There are a lot of details. I suspected there would be, but not this much. Especially for a non-planner like me. Anyway, things are progressing, and here are some of the details.



The Bike: I first thought to put a triple deraileur on and take my Motobecane Le Champion Team road bike with a BOB Yak trailer, but I’ve decided on a new Kona Jake the Snake CycloCross bike with a nice low triple gear for gettin’ over those nasty eastern mountains.

Bike Computer: CicloSport HAC 4 the Swiss Army Knife of cycling computers. It’s heart rate function is greatly helping my training, and it logs temp, altitude, power, speed distance and more, and then I can send the data to the PC and make all kinds of cool graphs.

Trailer: No panniers on this trip: I’m taking a BOB* Yak. (Beast Of Burden).

Tent: Peak 1 Aires 4.8lb (No longer available. This was a Coleman "pro" brand, but it seems to have morphed into the Coleman Oryx 2 tent). Easy to set up, roomy for 1, a bit tight for 2, but OK. Never got wet in this tent, though the fly pole tends to slip out of it’s pocket quite regularly.

Sleeping Bag:Big Agnes Encampment with Two Track REM sleeping pad. This is a cool bag with no filling on the bottom. Instead, you slip your pad into the bottom which provides insulation. So, you never slide off your pad, and the whole system is very lightweight.

Tour Company (from Seattle to Rapid City): Cycle America

NOAA Weather Alert FM-AM-TV Radio/Flashlight/Cell Phone Charger with hand crank power generator:Eton FR300 (Now, if they’d have just included the kitchen sink..;). With this, I hopefully won’t get caught off guard by any nasty weather.

Cell Phone:Kyocera 7135 Palm Phone with keyboard (from which I’ll be posting missives to this blog). This is a cool phone which IMHO still runs circles around the Treo.

Here’s a little story I wrote about the Kyocera for an IEEE contest.

Food: On the tour part, I’ll be getting two squares a day with rest break snacks and only need to take care of lunch. I’m not taking cooking gear, so when I’m on my own, it’ll be grocery stores and restaurants with an emergency supply of jerky, packaged foods and PowerBars. There are reports that one needs about 6000 calories a day while touring. Woo-hoo!

Maps: And, I couldn’t be doing any of this without really good maps.

Kudos to those states with bike maps. To all the other states: Wyoming’s is one to look up to as the most informative and visually clean, but Oregon, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Washington and Maryland, Wisconsin (the online versions) all have good maps. I’d add Montana, but they haven’t sent me the state map I requested two months ago for which you have to call (Put it online, please.)

I bought a good number of Adventure Cycling‘s maps where my routes matched theirs. Quite clear and concise, with all kinds of info on everything you need to know out there.

Honorable mention goes to: South Dakota (who, while they don’t have a bike map per se, sent AADT (Average Annual Daily Traffic), Road Characteristics (lanes, shoulder width, etc.) and planned construction maps and a wealth of other info). And Nebraska, Connecticut & Rhode Island, too. All had good statewide maps, though I’m going through any of them on this trip.

Map "poo" awards to (a chance to flame some DOTs):

My home state of PA — woefully inadequate bike resources (like, I know you folks have the GIS inventory and can generate a map of AADT/Shoulder Width/grade/lanes –so why dontcha? Add climbs & descents and you’ll have a bike map!) BikePA is a good try at doing some routes, but it’s not enough. To visitors planning to come to PA to bike — don’t be discouraged by PENNDOT: There’s great riding here. Great training mountains. Long rolling valleys. I love my state. It’s as beautiful a place as any I’ve visited in the world (and I’ve travelled quite a bit overseas). And here in Central PA, you’re minutes away from a ride in the country. But, PENNDOT pretty much sucks as a biking resource (and as a DOT in general), though it does provide some resources — see the Bike Directory

Indiana — no statewide map?

Ohio — no statewide map? (Though there is a nice state route map, but far short of aadt, shoulders, climbs & descents).

Massachusetts and New York– although my route’s not taking me that way anymore, I was thinking about it. You get the same notes as PA et al: Where’s the statewide bike map?

And MA — No statewide map and AADT info in a spreadsheet? C’mon, how useful is that? This from a state with a big computer industry?

Michigan: Nice resources, I guess. But to pay for them by county? And no overview map to know which counties one needs to pick for a certain route. I called for the order form, but never received it. Changed my route to bypass you. Help those of us not familiar with your state out a little here, huh?

And still more to come…