Date: 2007-03-16
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Miles today: 0.0

An update; This adventure was just meant to be. It's been a lot of work getting everything in order, but things have fallen into place nicely.....and the final details are all coming together very easily too. It's going to be almost 4 months between the time I finished my last long walk and the beginning of this cruise across America.....and back. That's much too much idle time for me. I mentioned I had acquired a riding partner in my last entry and that I would reveal who that person was in this entry. It's.......get ready for this name because this will be the only time I write it in it's entirety; Mrs Cynthia Taylor-Miller aka Mrs Gorp aka Yolanda Vega. I knew she had talked about doing a bike ride this year and maybe that's what got me thinking again about doing one myself, but she had said she was going to ride from Oregon to Virginia and couldn't start until the first of July. I would have loved to do that ride with her, but I didn't want to wait until July. When I got home after walking the Appalachian Trail last December, things started falling into place for me to do a cross country ride starting late March or early April. Anyway, to shorten a long story a bit, when Mrs Gorp found out when I was leaving, she begged me to let her come along. That's my story and I'm sticking to it....no matter what she says. :-))   I've been reading a few bike journals to get an idea of what to expect and I've been busy ordering the different type of clothes that goes along with a bicycle. The screaming yellow jerseys to be more visable, the tights with the padding in them for the skinny little bike seat, a wider bike seat for my, ummmm, wider seat. :-)) Bike shoes that snap into the peddles of the bike, This idea was new to me and if you're not paying attention to what you're doing, it could be dangerous. When you stop, you have to make sure you disengage the cleats from the peddle or something is going to hurt when you hit the ground. I wasn't sure how I would like being attached to a bike like that, but it really has energy saving advantages and instead of pushing down on a peddle like a piston, you can use different muscles and pull through each peddle revolution.....hard to explain, but works nicely. When I was a kid, no one wore helmets, but now it's just part of biking. Mrs Gorp wrote and told me about a bike helmet that she got for $180.00. I looked at them, thought about them, shopped around for a better price, went and tried a few on, thought some more and finally decided my head was only worth half of what she spent. I got a helmet made by the same company for about half what she paid. It's just a little heavier and an '06 model instead of the more prestigious '07 models. I've been riding some here in north Georgia. There are mountains in north Georgia!!! I leave my RV every couple of days and head up the mountain, usually up to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. It takes a while to peddle up a mountain, but you sure do fly when you come down a mountain. :-)) Chief and Xmas were in my area last week doing trail magic for the '07 thru hikers. I knew they were going to be up at Testnatee Gap, so I rode my bike up there. That's a climb!!! I had to stop 3 or 4 times on the way up because my legs were burning. I could hear Chief's voice long before I got to the top. He was busy telling the new thru hikers the "correct" way to walk. I headed down the mountain when they were getting ready to leave. Chief followed behind me in his truck. I think he liked seeing me in those tights. :-)) Well, I didn't have to peddle!! I tucked down in an aerodynamic position and started flying down the mountain. Chief said he was doing 50 mph and I was pulling away a little, but my bike computer clocked me at 49 mph. That's fast on a bike.....and it was fun!!! I just had to make sure I was able to make all the turns in the winding mountain road, but I'm sure I would have been OK because I had on a helmet. :-)) I'm also getting rid on some of the excess stuff I had been thinking about carrying on this trip. I climbed up to Brasstown Bald the other day with fully loaded panniers and was surprised at how much harder it was, so I'm going to be more like when I'm backpacking. I'll carry less stuff. I'm still working on getting a rear view mirror that I like. I've had three different ones and I'm still not completely happy. I have two others in mind and will buy those this weekend and try them. Other than that, I have about two weeks to mess around until the start of this "Roll Across America....And Back". We are leaving Yorktown, Va on April 1st. I want to do 70 miles on our first day and Mrs Gorp wants to do 5 miles. (She lives in Vermont and hasn't been able to ride her bike.....you know, the 2 feet of snow on the ground thing). My thoughts at this time are to update the "bike" portion of this journal about once a week on this long approach (over 8000 miles) to the beginning of my sobo thru hike which I hope to start by September 1st, then go back to my regular day by day hikng journal. That way it's more like a preparation update for my sobo thru hike and hopefully Leif and Zipdrive won't yell at me. :-)) Oh yeah, I've already talked to Ol' Man and Navigator and made arrangements to leave my bike with them in Millinocket, Maine over the winter while I walk back to Georgia. They just bought the Appalachian Lodge and Appalachian Cafe in Millinocket.