Getting on the road

I left the office on Friday at a little after 4:00 and rushed home. When I arrived at work that morning, I still wasn’t sure I was going to make the trip. It’s a long ride on an older bike by an older guy. As the day progressed, I started thinking about seeing the Rockies and the Grand Canyon again and I made up my mind – I was going.

I rushed home and packed. I was determined not to make the same mistakes I’d made on previous trips, mostly over packing. On those other trips I strapped several bags to the bikes, and it took forever to load and unload. I wasn’t doing that again. I wanted a configuration that I could setup and tear down in 10 minutes - tops. I needed to pack light cloths for the lowlands and heavy cloths (winter) for the mountains (above 10,000 feet - it’s real cold). I didn’t need gym cloths or running shoes – yeah I brought a little crazy on the last trips. Also, I needed to make sure everything was in water proof bags. The hardbags on the tiger leak (I found that out the hard way during my trip to the Smokys). And, since I was taking my laptop, I needed to make sure it was properly stowed and padded. I lost a hard drive during my trip home from the Grand Canyon and I’m convinced that was because of vibration. Finally, I needed quick access to rain gear, and I had to get to it without exposing other things to the rain (duh).

So I rounded up all my water proof inner bags (heavy plastic / vinyl sacks that go inside cycle luggage). Years of buying different bags for different bikes have left me with several.

I filled one with light clothes: 1 pair of shorts, some underware, socks, and 3 t-shirts. That’s it. I filled the other with heavy gear: 1 pair of jeans, 1 heavy sweater,1 light sweater, 2 long sleeve shirts, 1 pair of heavy socks, and a hoody. I rounded up my 1 man tent, sleeping bag, camp pillow, and my bag with camp gear (mallet for tent stakes, miners light, lighter, …). I put the light cloths and my bathroom kit (tooth brush, tooth paste, contact solution, pair of glasses…. you get the idea) in a small duffle bag. I dedicated the small locking hard bag to the electronics (computer, camera, support items). I put the heavy cloths in the other hard bag, and I strapped the duffle bag across the back seat. Rain gear and crocs (water shoes for getting around camp ground showers) go in the tail bag along with a dark visor for my helmet. It took me about 10 minute to load it all on the bike.

I was on the road by 7:30pm. There was a light rain. I pointed the bike west and headed for route 75. I was excited to be on the road, but my first mishap was right up the road. About 40 minutes later. There was a huge traffic jam on 20 west of Canton. I was stuck for about an hour. During which, it started to pour – hard.

My goal was to spend the night in Tennessee, but after fighting with the rain and semis for about 75 miles, I gave up on that goal and pulled into a motel called the Relax Inn. It was cheap, reasonably clean, dry, and had Internet. Good enough for me. As I unpacked the bike, I discovered I’d lost my sleeping bag. It was a nice one too. I generally buy back packing equipment for the bike trips because it’s compact and designed to be stowed easily. Of course, that comes with a price. The bag cost $80. It was a casualty of my rapid preparation. On my previous trips I packed the bikes and rode them around for a day to shake things out. Even after doing that, though, I still lost items during the first 100 miles on my other trips, but they were small things…