(I’m learning how to upload photos….)
This is my bike in 2014 with panniers (bags) fully loaded
Riding with everything you need packed in small bags is trickier than it looks. I put the same items in the same spots every day a) to make sure I can find them in a hurry or in the dark, if needed; and b) so that when the bags are mounted on the bicycle, the weight is evenly distributed, making sure one leg doesn’t do extra work over long miles to keep me balanced.
Beautiful sunrise in December.
I had so much fun on my 2014 Bucket List Ride, I decided I needed to do another. This one is named Bikeral’s 70 Ride because I turn 70 years old this year. (Age only matters if you are a piece of cheese).
I plan to start near Dubois, WY, past grizzly country because I don’t want to be breakfast for some starving griz that just came out of hibernation. I plan to ride across WY and SD, down the Missouri River to the Kansas City area to meet up with a friend and then ride the Katy Trail across Missouri.
From there, I’ll ride straight to Ohio and rest a day or two with family, then proceed north to Detroit-Windsor area and cross over into Canada to ride along the lakes and then up to Ottawa, Ontario. At that point, I plan to meet more friends who will ride with me to Montreal where I will catch a train north to Jonquiere and meet more friends.
From there, several of us will do a ride around or through all the maritime provinces. We plan to end up in St. John’s, then I’ll fly back to Ohio for a short rest. My ride home will be with Adventure Cycling on the Rte. 66 route from Chicago to Santa Monica.
Because I am a gardener, which consumes all my time in the summer, I have to take time off in order to ride my bike. And if I’m going to mess up my gardening for part of a summer, I figure I might as well just put it to rest and take the whole summer off. Hence, this ride.
Maybe I’ll get the compulsion to travel out of my system, but I doubt it.
BikerAl Across America 2018 