Shifting Gears

DAY 6: 9/25 Gila Bend, AZ 92 miles to Scottsdale, AZ. High of only 92! – Our original plan (as laid out in “The Route” blog) was to break this ride into 40 miles one day to Goodyear on the west side of the greater Phoenix area and then do 50 miles the next day to Scottsdale. But since we took an unplanned day of rest in Wellton, we opted to combine them into a single challenging day as we had a much needed reward awaiting us!  We had hoped to begin by 5:30am but because of last night’s “deflate-gate” (not the NFL Tom Brady kind) we pushed it back and set out 6:24am. The first 40 miles were what we imagined when we were back home. Beautiful desert scenery and still cool in the early morning especially with some cloud cover before the clouds burn off. (If that’s what clouds do?)The riding was comfortable.  On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…( well, if I had hair)  The cacti started to have personalities to me. Some were friendly and others had that look of a han...

DAY 5: 9/24/21 Wellton, AZ 91 miles to Gila Bend, AZ in a high today of merely 92! – Editor's note: for those following along, day 4 was a rest day, so there was no blog post. Welcome back!   After our previous setbacks, we were determined to attack the heat today. For one we started out at 5:08am. Most of our riding was due east on either old state highway 80 or Interstate 8. After a quick gas station pit stop to top off our liquids at 6:30am, we rode directly into a beautiful sunrise. In the mountain range in front of us there was a notch seemingly cut out straight ahead where the sunlight shone through. It was also wonderful to reason that we would cross through these mountains at the notch without intense climbing. Phew! Sunrise through the notch  A quick note on hydration: it’s not like we didn’t think about hydration in our planning. Before leaving home I had replaced our water bottles from standard capacity with oversized ones that carry 32 ounces, bought two one l...

DAY 3: 9/22/21 El Centro, CA to Wellton, AZ 95 miles, top temperature 108 (108! no typo!!) – So what do two type A personalities do after getting whipped riding 83 miles in a high of 102?  Since looking at the forecast even before leaving New York, today’s ride loomed as a difficult personal challenge. To get a head start on the heat, we started out 5:49am with our lights on in the dark. It was an amazingly peaceful start with cool air. I love cycling eastwards heading straight to the sunrise. It’s as if the whole world is dark and we were cycling ahead to the one place of light.  After 90 minutes of serenity-now kind of riding where I’m in the zone, we came to a farm home on the left and I saw a large, black muscular dog running along side in the same direction we were riding, behind a high chain-link fence. The fence comforted me greatly. Then suddenly at the end of the yard, holy crap the dog was on the road and coming at me. The fence only ran in the front, the yard and wa...

 DAY 2: 9/21/21 Pine Valley, CA to El Centro, CA. 83 miles, top temperature 102!  Mindful of yesterday’s heat that knocked us out and today’s forecast even hotter, we decided to get going a full hour earlier today and started rolling at 6:15am. This meant waking at 5:15am as our morning routine takes about an hour. This consists of eating breakfast (cereal, banana and yogurt bought at gas station), filling water bottles (adding electrolyte pill), making lunch to go (in my case PB and banana on rye), packing paniers strategically so items we may need are more accessible, as well as trying to make sure right side and left side are close to even balanced, attaching lights and Garmin after recharging, applying both sunscreen and of course Chamois Butter. Isn’t that last item a nice, marketing name for what’s essentially anti-chafing butt cream? Although sunrise wasn’t until 6:35am, we already enjoyed some light in the sky.  Early morning departure Today’s ride could easily be...

