First Outdoor Bike Ride of 2013

It finally happened–despite freezing cold temperatures and mild sniffles, I took a ride outside. It felt good to be 'real' biking (as opposed to this synthetic, plastic biking I do indoors to train). My adrenaline pumps harder, I go quicker, and I always have more fun! Luckily for me, work/school is about 75 minutes away by bike (if I take the highway), so it makes for a solid workout. Hopefully the weather continues to improve and I can do this more and more!

For those playing the home game, my workouts in January have looked like this:

Date Length (min) Type Also includes Heart AVG Resistance 1/8/13 60 EM 155-165 5 1/9/13 60 EM 3x3min FP, 5min rest RBI 145-155 4-6 1/11/13 55 EM 2.5x3min FP, 5min rest RBI 155 5-4 Plus 20 stairs up and down 1/13/13 90 EM 125-135 4 15 T High 7 1/14/13 120 EM 125-145 4 (5) 1/16/13 40 EM 145-150 4 20 T High 7-6-7 1/23/13 75 x 2 EM (outdoor)

Bike Routes - Phone Numbers by State

I found a cool and useful list of helpful government employees that can advise on bike routes, by state.  Stolen from here.

Road Food

In addition to DDD and Yelp, my wife stumbled across a very interesting food website - roadfood.com. I will definitely be making use of this on the trip!

Biking to Work

Whenever possible (i.e. when it's not freezing cold) I like to bike into work. I usually take one of two ways: either a quick way or a more fun way. If I wanted, I could get from Longmont to Boulder entirely using trails, paths, parks, and bike-only trails (except for three blocks boo!). Considering that biking probably represents a very small fraction of the voting population, the fact that our local government is able to provide and maintain such incredible trails is completely mind-blowing!  Sometimes living here is a gift.

The fun way (link that Google gets wrong)

The fast way (link)

Spring Break Woohoo

For spring break, Alia (my awesome tripmate and SAG vehicle driver) and I will be traveling with our significant others from Longmont to Durango! The bike route is still up in the air, but it should give us a few days to work the kinks out of our plan before we leave for the big trip in May! If there are any issues with my bike, training, gear, food, etc, hopefully we can work them out before heading out to Olympic National Park! Of course, I'll detail everything along the way–all of the successes and problems, all the gear, mileage, journal entries, pictures, and everything you'd expect from this kind of blog. Happy biking!


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Sub-Zero Biking

...or maybe more accurate Noob Saibot Biking. For the freezing wind of Colorado (for training) and Washington in May, I purchased an incredibly warm balaclava from ColdAvenger. It comes with a very Mortal Kombat looking rubber thing that goes over your mouth.  It's very comfortable and fits right under my helmet.  I'll try to get lots of pictures on the road with this crazy looking thing, but in the meantime here is an artist rendering.

My training bike

It stinks. I got it on a new years day "get fit" sale from WalMart (ugh). If you use it more than an hour, the plastic starts to melt and smell. The heart rate and calorie counters are off. The seat is built for someone 300 pounds. And within the first 100 miles I ripped the left foot pedal off. But it folds up very flat. I can wheel it around anywhere with ease. And it's quiet enough that my wife can sit and watch TV while I use it in the same room!  So I think I'm going to stick with it. Maybe my hatred comes from having to use it–instead of biking outside in the mountains. I can't wait for it to warm up!



I also invested in a green foam roller from target; I'm hoping to use it to roll out my sore back mussels after a tough workout (or a hard day finishing up my doctorate at CU-Boulder). So far, it is great!

My bike

So this is my bike. A hybrid 2011 Novara Forza from REI (on super clearance). I installed a mirror on the side, some lights, and a pannier on the back. It has some wide tires, but they're fairly flat.  It doesn't seem to work on snow (nor should it), but it works very well on the road and well when biking off road (it has a switch in the front to turn on and off front wheel shock absorbers). It's served me well biking from Longmont to Boulder the last year, and I think it's going to perform nicely on my trip!

I also decided to install some plastic/rubber pieces between the tube and the outside of the tire. The theory is that it will help reduce flats (it says STOPS FLATS right on the box), and since I've installed them, I haven't had a single flat!  Looking at some other bike across America blogs, it seems like people are changing between 5 and 15 tires on their trip, so yay!

Comeback Training Plan

So I downloaded the "Comeback Training Plan" used by Lance Armstrong to help give some direction to my indoor bike training this winter (Colorado is 0° right now).  It should go pretty well, and hopefully the 12 week program gets me in enough shape where I won't hurt myself in May! I'll post weekly updates about how much or how little of this plan I actually do!

Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives

This is the master list from Guy Fieri's show "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives." I'm going to try to hit as many as I can on the trip! And hopefully helpful people from all around the country will tell me all about excellent local hole-in-the-wall restaurants to try too!


View Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in a larger map

Cities and States

Here is a list of major cities and states I will be visiting on the bike this summer!

Washington

Tacoma

(Seattle)

Ellensburg

Kennewick

Walla Walla

Oregon

Baker City

Idaho

Boise

Pocatello

Utah

Bear Lake
   Salt Lake City

Wyoming

Kemmerer

Rawlins

Laramie

Colorado

Fort Collins

Longmont

Yuma/Wray

Nebraska

Kansas

Hays

Salina

Topeka

Missouri

Kansas City

St Louis

Illinois

Indiana

Evansville

Kentucky

Tennissee

Clarksville

Nashville

Alabama

Huntsville

Georgia

Carrollton

Macon

Savannah

South Carolina

Florida

Jacksonville

FT Lauderdale

Miami (if I'm feeling ambitious)

Key West (if I'm feeling crazy)

Timeline

Here is a rough estimate of where I will be throughout the trip. This is assuming that I can average around 50 miles per day (including rest days).

Day 1 – Olympic National Park, WA   May 21

Day 22 – Salt Lake City, UT    June 12

Day 31 – Back to Colorado   June 21

Day 45 – Kansas City, MO   July 5

Day 57 – Kentucky   July 17

Day 59 – Nashville, TN   July 19

Day 63 – Carrollton, GA   July 23

Day 72 – Savannah, GA   August 1

Day 74 – Jacksonville, FL   August 3

The Route

Here is a rough estimate of the route I have planned.  Google estimates that it is 3,700 miles by bike, but mapmyride estimates the trip at 3,450.


View Bike Route in a larger map

Olympic National Park

We'll be starting our incredible trip across the country from Olympic National Park, in Washington. I have never been there, but here are some images of what I can expect to see!

Welcome

...to my new bike blog. You can visit during my trip for lots of fun information and pictures! In the meantime, I'll post details about training, diet, my bike, and my proposed route. Enjoy!