The Times – They are A’changin’ - B. Dylan

     Larry - A Change!  After some consternation about spring weather, we’ve decided to push back our BIG RIDE start date to June 1.  The more we studied how cold it can be out west even into late June, the more we knew we were tempting fate with a May 1 departure. 

     Of course, that still left the issue of Mother’s 90^th birthday coming up in mid-July.  Mother, as ever, was so gracious and agreed to move her party up to late May.  

     So now we’re set to fly into D.C. on Saturday, June 1 and probably start pedaling the following Tuesday after a little sightseeing in the capital.  We’re still doing a few little bike tweaks and have yet to do a loaded shake-down ride.

     We have done a couple of out of town week-end rides in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Lost Creek, White County, Tn recently.  Hilly terrain in both places that made us appreciate some of those low gears I’ve been talking about.  We found a three mile climb into Spencer, Tn.  Almost hard to imagine that we’ll have climbs four times that length in a lot of places as we cross the Rockies!
     So the countdown, after a small reset, continues.  We fly ten weeks from Saturday!

Shoes and Gears

     Larry  -  We're just 9 weeks away from the start of THE BIG RIDE.  Preparations continue, but have begun to level off as we've just about accumulated all the stuff' we'll need for the trip.
     Martha's prep concerns differ from my own and mine from hers.  As mentioned in earlier posts, she's in charge of technology for the ride and I'm responsible for making sure everything on the bike works or I have the necessaries on board (and the expertise) to fix stuff that breaks.
      I am admittedly a bit of a gear head.  I'm constantly tweaking small things that I think will make the bike run more reliably and, just as importantly, comfortably.  To that end I've installed some lower gearing in the form of an 11-36 cassette to go with 48-36-24 chainrings.  That gives us a very wide range of gearing (18 gear inches to over 120 gear inches).  That's kind of the tandem way.  Tandems are like tractor trailer trucks out on the interstate.  We're pretty steady on the flats, labor on the ups and are scary fast on the downs.  We need those wide ranging gears.  We use 'em all.
I've had lots of stokers over the years.  None of them ever complained that the tandem's gears were too low.  Carrying all the stuff that goes with THE BIG RIDE makes for a heavy bike and there will be plenty of hills and mountains to get over.  It's nice to be able to spin up the tough climbs without burning your legs up.  I think it's very important at our stage of life to protect your body so it can live to fight another day. 
     In addition to lower gears,  I've reinstalled the Arai drum brake.  Drum brakes are pretty much unique to tandems.  Tandems have twice the mass of a regular bike and only slightly more frontal area.  That's why they're so fast on downhills.  Downhill braking on extended descents (read mountains) can overheat the rims and cause a tire blowout.  High speed blowouts are no fun.  I've had a couple and was very lucky to stay up.  Disc brakes can't take the tremendous heat that a descending tandem creates.  The disc warps and the rotors melt.  That's where the drum brake comes in.  It's just like the drum brake on a car.  It can take the heat and not degrade.  With a thumb controller, I can adjust the degree of grab on a long descent and sit up, the bike under control, and enjoy the scenery.  The drum does get super hot.  At the end of a big descent, a squirt of water on it vaporizes instantly!  Do not touch!!  The bad thing is that Arai has quit making those brakes - such a niche market and such.  A real loss for us tandemists without any other manufacturer yet having stepped in with a comparable replacement.

     While I've been gearheading, Martha's been fashionistaing.  I've the noticed the UPS truck stopping at our house on a steady basis.  Martha's started to lay out her tour clothes on one of the extra beds.  She's given it a lot of thought and has come up with outfits that will see double, even triple, duty as we go along.  And, unlike my hodgepodge of mix and mostly mismatched tour threads, Martha has color coordinated ensembles!  What a bike babe she is!  In addition to shirt, skirts and jackets, Martha is all over the shoe thing.  Like most women, Martha really, really like shoes.  THE BIG RIDE planning has been a shoe challenge for her.  Only two pair?  Horrors!  How about three?  She's only a size 4.  Three pair of hers weigh less that 2 pair of mine.  Three it is.    

Catching up with Larry

Martha - I've not done a post since I set up the blog for our trip.  Larry's really gotten into it and enjoys writing about all the planning he's doing for us.  I've helped him with the uploads of some of his pictures, but that's the extent of my blogging.  He does such a good job with it too, that I don't think my posts will even compare!  He's already worked way harder than I have, so maybe I have a little guilt about that too. 

