what we need to bring. We are going to be self supported, but we are not going to camp at our age. We recover for the next day ride during our sleep, and we don't need to be sleeping in the rain, on the ground, or in a tent, setting up and taking down a camp each day. So, we will carry clothing, gear, some food and tools, and trying to keep the weight down. Jim is a minimalist but I was thinking it was probably going to take me about three days on the road before I started looking for a post office and shipped stuff I did not really need back home. However, I have been riding my chromoly Surly with bags and weights, to simulate my load and I think I could easily become a minimalist. There is a huge difference in riding my fifteen pound carbon fiber road bike and my chromoly Surly with racks, panniers and contents; weighing in at a svelte seventy five pounds. Whew! Climbing Tramway is now a physical endeavor, but I also have to get used to being passed by the road bikes. That has been tough on my competitive psyche. For the next month and a half, I will continue to work on fitness and a trimmed down packing list.
