Sweet Pensacola

I was all smiles for the last 20 miles- despite the record setting rainfall and unseasonably low temps, and despite the ever present 30 mph headwinds. My odometer clicked over to 1350 mi just as I crossed into Pensacola, the final day of the Atlantic leg of my journey. The constant din of passing traffic wears a little less now and has become an accepted and integral component of this trip.

Kitty Hawk, NC

This section is nearly 400 miles longer than I estimated, and I'm surprized that I made it here when I did. There have been so many unknowns. Up to this point I've been traveling totally alone and primarily by road maps that I've picked up in gas stations. I talk to locals and gather beta where I can, some is accurate, some is not. Roads go missing and turn into clay, sand, mud and water and the weather has been relatively strange as far as recent history is concerned. The other day, while talking with a couple in Kolomoki Mounds State Park, Georgia. I told them that I was thinking about pushing to Florida Caverns State Park near Marianna. "Oh you'd better not go there, it's under 8 feet of water!" See, now that's good to know.

The people I meet in passing are intensely curious. "Where did you come from?" "Where are you going?" "Where do you sleep at night?" and most importantly, "Why?" Why? Well, I just wanted to see the country I guess. That's the hardest question to answer. Some are interested in the classical aspect; the distance, time, the calories, the measurable and empirical. Others are interested in the romantic; the beauty, struggle, danger, the mysticism. The scale can be difficult to grasp, even for me. I sometimes get blank stares from people when answering their questions. It's understandable. Here I am explaining that I'm riding my bike 4000 miles across the country to someone who has never left the town that they were born in. There is no frame of reference or context in which the idea can exist. I am forced to see myself from their perspective and for a fleeting moment I feel kind of silly.

And still I push on.  I have a lot of time to think while riding if the traffic is low.  I sing a lot, everything I can think of.  Since I crossed into Georgia, I've had the sound track from "O' Brother Where Art Thou" stuck in my head.  It fits nicely with the endless fields of cotton, peanuts and swamps.  I think about food- I have dreams about food at night and fantasize about how cool it would be if I could photosynthesize sugars or glean nutrients from detritus in the passing air currents like an anemone in a tidal pool- such are the bugs in my teeth.  It would cut my food cost for sure.  I think about my drivetrain, every clink and squeak grabs my attention.  I tweek and adjust the transmission daily to silent perfection and douse everything in teflon based lube.  I think about the motor and everything it needs to run smoothly; all of the nutrients, macro and micro.  Yes, that's me chugging a 32oz carton of half-and-half out side the Piggly Wiggly.  Logs on the fire.

For the next few days I'll have a roof over my head here in P'cola.  I'm staying with Sara, the only other person I know of so far who has also independently decided to bike across before thru-hiking the PCT. Some other Southern Tier-ers should be here soon from St. Augustine.  The whole trip has taken on a different feel.  I'm looking forward to finding out what its like to travel with others.

Rollin' on 26", you know thats how I get my fix.

Transforming my mountain bike into a long distance touring machine has gone well thus far.  Here's what I've got:

 It's almost ready to go except for the tires and bottle cages.  I've ordered the tires already- 26" specialized 'armadillos'.  There have been reports of people riding across the country on them with no flats at all.. I like that.

I had to fabricate this special bracket that bolts onto my brake mount in order for my rear rack to clear my brake calipers.  This was the only real problem that I ran into with trying to carry gear on a mountain bike frame.

In-line barrel adjusters for brakes and shifters.  I found that fluctuations in temperature throw off shifting and braking ever so slightly, and these are nice for minor adjustments on the road.

The drop bars are Salsa Bell Laps.  With my body frame I should get 44 cm wide bars (I'm 6'1" and 160 lbs.) but that would be for racing- this is touring, so aerodynamics be damned!  The wider bars (46 cm) help to open up the lungs for more oxygen.

The shifters are bombproof Shimano SL-BS77's, the brake levers are Cane Creek Drop V's, and I put on a shorter stem for a minor correction in geometry, now I'm not as hunched over.  The handle bar tape is Bontrager double gel.

One of my bike shop buddies recently said to me "I can't believe you are going to ride a MOUNTAIN BIKE across the country! And with THOSE shocks!!"  Yes, I've decided to keep my huge front shocks even though they weigh a lot.. You never know when you will be riding along and hit something that makes you wish you had front suspension, like a huge pothole, or a cliff.

Training.. oh yeah.

With 3.5 months left until the journey begins, it's way past time to begin breaking in muscles for the 6,600 miles of road and trail to come.. My job has kept me in decent shape on my bike, but fitness in cycling doesn't necessarily translate to fitness for backpacking.  Also working 2 jobs and going to school full time for 2 majors leaves little room for training.  I'll take what I can get. 