I've been focusing on work and figuring out how I can be gone for 11 weeks!  Plus it's just a really busy time for me at work right now.  I come home and want to do mindless things like play games such as Draw Something with my sister!  But, I've started thinking about clothes and shoes and packing.  Bike touring has totally changed the way I pack.  The first tour we did, I thought I was packing light, but there were things (mostly clothes) that I took and never wore or used.  When you are hauling all that stuff on the bike, you start to think twice about taking anything you WON'T use on the trip.  Since then I've cut back more and try to get clothes that I really like that can pack small, wash and dry quickly and travel well.  Layering is important and although I love shoes, I don't take more than my bike shoes and one other pair.  I have a small foot (women's size 4) so my shoes don't take much room!

Larry's had a lot of work done to the bike and we took it out for a club ride last weekend.  With all it's new parts and tires, it was like a brand new bike!  Had a great time and made me wish for some warmer temps so we can ride more.  Barney really is a great tandem and over the years has been tweaked just for me.  We'll be loading up Barney with the new panniers and all the camping equipment soon for a couple of shake down rides.

Spin Class

Larry - Even in the central south, the winter months make it hard to get out and ride. We ride outside as much as the weather will permit, but supplement saddle time with 'spin classes' at the local YMCA a couple or three times a week.

As you know, spin classes are actually cardio exercises performed on a stationary bicycle led by an instructor to the beat of hard driving music. Done right, it's a real work out. Other than the obvious, there really is not much similarity between riding a stationary bike and being on the road. Still, we can definitely tell that our overall fitness is enhanced by the classes and that certainly crosses over to improved performance on the road. Spinning prepares you for the cardio jumps that go with most club rides. Club rides, at one point or another, always turn into little 'rat races' of who can top the hill first or beat the rest of us to the city limits sign, etc. Whereas tour style riding is more a slow and steady pace that you can sustain for hours/days on end.

One of the surprises that we discovered early on with touring was upon our return after riding hundreds of miles over several consecutive days of riding, that we were out of shape for the club rides! Our hearts were way strong for long and steady, but had temporarily 'forgotten' how to do those sudden jumps that go with club rides. What a bummer for a few rides until we get readjusted.

Back to spin classes. One of the things I miss in the winter time is working up a good sweat. Yuck, but it's true. I can just feel those toxins oozing out of my body when the sweat starts to flow. I guess I'm also looking for those little endomorphs that go with vigorous exercise (runner's high) that make us feel so good. Spin classes definitely get you hot - and for us - they're getting us ready for THE BIG RIDE.

 

Martha's a spin warrior. Sometimes I'm a little bit of a wuss.

Maps and More Maps

Larry -The ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) maps came the other day.  12 in all.  We're connecting about 5 different ACA routes into our route.  As you know, ACA makes maps customized for cyclists.  They've mapped over 40,000 miles of cyclist friendly roads across the country.  We've used their maps before and have always had a good experience.
     We spent most of a cold and snowy Saturday afternoon studying the maps, figuring where one route crosses another and what our total mileage will be.  We came up with 3,800 miles, give or take a few.  That will help us firm up some time allotments and give us an idea of the average number of daily miles we need to cover in order to get back home in time for Mother's 90th birthday party on July 21. Looks like THE BIG RIDE will push off on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 from the Washington Mounument in Washington, D.C., heading west to the Pacific Ocean near Anacortes, WA.
     THE BIG RIDE has long since taken over most of my quiet time thoughts.  Planning this, planning that.  Things for the bike.  Clothes.  Equipment.  And on and on.  But it's not a chore or burden, it's fun.  The trip, literally, of a lifetime.  A dream finally coming true.  And the best part is my best buddy will be there to share it with me.  Friends say I found a one in a million woman.  True.  A sporty woman who's done a lot of stuff  out of her comfort zone with me that got her hot, cold, wet, tired and sore sometimes, but took a lickin' and still comes back for more.  Friends say she must really love me.  Yeah, must be true.  (It's getting close to Valentine's)

Baxter knows Martha's got a Milkbone in her hand

    

The Raleigh

Larry - People ask all the time, "How do you prepare your body for such a long distance, multi-day ride?" My answer is the same one legendary cyclist Eddie Merckx famously said in response to a question as to how to become a great racer: "Just ride a lot".

We love riding. It's what we do. It's not a chore, it's a pleasure. We expect to have 500-700 miles in our legs for 2013 before pushing off on THE BIG RIDE on May 1.

Though the tandem is our preferred ride, we each have single bikes that get ridden with regularity. Actually, I have several different single bikes; a mtn bike (ridden very little), a 'race' bike (my club ride), a touring bike and the Raleigh.

The Raleigh is a 1976 Raleigh Super Course Mk II made in the Carlton factory in England that I bought new. It was my first real bike. I had just finished school and had my first real job. I paid something like $350 1976 dollars for that bike. My father thought I had lost my mind.

I did my first century on that bike and countless other rides. It was my only bike for many years. We lived in an apartment and didn't have a secure outside place to store it. It lived at the foot of our bed. Not my wife's idea of a great decorating accessory.

