Landed in Seattle

How did we know it was Seattle? Casual west coast dress, casual west coast tattoos. And this:

We've been packing our panniers from our checked in boxes. 4 bags to hold out belongings for the next 3 weeks:

Gabe's friend has very generously let us use his apartment as a basecamp. We're close to the ferry over to Bremerton, where we'll start out biking. 

For dinner, we ate at a fairly excellent Mexican joint. Already a notch above anything in Boston.

8/31 pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/105909573807230408134/BikeTour831?authkey=Gv1sRgCJXRgvb8je2rjAE

Next day

rule 1: survive

In racing, they tell you the most important goal is to finish. The same applies to our trip. The foremost thought for us must be to get to San Francisco on time and in one piece. If that means taking time to fix up a bike, or resting for a few hours because we're really tired, or buying food to eat at a gas station, we'll do it.

I haven't slept well the past 3 nights. It's a mix of superego excitement and id dread. While we are very prepared for this trip, there are undoubtedly large risks in some aspects of it. Between the lack of sleep and anticipation of the unknown, I find myself drained and on edge sometimes, hit with sudden upwellings of emotion. The best cure for all this will simply to start the trip. To live on the move for 3 weeks.

Our bikes are built and waiting* in Seattle. Let us start the journey.

*the end to end shipping and build time at this busy time of the year was about 2 weeks. We had a couple days to spare.

packing and waiting

I'm 90% packed for this trip. Just have to hop on the plane on Saturday. Definitely very ready, mentally and physically. Once I get over there, I won't have the luxury of blogging from a computer. I have to get used to writing very compactly, to save battery power and time.

time to tan

Having trained all summer, I know how nice a farmer's tan you can get from a tight-fitting bike jersey. This poster sums it up elegantly:

Except I would slather up double if I was gonna get in the pool. Skin cancer is no joke, and I've been told that the kinds of exposure I've already taken are really bad, so no more burns for me. I got some super duper 60spf L'Oreal sunscreen that they sell in Canada for this trip.

The Pink Cap

Gabe and I were talking about bike subculture and I mentioned we should do something like the yellow jersey, something that can change hands day to day. We worked this out:

This cap is worn all day by the guy, who, on the previous day, complained the most. The guy who complains the most will be determined by vote at night in camp. Since there's 3 of us, it shouldn't be hard to settle. So you'll be able to tell from our pics who had it the roughest the previous day.

I'll probably be wearing it any day after a rainstorm in camp. I probably need to brush up on interesting sites in Williamsburg and which beers to scorn the most [as wearing cycling caps for fashion is/was a hipster stereotype].

Getting into the subculture

Before this trip, I didn't know anything about bike mechanicals. So I pored over the couple of threads on my fave forum to learn through osmosis. I definitely picked up on a lot of important mechanical info, but I also was taken aback by the very sophisticated culture (both sincere and tongue-in-cheek) surrounding bike aesthetics. Parts of this aesthetic are completely practical, like using the right bike for the job (contrast to hoofing an ill-fitting mountain bike to work every day). Other parts verge on eye-rolling. I still consider myself an outsider to the culture, I guess.

I remember the first few long rides I took, I was in board shorts and a compression shirt. I actually did some of these rides in my mountain bike, bombing over bumps and cracks in the road. I took pleasure in outpacing people on nice road bikes and serious kit. But I knew I had to get with the program and start training for the actual tour. This meant getting bike shorts (with the padded seat) and a bike jersey with pockets on the back. Eating energy bars while riding. Taking the water bottle off the down tube cage and drinking on the move. That sort of thing. Within 2 weeks' time, I had some of my own outrageously loud gear. I was already over that poser edge. 

Now I read the bike thread all the time, casting internet scorn on people who come in asking for basic help on picking a bike but not having a clue. My eyes wander to every bike on the street, evaluating each for condition, componentry, and aesthetic integrity. As I mentioned to a friend, this is that manic, frenzied phase of getting into a new hobby where you can't stop consuming enough of it. I mean, hell, I recorded and watched the whole Tour de France. 