I'm starting to get that buzzy feeling that I felt when my AT thru-hike was just around the corner.  It's easy to get lost in the maps, the distance and scale, the little blue and red lines that are but mere symbols of an epic adventure- innumerable unforeseen challenges await. There are many blank spots in the Western US, places that seemingly contain nothing at all, places that the rest of the world seems unconcerned with or unaware of- I'll be walking through many of these areas.  The Mojave desert, the High Sierras etc.. the most wonderful places on this earth cannot be accessed by vehicle. Thank God.

The gear is coming together well, though every time I think about something that I “need” I feel like a total yup’. I bought a headlamp today, a sweet new petzl that I'm wearing right now.  It was a $36 semi-impulse buy because it was really cool. Don’t judge. I had store credit. Step back. 

                                                     Azaleas in the high country
By the way…

Thanks a lot ‘Grandma Gatewood’ for showing up everyone from the very beginning.  This woman thru-hiked the AT 3 times with a homemade sack full of her gear slung over one shoulder.  She carried an old army blanket, a raincoat and a shower curtain for shelter.  And what of modern hikers and the outdoor industry?  “Most people are pantywaists” she said. Word.
But really, where does it end? First it’s a headlamp that you think you have to have, next it’s some tiny robot that cooks for you, sets up your tent and clips your toenails and you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.  It’s a slippery slope.

Birds eye view

You can click on the link over on the right side of your screen now to get the google earth files of the Southern Tier and the Pacific Crest Trail. I try not to look at them too much.. I don't want to know everything about the trip before it happens. I'll get there when I get there.

I don't have that good of a map of the Atlantic leg to post yet- I'm really looking forward to that section. Something about getting up early in the morning while it's still dark and watching the sunrise over the Atlantic with the sound of frosty waves crashing against the frozen sand and sleeping amongst the sea oats sounds really great to me.

I went to my Local Bike Shop (LBS) and told Bill, the mechanic, that I was looking for some cone wrenches (used for working on wheel bearings). He told me that there are 36 different sizes! Well, hell. And then he told me that there are over 108 different sizes of seat posts.. So much for standard measurements in the bike industry. Bike parts can go obsolete almost as fast as computers it seems too. I figured it's time so clean my wheel bearings since I've never done it before, its probably due time, and those are parts you definitely don't want to malfunction on a 4000 mile tour. I disassembled my Crank Bros. pedals yesterday to regrease the bearings and found that they where totally shot! They had been rusted out and crushed to a rusty mud colored powder. Time for new pedals, I guess.

The Route

Somehow I am finding it hard to justify spending $120 on maps from the Adventure Cycling Association for my route across the US. The budget for this trip will be extremely tight- I may have enough to spend one night in a hotel but that's it. Several hours worth of googling came to fruition when I stumbled upon a southern route mapped out on google earth! Free.99 hell yes.

Damn you, Oceans.

I haven't figured out a way to post a link to the actual google earth file yet, but you can click on the picture to see it better. I also need to figure out how to measure the routes.. All together I'm guessing about 6,600 miles. The Atlantic leg from Virginia is turning out to be about 975 miles long- longer than I thought. And in February will probably be colder than I think. The entire bike route will go through many major cities along the way (Tallahassee, New Orleans, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, San Diego etc..) and I'm hoping I can at least shoe horn my way through the most crowded areas, if not I can always skirt around them, and I'm hoping the coast will be mostly tourist free during the winter.

And also, thanks to the Adventure Damascus bike shop and "yard sale Larry" for the free bottle cages!

I still need a few key items before I can say that I'm ready to leave in Feb: My handlebars are still waiting to be ordered by the bike shop in Abingdon, I need some sort of cycling computer to track mileage, waterproof shoes of some kind (Keen?), rain shell pants, armadillo tires, a small dry sack, extra spokes and.... probably a few other things I won't think about until I've already left.
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The leaves are already changing in the higher elevations up near Mt. Rogers and the spirit of fall is here now- that ancient feeling that you hope you've stockpile enough nuts and berries to last you through the winter. It is a sense much like that of preparing to settle into a deep sleep at the end of a long day, and yet there is an urgency in the cold winds that will soon bring the forest into its annual quiescence.

A new plan..

This summer I bought my ice axe for the PCT.. and I hung it on my wall because it looks cool. Whats not cool, though, was that it would have to remain on my wall unused for a year and a half before it ever saw any serious snow or ice. How sad.
However, I've decided that I can't put off the PCT any longer, but I'm still going to do my bike trip across the US, so here's the deal..

I'll be leaving the coast of Virginia around Feb 1st, and biking down coastal NC and SC to avoid frostbite. I'll then cut west through Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. It should total about 3700 miles. That puts me in Southern California in time at about April 1st, just in time to start the PCT, another 2600 miles on foot from Mexico to Canada via California, Oregon, and Washington. Preparation starts now, route mapping, gearing up/down, food and oh yeah.. graduating.