The Raleigh started life as a 27'' wheeled 10 speed with down tube shifters and a water bottle cage that hung over the handlebar stem. The cog was probably a 13-23. I didn't have a clue about bikes. I just knew that this bike flew over the ground like no bike I had ever ridden before. And I'll always proudly remember that beautiful spring Sunday afternoon of long ago when I slowly cruised by a young kid standing on the street corner who exclaimed in a hushed tone of reverence, "Wow, a Super Course!".

Well, as the years churned along, newer, shinier bikes started coming into the stable and the Raleigh was ridden less and less. It started looking a little forlorn sitting in the corner of the basement with its tires rotting. What to do? It was an old friend deserving of better. Answer: Change it! Make it a unique standout in my cycling herd!

And so, now several years ago, the Raleigh was reborn into a fixed gear commuter and its usage took a big jump. We live about four miles from my office and most of it can be ridden on the local greenway walking/bike path. When the weather's right and my appointments permit, I commute on the Raleigh. It makes coming to work so much better. I arrive invigorated instead of jangled. The Raleigh's still got that great Reynolds 531 steel feel and the fixed gear part, after a short getting used to period, is special - a one with the bike kind of feeling.

The Raleigh's place is now secure. It may have seen its last century, but, in a way, it's even better now than in those tie dyed bell bottomed '70s.

A not so sure Baxter with The Raleigh

The S.S. Badger

Larry - Our ACA maps came today!  12 maps that will take us from D.C. to Anacortes, WA.  We'll study them up this week-end to calculate what the total mileage will actually be.  That will help with finalizing our start date.  We've been considering May 1 as our first riding day, but we'd like to push that back a few days to enhance our chances for less rainy weather in the east and warmer weather in the west as we travel along.
     For the first time in our lives, we're leaving on a trip without a firm return date.  No return plane reservation for a definite day and time awaits!  What a stress free feeling of freedom.  That said, we will still be calculating an approximate finish date, since we both have jobs and co-workers that reasonably expect us to come home sometime !?  The only real schedule concern is to be home in time for my mother's 90th birthday celebration party on July 21!  We can't miss that.  We'll make a final decision on a date to start riding that will be as late as possible and still give us a fudge factor to be back by July 21.  Got to study those maps!
     A fun part of the trip will be a ride on the S.S. Badger.  The Badger is a car (and bike!) ferry that runs between Ludington, MI and Manitowoc, WI.  It will save a couple of hundred miles of pedaling around Lake Michigan.  The Badger has quite a history.  A little snippet from its website follows:

She is the largest car ferry ever to sail Lake Michigan, and has provided a safe, fun, and reliable shortcut across the huge inland sea for more than fifty years. The S.S. Badger is a national treasure, offering a cruise experience that links us to an earlier time when a sea voyage was the ultimate travel and vacation adventure.
As the only coal-fired steamship in operation in the United States, the S.S. Badger operates on domestic fuel, and the company has  an extraordinary commitment to maintaining a unique propulsion system that has been designated as a national mechanical engineering landmark. The S.S. Badger offers an authentic steamship experience unmatched anywhere else.  
The 410' S.S. Badger entered service in 1953, designed specifically to handle the rough conditions that it would likely encounter during year 'round sailing on Lake Michigan. Built primarily to transport railroad freight cars, but with superior passenger accommodations, the Badger reigned as Queen of the Lakes during the car ferries' Golden Era in the late Fifties, with Manitowoc, Milwaukee, and Kewaunee as her Wisconsin ports of call. By the Seventies, changing railroad economics were condemning other car ferries to mothballs or the scrap yard. With little railroad freight business left, and without ever tapping into the opportunity to serve the needs of the vacation traveler, the Badger sailed from Wisconsin to Ludington and tied up for the last time in November 1990 - signaling the end of the century-old tradition of car ferry service on Lake Michigan.
The demise of the car ferries was devastating to the communities they had served and the thousands of passengers who loved them. It seemed that the magic of these wonderful ships would only live in memory, never to be experienced by future generations. However, in 1991, an entrepreneur named Charles Conrad committed his own financial resources to reinvent the S.S. Badger to carry leisure passengers and their vehicles.
Since then, this legend of the Great Lakes has delighted a whole new generation of people, allowing them to experience a bit of history that almost slipped away while cruising to fun destinations on both sides of Lake Michigan. The S.S. Badger now sails daily between Manitowoc, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan from mid-May through mid-October.

Blending tradition with innovation, the Badger affords a rare opportunity to take a step back into the past and take a journey that's as important as the destination.

     More recently, the Badger has run afoul of the EPA who is on her case for dumping coal ash into the lake (like she's been doing for decades).  The story's not finished and it could be the Badger will be soon sailing into the sunset.  But let's hope not before Barney and the T's arrive for one last cruise.

The S.S. Badger

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