Tired.

I thought that quitting my job would give me more free time, but it was been the opposite. We have been packing full-time in order to get our stuff stored tomorrow morning. As you can see, it's almost done.
















That's all of our stuff, minus three bikes and some furniture. The next project is the apartment sale next weekend, where we will get rid of everything else.

Whitney at Rotofugi gave me a stack of stickers. As you may have read earlier, we have a deal where I will post their stickers in cities across the country in exchange for store credit. I'll be sending photos to their website so that you can track the locations and find them in your town.

Gray morning.

As I write this, hail is bouncing off our apartment windows and the gutters look almost frozen. In less than three weeks we will be on the road with nothing but a tent, raingear, our ingenuity, and the kindness of strangers separating us from the elements.

The apartment is half in boxes, the walls are bare, and at the end of the week our valuables will be in storage. A week later, the rest of what we own will be sold or disposed of, and a week after that we'll be on the road with only forty pounds each. All of our belongings, distilled to forty pounds- it's a liberating thought- a little scary too. Looking at the stacks of boxes and the half packed apartment, it still feels like a long way off.

Welcome to the future.

Andrea and I bought cellphones yesterday. It is my first one ever, and I'm not excited about the prospect. I love technology, but cellphones have got to be the tackiest manifestation it has ever taken. From the formless hardware design to the annoying ringtones to the blabbing in public places to the stupid belt holsters, I've yet to see them as a benefit to humanity. We are going away for a year though, so it is a necessary evil and I will make the best of it.

I spent 3 hours mopping the floor today!

We have gained the dubious honor, over the past three years, of hosting some of the craziest parties in our social circle. Last night was no exception.



Andrea and Emily made food.



Andy and I worked on the camp stove. I found this stove in a dumpster a couple years ago but never used it. There is something goofy about the burner, so I'm trying to figure out if i can fix it or if the burner needs to be replaced.






We started out with 2 cases, and ended up going through six!



This is early in the night. Andrea's aunt Dottie and her friend Deborah stopped by. Deborah and Jonathan have a place in Montana that we will be visiting when we ride through Glaicer.




Val made cookies- she cooks awesome food all of the time and brings it to events.



The appartment was packed all night, with people standing all over the sidewalk, from around 9 till 3. It was fun, but also pretty tiring. I had a chance to talk to a lot of people and actually stayed in good shape for the whole night.



Kat Raz started it out right. Andy had some mysterious Kerouac-esqe polaroid ready for a photo op.



I shot a lot of photos last night so email me if you want to see more... I didn't post most of them because after 6 hours of partying, pictures can be kind of unfair...



3 am and still going strong...



Thanks everyone who came over, as always I wish I could have talked to you all longer and hope we can hang out again before we leave.

Our going-away party is tonight! Andrea's sister Emily is in town! It will be lots of fun, I'll take some pictures if I remember(err- if I am not wasted).

We had "Eggs in a Basket" this morning- yum!

Tech update: Crucial card reader

One of the main reasons for this blog is to show off our travel pictures. We are not bringing a laptop so all of the updating will be from libraries and internet cafes. Our Powershot A610 camera requires a driver and software to transfer photos, which would complicate things considerably and lead to less updates. I bought an SD card reader that requires no drivers. It was $9 from Newegg and is super fast. I decided to get all meta with this picture of the device uploading pictures. Wow.

My steed from the North and our command center

This is my bike. It was made in Wisconsin in 1985. I eBayed the frame and fork, along with a few other bits. I built it as workhorse with classic lines.



This picture is from a few moths ago. I have since replaced the front rack with a Surly Nice Rack made of tubular steel.

Every day we make small efforts toward preparation. This week we have spent time arranging health insurance, ordering waterproof shoe covers and a card reader for the digital camera, discussing our exit with the landlord, setting up payment plans for my student loans, and trying to find the right dry-bags for our gear. It is exhausting. All I want to do after a long day of work is sleep and go out with all the friends that I won't be seeing for at least six months.

We have made a calendar to keep track of everything. It hangs on the wall, full of pencil marks, and counts down the days 'till blast-off.

Like a kid at Christmas

I just found out that a large amount of our stuff that has been on order will arrive soon! Very excited, will post pics. Should include trout pillow.

We also found a great storage space on the South Side that is cheap: 10x10x8 , $90/mo, first 2 months free, excellent security, climate controlled.

While we are not leaving for about 50 days, I will be done with work in exactly a month and will be focusing on final preparations for the trip. It will be nice to be done with my 52 hr work weeks, I won't miss that at all!

