Virginia

Virginia was most definitely a learning experience for me. This cross country trip was my first multi-day bicycle trip, and also my first time camping. Lucky for me it turns out I love sleeping outside in my tent. Had I hated it those 2 months would have sucked because I lived out of that thing for the most part. Also lucky for me, I can sleep on basically anything. Bed, floor, grass, concrete, plywood, it's all the same to me. (actually I think i prefer the floor to a bed). In any case, it takes time to get used to living on your bicycle / out of a tent.

We were pedalling anywhere from 5-8 hours a day (our longest day was 9hours in Utah/Nevada) and that's just pedalling time. Stopping to take pictures, rest, and eat are additional. Basically, we had a lot of really long days. Virginia was tough because my body needed to get used to pedalling for so many hours. Lots of leg pain, knee soreness, butt soreness, and some elbow soreness. While riding the butt pain was most noticeable and at night when laying in my sleeping bag the leg soreness was most noticeable.

Virginia was surprisingly hilly. The peaks weren't high compared to what we'd see out west but we were constantly gaining and losing elevation especially as we crossed the Appalachian mountains. We had a wide variety of places to stay while traveling through VA ranging from Kiki's friends houses, a fire station, free hostel, camping behind churches/fire houses, and 1 motel because of weather. I also inadvertently started what would become a state by state "stuffed animal crane machine challenge" In a gas station in Whytsville, VA I played a crane machine and won a stuffed animal whale who i named Ecco and who became our mascot. (Story about that continued in Kentucky...)

The only bike troubles we had in VA was a broken spoke followed by a flat the next day (both Chris) The highlight of VA was probably getting to meet June Curry a.k.a "the cookie lady" after reading so much about her before setting out on the trip. She is the sweetest old lady who lives by herself in Afton, VA. She has been feeding and providing lodging for cross country cyclist since the 1970's. She also takes a polaroid picture of every cyclist she meets and puts them in binders separated by year. The "bike museum" where she lets cyclists stay is fully stocked with food and the walls are covered with post cards. June is a living legend among trans-america cyclists and I sure won't forget her.

Photos from our visit with the cookie lady

All Photos of Virginia

And finally... An update

So, it's been a while since I touched this thing. Granted, I was kind of busy riding my bicycle 3,800 miles and all but enough with my feeble excuses. This is how it's gonna work. I'm gonna post an entry for each state with some words about highlights of the state etc etc and put a few photos up as well. The rest of the photos for said state can be found on my Picasa photo albums which I will conveniently link at the bottom of each entry. Simple, I know. If you're too impatient and just want to look at pictures then here is a direct link to the main page where you can look at photos state by state. Hopefully I actually do this in a timely fashion and if not you've got something to look at in the meantime. It's win win really. http://picasaweb.google.com/ggrothusen

Now for some stats:

Total miles: 3,803
Total hours on bicycle: 347
Total Days: 66
Rest Days: 7.5
Avg miles per day: 65

Bicycle problems: 2 flat tires (1 in Colorado & 1 in Utah) Broke chain twice (Both in Kentucky)

Accidents: Crashed in Kansas (major bruise and some scratches but nothing serious)

Ice cream consumed: Immeasurable

The time has come...

As I'm typing this it's about 11:00pm on Saturday night. On Monday morning I'll be leaving for Virginia to meet up with Chris and Kiki where we will camp out and leave on our trip Tuesday morning. I haven't updated this blog very much but I assure you I have all of the gear I will need for the 2+ month journey. I will most definitely do a major update once I return from the trip which will include pictures, video, and witty commentary. In the meantime be sure to check out my twitter periodically as I will be using it to update as much as possible.

In the last blog I mentioned knee pain I was having on my 1st fully loaded ride. I have since found out it was due to the muscles on the left side of my leg being stronger / tighter than the muscles on the right side which was causing my knee cap to shift over. I have had 2 weeks of physical therapy and I'm going for it. My hope is that it was enough to get me started on the right track. My physical therapist seems to think that if I continue doing the stretches and loosening my IT band I should be able to prevent the same thing from happening again on the trip. 3,700 miles is a lot of miles and I just hope my knee can hold up. My worst fear is that I'll be somewhere in Virginia at the start of the trip and not able to go any farther. Wish me luck with that.

On an unrelated subject, I graduated on the 12th and my buddy Nash came all the way from Indiana to make it to my graduation party and just catch up since we haven't seen each other in over a year. It was definitely good times. Here is a picture of us doing handstands in Times Square and one of Nash fighting Edward from Twilight.

Test Ride Fully Loaded

So, I have to be honest. I haven't been training for this cross country ride. This is mostly because there just isn't enough time to commit to riding. As it is I'll be riding for 2+ months straight, so it's hard to justify taking off work or slacking on school to get a few miles in beforehand. That's not to say I haven't been riding at all. I've taken a few good rides in the past month, the last of which I finally loaded up my bike with 36lbs of gear to simulate what it will be like carrying everything.

It may seem like common sense but it's not a good idea to go from riding with no extra weight to riding with almost 40lbs of gear and going full throttle on a very demanding and hilly 60 mile ride. Common sense is over-rated :P In retrospect I realize I should have gone easier, and I'll definitely be more cautious from here on out. I had a very bad pain in my left knee that hurt terribly for the last 20 miles home. The next 2 days the knee was very tight and stairs were my worst enemy. It feels fine now, I'll just have to keep an eye on it.

It's all coming together

After talking frequently on facebook, I was finally able to meet Chris and Kiki in NYC. It looks like the three of us are definitely doing this trip together, probably with another guy named Asa. I have a few more details and some changes in plans.

We are starting our trip on May 25th in Yorktown, VA but are going to be ending the trip in San Francisco, CA not Oregon. (see map below) I am most likely not bringing my laptop with me on the trip so I'll probably be doing a massive update when I return home. I have just signed up on twitter so at least my progress can be updated there. www.twitter.com/rage0rge

I'm still working on supplies but everything is moving along smoothly. It looks like the next time I meet up with Chris and Kiki it will be May 25th in VA, at the start of an epic adventure.

Trek 520

Ok, this will be a quick update. I finally got my bicycle ^^ It took a few minutes to get used to the clipless pedals but everything was pretty much smooth sailing. These are a few silly pictures I took the next day.

December Update

Well, I've been quite busy with work and school but the bicycle trip planning is still moving foreword. In this post I'm going to update equipment info as well as information about riding partners. Here we go o_O

I was fortunate enough to meet up with a fellow photo major at school who is interested in joining me on my ride. Laura is a cycling enthusiast and seems pretty gung-ho about doing this, which is great. I've also posted on adventure cyclist's "Companions Wanted" section and gotten a great response from many different people interested in joining me. So far there seem to be 2 or 3 possible additions to the tour, other than Laura and myself. As the time gets closer all that will work itself out.

Next I'd like to do a mini equipment update. First I'll post some pictures of items I've already bought, and after that items I am 99% sure I'll be getting in the next few months. In future posts I'd like to do other equipment updates but items like food and clothes will probably be mentioned if anything, no photos :)

Helmet: Check

Speedometer/Odometer: Check

Bike Tool: Check

Bike Lights: Check

The Bicycle pictured above (Trek 520) won't be available until late January/early February so there is nothing I can do about that. I plan on getting the panniers and sneakers below around Christmas time. There is still a lot to be done, but any progress is good :D