TRAINING

Well, we have five more weeks before we begin our cross country bike trip, and some folks have been asking about "training". Usually my answer is "huh?" accompanied by a puzzled look, but we have been doing some things to prepare. Namely, buying more things. More "stuff". Lighter "stuff", more high tech "stuff". "Stuff" I never would have imagined in a million years that I would own. Like, for instance---I now own a titanium spork. I'm not a big fan of "stuff" in general, and I'm really not into tools that multi-task. I want my toaster to make toast, exclusively. I don't want a toaster that also brews espresso. Ditto on a phone that takes pictures, a camera that records voices, a TV that plays VHS tapes, and on and on and on. I just want a simple product, that will do an exemplary job at a simple task. (Although I still think Maxwell Smart's shoe phone was way cool.) And, make no mistake, I prefer to eat with a separate knife, fork and spoon. I want my cutlery to be handsome, with a friendly grip and some heft to it. Functional, but with good form. And now I have a spork. Because it doesn't weigh very much at all and every gram counts. In addition to my new spork, we also have a new tent (more on that later), I have a new thermarest pad that is both lighter and warmer (?), we've got some spiffy new bikes, and scads of other items.

Besides buying things, we took a little tour across Oklahoma last summer to get an idea of what long distance multi-day riding is like (hard) and we toured with a great group of Adventure Cyclists in the San Juan islands learning "how to" tour fully loaded. We did a little shake down ride up to Duluth that practically killed us last September, and we put the bikes on mothballs until about a month ago. We started riding again when the snow melted and the ice receded!

I've consulted with my friends who have gone cross country, and they've shared their wisdom and advice---Kami, or "Shortcut" as I will soon be calling her, has bought two sets of maps for the Northern Tier and has studied them religiously. She almost found a way to ferry across all the Great Lakes, but that fell through and I found out the other day that we're going to ride through Canada too. I guess this is becoming a multi-national cross continent trek. I just know we're starting in Washington and we're finishing in Maine. The rest is going to be one big, fat surprise for me. Except I think there's a reason for the TWO sets of maps...