Cycling Across America
These postings chronicle my bicycle trip from Astoria, Oregon to Clinton, Arkansas during the summer of 2005. The trip follows the Trans-America route as mapped by Adventure Cycling: Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and -- by my own mapping -- across the Ozarks to Arkansas. I'm doing the ride solo, and carring everything that I think I need.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Weighing In
It's about time to turn the bike into the shop for cleaning and packing. Before doing so, I put up the tent -struggling in a 25 mph wind- and repacked the bike now that my tenting and sleeping equpment has been 'decompressed'. Using the family scale, I estimate the total weight of bicycle and gear at seventy pounds. It will be a bit more when I carry food. The Trek 520 lists at 26 pounds, implying 44 pounds of gear - bicycle clothes, street clothes, camping and cooking gear, repair equipment and medicines, camera, maps, telescope, and a few odds and ends. I took the bike out for a short ride with everything attached. It did not seem all that hard to control, so I'll save further practice for Oregon.