Gabe and I routinely take the piss out of the serious parts of the subculture, while Matt stays willfully aloof. 

How do our rides stack up? Lemme take a stab:

Jamis Aurora Elite (my actual bike):

Really nice matched two-tone effect at the saddle and handlebars. Classic contrast branding on the downtube. Fenders are for freds. Disc brakes butch it up a bit, recalling cyclocross.

Trek 520:
Boriiiing. Much like Matt's fashion sense.

Novara Randonee:

The casual stem angle and stack of spacers on the steerer tube reek of old British dude. The paint job is great and the matching browns are good. The brads on the seat finishes off the classic bike look. Shiny chrome stem might be unwelcome under the noon sun.

Ultimately, these bikes are meant to do a job and not to look good, so their aesthetics can be forgiven.

Oh yeah, and the aesthetics will be just ruined when we run front and rear panniers on these things.

Bikes, bikes, bikes

I leapt into the world of bike touring as fast as I could. If you know me, this is the shop til you drop phase. While my budget wasn't extremely limited, I wasn't about to go buy a $2000 sick-ass custom-built LotR-referencing touring bike, much less a $5500 one. I looked around on eBay and found a marked down Jamis Aurora Elite, in muted blue. It happened to be semi-local, 2 hours away in Amherst. It was quite hellish to go check the bike out, as my car's slave cylinder decided to die in the bike shop's parking lot, forcing me to stall multiple times going through Amherst college limping along in 4th gear. And I couldn't even fit the bike in the car.

I eventually got back there and squeezed the bike into my other car. I was very excited. I didn't know the first thing about serious bikes. They had to teach me how to use the brifters when I test rode it.

So I got a bike for just over $1000. Matt ended up getting a new Trek 520, a pretty popular model for touring. Gabe went down to REI and got their house brand touring bike, the Novara Randonee. All three were more than enough hardware to get us through the trip. Now we had to start riding them and owning them. I'm a big fan of Top Gear, and our trip premise was fast shaping up to be like one of Top Gear's travel specials, where the hosts pick out 3 different cars, praising the merits of their own rides while looking down on the others'. Yeah, it was good that we all had different bikes. I'm sure their personalities will really show up when we are touring. If you haven't watched Top Gear's Vietnam Special, drop everything and watch it. 

FWIW, I test rode a Surly Long Haul Trucker in 55cm and 57cm, but it didn't feel as good as the Aurora. It handled a lot better, but just didn't feel as solid. Because the Aurora had been sitting in shop for a fewcouple years, it was cheaper but with specced up components, notably disc brakes, which ought to be safer in wet weather. And I did think having brifters would be better for all my training riding around town. 

edit: Now that I think about it, having Elite in the model name was a huge positive in my decision making.

The trip of a lifetime

Matt's doctoring schedule gave him 4 months off this summer. Knowing from way far out that he'd likely get this break, he started thinking about how to take advantage of it. It's not just a month, where you could go on a really cool travel vacation. It's a long span of time to do something you'd never get the chance to do again. I suppose some people go on to lead exciting and unconventional lives, but yeah, I willingly accept my workaday destiny.

When he posed the question to me, I thought quite a while about it. My company had just switched to unlimited vacations, so I could definitely lobby for a long time away. What I came up with was to go to Thailand to train Muay Thai for a month. It would definitely be cool, and definitely the last time my body could handle that kind of physical wear.

Matt said his would be to bike across the country by himself. To be self-sufficient, to see the sights, to test himself. I didn't bite on it, as I hate camping. The 2 days I spent with my family camping out in the Grand Canyon completely burned me the wrong way. I drove Matt over to check out some bikes, but that was as far as I ventured.

Fast forward a few months, and Matt says he's convinced another NCSSM friend, Gabe, to join him. Gabe couldn't get enough time off to pedal across the US, but was in for a Vancouver to San Francisco trip. Well, I still wasn't thrilled about camping but did get won over through the next few days. I conceded and teamed up. It would be three of us high school friends doing one last insane trip. After that, maybe we really wouldn't get to see that much of each other. We would make it count.