We are spending more time looking at maps. Our route through MI will take us to Flint, up the coast of Lake Huron, and into the UP.

I'm hearing requests for more pictures of our stuff...

I'd like to start with an inspirational photo:



That's Lake Superior, we'll be there in 3 months.

This weekend we're checking out storage spaces. It looks like it'll be $70-100 a month to store all of our things. And the storage places are in god-forsaken parts of the city. Places I have to look on Google Maps to find. It'll be fun.

I realize I'm boring you into a coma writing about all of the new gear we're buying for this trip, but that's the main thing that's happening now. Wanna see a picture of my sleeping bag? No? Too bad, here it is:





















The bag is from EMS, rated at 20 degrees. I don't know how often I'll need it, but Northern Michigan will be cold and I suspect the mountains will be too. I'll be sewing a liner out of a flannel sheet in the near future. The orange pad is made by Insulmat and it's comfortable. The gray thing is closed cell foam which is hard as a rock but very useful when the ground is cold. the Insulmat is 3/4 length so I may need the foam, who knows.

I have a couple other things on order:

• A green compressible pillow with pictures of trout on it

• an inflatable lumbar support.

I have a hard time getting comfortable so trust me, this isn't overkill. I'm sleeping on this stuff for the next year.

This is what it looks like all rolled up. I swear we are going to look like middle-aged german tourists with all this crap strapped to our bikes.

The call of the West will eventually lure me out of the city...

This weekend I saw a bunch of pictures of our friend's new studio in Montana. I don't have any of them availible to post but it is very close to Glaicer Ntl Park, which looks like this:













We are invited to stay with them if we make it that far. This fills me with excitement, which is good because I need to remember how little of this country I have seen and how great it will be to see more of it. Otherwise I will spend all of my money on stupid stuff and not be able to afford to ride to Glaicer and other amazing places. Another inspiring thing is that it was 70 degrees in Chicago this weekend. It made me remember that I love to be outside on my bike during warm weather.

I bought a new front rack for my bike, a Surly Nice Rack, just like Andrea's. You can see that i has a lot of room for stuff, like a sleeping bag and a couple of panniers full of gear.



























I also hope to mount a light or two on this thing. Sam and I have been talking about ways to mount a mini maglite on a rack, which would be perfect becuse they are really tough and waterproof. There are so many lights availible that I don't know what to buy. Most are more or less the same(plastic flashlights with a mounting apperatus) and then there are the battery pack variety that cost $300, which is way too much for me. Too bad, because they are almost as bright as the lights on a motorcycle and would be great for mountain biking at night, in a non-touring scenario. Check out the Chicago flag on my front pannier. Even though I'm not from this city, I've live here for six years now and I feel like I want to represent when we are on the road. I'll have to get a big Wisconsin patch for the other side(Does anyone know of one with girls holding beer and cheese?)

One thing I will really miss when I'm on the road is riding my track bike around town at high speed. I love to be on a light, responsive bike, darting in and out of traffic and flying through the crowded parts of town. Hopefully some one will let me take their bike for a spin when we are in New York and San Francisco. I've heard that those are both great cities for urban riding. Any doubts, check out some of the nail-biting action in these alleycat racing videos.

Instead of cleaning the house...

I'm wasting my time reading tour journals.

Machka.net: I've been using her packing list as a guide, somewhat. Its interesting to see what different people bring with them on the road

Crazy Guy on a Bike hosts a bunch of travellogs. Everyone has such different takes on how to do this. Here is an assortment of equiptment lists. Heidi Domeisen's account of her continental divide ride is particularly amazing.

Everything is gearing up for May. Andrea and I both gave our two-months notice, and both of our jobs were very positive and encouraging about the trip, going so far as to offer us our positions back when we return. It feels great to get that kind of response, and it makes our parents worry about us a little less as well. We feel very fortunate to have such great bosses.

The logistics of what to do with all of our belongings is a big project. We will rent a storage space, but most of our stuff will be sold in April. Anyone looking for a couch? A TV? Seriously, just about everything must go, I'll post the details later.

Designer Canadian Luggage

Last week I stopped by the bike shop and found that my Arkel mapcase had arrived. It was slightly smaller than I expected. I still think it will work well for holding my stuff while biking around North America.














Velcros onto the handlebars and rests against the stem.


















Unfolds to display map.




Has room for all of the stuff that is normally in my jeans pockets.

Andrea got one too, because neither of us really likes the idea of handlebar bags. I know that everyone has them and talks about how great they are, but I've never had the best results with them, nor used anything besides the map case. If this doesn't work, I will buy a different bag later on.