DAY 1: 9/20/21 San Diego to Pine Valley, CA. 60 miles, 6,233’ elevation gain total to a max elevation of 4,013’, top temperature 88 – Today was Dickens-like as the best of times and the worst of times. Or put another way, our friend Gail wished me well when we said goodbye last Thursday night with “It sounds miserable but have fun.”  We laughed aloud as it was really funny. I had no clue then how immediate it would ring true as there were times today I felt miserable and at the same time had a blast.  The first 5 minutes of the ride was pleasant enough next to Mission Bay but that calming scenery quickly gave way to concrete and the challenge to get out of such a large city. It didn’t help that each of our Garmin bike computers gave different directions and Google Maps gave yet a third. So we debated (maybe “debated” is a euphemism) multiple times which route to follow. Funny how after 30+ years as a couple, this debate even continues when we both agree and often resolve that ...

DAY 0: 9/19/21 2446 miles JFK to SAN by Jet Blue; 16.2 miles by bike – After months of anticipation and planning, the big day went pretty much as planned. Flew JFK to SAN, took Uber to Trek store in Solana Beach (thank you Antoinette, 53 year old grandmother of 5!) and picked up our bikes that we shipped about 10 days ago. Thank you Mike and crew for reassembling our bikes! TREK Bicycle Superstore And then just as we were out their door it started. Other cross country cyclists had told us that people are going to start talking with you and asking you all about what you’re doing. An older couple was intrigued and we spoke for ten minutes and heard about their ride down the Danube. How many random encounters like this will we have and what memories will result? The plan was for a short ride to make sure the bikes were functioning well. The bonus was that we enjoyed a beautiful ride down the coast through Delmar, Torrey Pines State Park, UC San Diego area and to our hotel. The ride offere...

The Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) created the TransAmerica bike route in 1976, in honor of the USA Bicentennial. It runs 4,218 miles from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia. They since added the Northern Tier, 4,293 miles from Washington to Maine; and the Southern Tier 3,022 miles from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL. Hundreds of riders do them annually. As we ride from mid-September through mid-November, weather dictated the Southern Tier as our choice. The others would become too cold. Not to mention, the Southern Tier is enough of a challenge at 1,000 fewer miles! We bought the ACA 7-part printed map set. ACA Southern Tier Maps Most blogs I read were cyclists going west to east and I think I’ve read about 80% of bikers go that way. The idea of prevailing winds going west to east are correct when flying thousands of feet in the air as flights east are faster than those flying west. But from blogs I read it seems down on the ground we are just as likely to have winds blow ...

While I had done lots of biking including multiple century rides (rides of over 100 miles) and actually led a 5-week bike trip in Europe in my late 20’s in 1992, I really had not been doing much biking until buying this bike in the fall of 2018.  Our initial idea was we would ride about 65 miles a day, with one day off a week and take about 7 weeks to cover 3100 miles from Pacific to Atlantic. We figured we’d carry about 20 pounds of gear each. At first eager to see if I could handle a loaded bike, I borrowed Ken’s panniers (saddlebags) and loaded each side with a 10-pound dumbbell and rode 20 to 30 miles with this total of 20 pounds. It turned out I was the dumbbell! That wasn’t such a great idea as my knee started to ache and I had set out too ambitiously. Dialing it back, after some rest I started riding with just 2 pounds per side (4 total) a few times per week and would increase my distance each ride. Every 2 weeks or so I’d add a pound per side. Now since I didn’t have a supp...

In August 2018, Heather & I cycled for a week through Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia through what’s known as the Cabot Trail. This was a spectacularly beautiful ride through a part of Canada that is culturally unique in its blended heritage. There were some crazy climbs that challenged every fiber of my being. Somewhere in those challenges and lost in the beauty something happened that week that changed my life! I decided then that I’d like to stop working full-time 2 years later in August 2020 when our youngest Matt would head off to college and we’d be empty nesters. I wanted to spend much more time outdoors hiking and biking. You could say I wanted to SHIFT GEARS! Oh to do that I needed to buy a bike as I hadn’t owned one in many years! I had rented one for that trip and had done all my training rides indoors on my trusted Lifecycle stationary bike. I went out and bought a bike and a new love affair was born. My ride is Trek FX S4, a hybrid as I prefer cycling more upright for ...