A few days ago, Andrew arrived from Perth, Australia making the upcoming trip seem even more imminent. We had a nice bike ride yesterday – Santa Cruz was showing off with absolutely perfect weather. Today we’ve packed our bikes and checked into the flight to El Paso tomorrow.
I spent last week planning and packing, testing and training. I made my final packing list, assembled everything then tried to pack it all onto the bike. That wasn’t so easy and some things like pants, a nice shirt, etc. didn’t end up making the cut. A week ago I loaded nearly every single item onto the bike, packed 4.5 liters of water, dinner, breakfast and a beer, and headed up into the hills in the evening. I found a nice camping spot and tested my new tent and all the other gear. Cooking worked well and my new pad and sleeping quilt were super comfortable. Fog dripped water from the trees onto my tent all night so that was a good test. Riding a 27 kg bike felt surprisingly reasonable. All in all it was a great test run.
Last weekend I did a local annual tour called Strawberry Fields Forever. I had never done the 100 mile version so signed up for that. My friend Steve decided to join and it was great riding the whole thing together. And I didn’t feel tired or sore the next day.
Here’s hoping that Daniel and Wytze make it from Europe with their bikes and Andrew and I have smooth travel tomorrow. The adventure begins!
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