Chapter 3

      The Plan, the Pain!

      Being a mild winter in Connecticut that year, I rode almost on a daily basis to train. I logged somewhere in the neighborhood of three thousand miles on the area hills near my home. I was developing trouble with my hands and wondered if all the riding was the cause. I was forced to see a hand surgeon after I was unable to hold a fork to eat any longer, and my fingers had curled under on both hands. The surgeon did what most people would call carpal tunnel syndrome surgery on one hand and ligament relocation on the elbow. After three weeks’ recovery, he did the same on my other side. This required my not riding during a period of healing time which I hoped would not be detrimental to my early spring plans for a departure. During this period of downtime I studied and accounted for every mile that I would ride on the Google Maps application. I studied and logged into a handwritten logbook all the available motels, campgrounds, and hostels along the route I would be riding. I studied the prices of each as well as the reviews listed online. I searched for every available food stop as well as places where I could buy fluids along the way and logged them down, including the distances from one to the next. I planned on carrying this logbook with me as a quick reference guide, enabling me to make daily plans for lodging, as well as the distances that I would need to ride. I studied the map systems that I purchased to get a good understanding of things I might encounter such as elevation changes and distances from one location to the next. These were some of the various things that I needed to consider, as I made my plans each evening for my attempted ride the next day.

      I slowly studied each item of gear that I needed to carry and purchased them as I could afford it. I studied ways to eliminate the weight I would need to carry before I made a decision to purchase anything. Up to this point in time, I had not ridden with more than twenty or so extra pounds of weight. I had not carried things like extra water, a sleeping bag, tent, and so forth which could considerably add weight. My climate research indicated that I would have to ride clockwise around the country in order to stay in a favorable climate. This meant leaving from my home in Connecticut and heading south toward Florida no later than April 1. After reaching Florida, I would head west toward California knowing that I would have to cross through the hottest desert areas prior to June 1 in order to beat the majority of the heat. From there I could head north up the Pacific Coast to Washington State, and then back east toward the coast of Maine, then down to Connecticut. If I averaged seventy miles per day, I could get home in six months, avoiding the colder approaching winter months that the northeast experiences. This sounded good on paper!

      My son had a 3.5-pound 1-person tent, which I borrowed, and although a bit heavier than I wanted, it cut down on my expenses. I opted to use a bivy bag rather than carry the extra weight of a sleeping bag, as my research showed a good amount of lodging choices down the first part of the trip when I might experience the coldest of temperatures. This meant ounces rather than pounds. I cut the handle off my razor to eliminate the extra weight. I would bring the smallest toothbrush I could find as well as a travel-size toothpaste tube. I already had a miniature My Pillow-type pillow which I could knead down into a small pouch. I have always used this type of pillow since my neck surgery with wonderful results.

      My cycle came standard with rear racks, so I mounted a front rack so that I could carry four panniers with my gear. I purchased a handlebar-mounted bag to carry things like my cell phone, reading glasses, gloves, snack bars, dog mace, and other lightweight items. It had a weather shield sleeve where my maps would stay dry and handy to look at as I went along as needed. The rear of my bike had an over-fender rack to which I mounted a rear pack. This pack held heavier items such as my cycle tools, chain lubricant, rag, air morph lightweight pump, tube and tire patching kit, temporary spoke repair kit, sunscreen, insect repellant, cold-weather balaclava, winter gloves, and a locking cable to use for locking the cycle at stops. I mounted a high-intensity headlight over the front fender and a high-intensity red strobe light to the rear. Both of these items were rechargeable by a USB plug-in port which used the same cable, again to carry less weight. I purchased the lightest pannier bags I could find that were still weather resistant. I mounted a canister of bear mace by Velcro just to the rear of my seat for quick access. Two dog/people mace canisters were carried under the front map reader for quicker access.

      Mounted on my handlebars (one on each side) were two odometers that told me many things, including temperature, speed, average speed, total distance, time, and so on. The one mounted on my left side acted as a reset odometer which I would constantly reset as my maps told me how far it would be to the next turn. As I would arrive at a turn, I would reset the odometer so I knew how far it would be until my next change of direction or road turn. This would hopefully help keep me from making any wrong turns. The odometer on my right acted as a total mileage counter as well as a clock. I would carry my journal in the front handlebar bag to have as a reference to food and lodging stops. My plan was to tear off and dispose of each page after they were no longer of use, again to lighten the load. I kept this in a ziplock plastic bag to ensure it would stay dry. I carried two spare tires along with two spare tubes in addition to a tube/tire repair