Breakfast with Dan

Nate and I had a delicious breakfast with my good friend Dan this morning at the Iron Horse Hotel here in Milwaukee.  He currently lives in Boulder, Colorado and as we were consuming Wisconsin-sized proportions of oatmeal, poached eggs, pancakes, and an omelet, he stated that he'd meet up with us while we make our way through Colorado in August.  I'm holding him to it.

With that being said, if any friends, family members, or unknown weirdos want to meet up with us while on the route, feel free to drop us a line.  You can enjoy watching us eat copious amounts of food in some local diner while we relay our accounts of being chased by rabid dogs or stampeded by a herd of cattle.

Hope to hear from you!

It's All Going to Fit...I Swear

Here's my bike with all the bags on it.  You can see that the handlebar harness bag will hold my sleeping bag and perhaps the tent.  The triangle-shaped bag is the frame bag and Nate's frame bag will hold the tent poles.  We're trying to work out how the Super Twinkie (the bag that hangs off the seat) is going to stay off my rear tire.  I think Nate and Ian, from Cory the Bike Fixer, are going to design some sort of support.  Going for a ride today--it's 66.

Epic Design Bags

The doorbell rang Monday morning, and there was our little bundle of joy from Anchorage, Alaska.  I can't really imagine fitting all of our gear into these eight bags, but whatever.  We will make it work.  Eric from Epic Designs even included a little handwritten note in the box.  I love it when people do that.  If you go to his site, check out his videos of him rafting with his bike on the raft.  Crazy.

I was reading some other GDR biker's blog and he was reflecting on his experience of being picked up in New Mexico after he competed his journey.  He wished he had packed clean change of clothes along with a belt because he had lost 25 pounds during the two months he was riding.  Jebus.  That's serious weight loss.  He commented that it was fat, plus a lot of muscle.  I've definitely got chub to lose before the trip.

Bear Phobia

I haven't had a bear attack dream in a while, but I've been thinking about it lately.  Perhaps this is due to the warmer weather.  I'm not sure if I have a phobia of being attacked (which, by the way, there isn't a name for--I checked) or what the deal is, but it sucks.  I searched for "bear attacks," and stumbled across this nicely organized list of fatal bear attacks in North America in the past century or so.  Glad to see that Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado have made the list multiple times.

There are some pretty dumb incidents, though.  For example: Munson had been feeding bears for ten years, though repeatedly warned by wildlife officials.  

Thanks to Nate for purchasing UDAP ultra bear spray with chest holsters.  I'll post a photo of me in full bear spray attire soon.

Woodchipper Handlebars

Here's my Fargo complete with Ay-Up lights, Woodchipper handlebars double wrapped with leather tape over gel cork tape.  Robyn has the same thing on her bike, and of course, she thinks this is overboard, but I'm sure she'll appreciate it on the ride.  We're waiting for our bags to come in from Eric from Epic Designs!

Inspirado

On June 12, Nate and I are hauling our 2 Salsa Fargo bikes out to Banff to begin what we've dubbed as our second honeymoon. The plan is to bike from Banff to the Colorado/New Mexico border in about 65 days along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, or GDR, for short.

The idea for this began at the Museum of Vancouver's biking exhibit while on our first honeymoon in August of 2009. I have always wanted to bike across the United States (i.e. from the Atlantic to the Pacific), and pitched the idea to Nate as we were walking around the exhibit. I'm a schoolteacher and he's in grad school, so the timing of doing it the following summer seemed logical. We've got no kids, no pets, no mortgage...it's a window of opportunity that we can't pass up.