Planning and gear- you can never have enough.

I regularly post on Bike Forums, arguably the best online cycling resource and definitely a great way to avoid getting work done. I recently posted my intentions to leave on this tour for the first time, and learned about a few websites that might be a boon if we run out of places to stay. Here they are, in their own words:

Warm Showers List is a list of Internet cyclists who have offered their hospitality towards touring cyclists. The extent of the hospitality depends on the host and may range from simply a spot to pitch a tent to meals, a warm (hot!) shower, and a bed.

CouchSurfing.com helps you make connections worldwide. You can use the network to meet people and then go and surf other members' couches!

I'm not sure if we will need these or not, but it's nice to have the option.

Any day now I should be getting a shipment from Arkel, who have a reputation for building the most technical bags and panniers ever. This is the reason I went to them in search of a handlebar bag. Handlebar bags are to the touring cyclist what purses are to the urban woman- the go-to bag with all the things you can't live without. The problem for me has been that I hate having large amounts of weight on my bars. Another cycle tourist recommended Arkel's map case, smaller than a traditional bag but much more than a standard case, so I've ordered a couple of them for Andrea and myself.

Gettin' real paid (plus a gear update).

We are now officially sponsored! Rotofugi designer toy store in Chicago has made us their trans-American street team. Whitney and Kirby Kerr are awesome people and they have a great store in East Ukrainian Village. During our travels we will be stickering for the store, and in term receiving a bounty collectible urban vinyl. I admit it, I am a complete nerd when it comes to this stuff. It is very cool and expensive so I'm really glad to have made this arrangement. There will be a sticker travel-log on their forum, be sure to check it out.




Building the travel kitchen.

Cooking on the road is a huge unknown of this trip. In the past, camping has meant instant noodles, soups, curries, basically anything you can pour hot water over. Andrea loves to cook and has serious contention with a year of dehydrated chow. A lot of research and reading plus advice from Sean who works for Moosejaw has yielded a basic plan for cooking supplies. Here is the inventory as of now:

• GSI Pressure Cooker


• MSR Duralight gourmet kit


• Coleman Feather multi-fuel stove


• A heavy-duty pie tin


• An assortment of cups, bowls, and utensils

The Coleman stove isn't the lightest, but a) I dumpster dove it and b) replacement parts are available everywhere. The rest of the gear has been carefully deliberated over.

Andrea's massive rack and my dirty laundry.

We are going to carry a lot of stuff on this trip, there is no way around it. Our bikes will have front and rear racks to accomodate all of the gear. Andrea opted for the Surly Nice Rack which is the 18-wheeler of touring racks. It is made of tubular steel and has a capacity of 70 lbs! It took me almost a half hour to install it because there are a lot of small peices, but now that it is together it looks quite bullet-proof.



Also this week, I recieved my first shipment from Smart Wool. I intend to wear mostly wool clothing on the ride, because it is very breathable and does not get stinky. To test this, I decided to wear the same t-shirt for 3 days straight. Smart Wool t-shirts cost $60 each, which even with my employee discount, is a big chunk of change. It will be worth it to carry a minimal amount of clothing and avoid doing laundry on a regular basis. I have been riding to work every day, went to a dance party last night, and slept in the shirt as well. This morning I asked Andrea to smell the shirt and tell me what she thought.

"It smells like you," she said.

"But does it smell nasty?" I asked

"No"

"Good, because I've been wearing it the past three days!"

So there you have it. I'm gonna buy a couple more of these and be set for the year. I also got some great Smart Wool cycling socks, the tall ones that they reccomend for "riding through a bog".

Great first post: what we're about to do and what we've done so far.

After nearly a year in the planning, our US perimeter ride is so close I can almost feel the road beneath my wheels. Andrea came up with the idea- rather than attending grad school, she did some deep introspection and came up with something close to both of our hearts and dreams- a year long, unsupported bicycle tour of our native land, of which we have each seen precious little so far.

To date, the planning process has consisted of psyching ourselves up, saving every last dime not spent on Old Style or rent, building and testing a couple of unstoppable touring machines, researching, reading up on and testing every piece of camping gear, apparel, and equipment that we can think of, and stressing about everything that we can't.

The details of our plan begin with a ride through Michigan, starting in Chicago, heading to Flint for a week with Andrea's family, continuing North to the UP, West through Wisconsin to my home town and family, then embarking on a great Westward journey through the Northern tier states to the coast.

This blog is intended as a link to our family and friends, during the process, and as an excuse for me to keep a detailed log of our time on the road. I intend to make at least weekly updates, so bookmark this page and follow our progress.