The Quirky Life

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 Posted by Rachel. Published under Riding. No Comments.

One of the ways we keep ourselves entertained while riding our bikes thousands of miles is noticing the quirky little events and things along the way.  I thought we’d share a few of them with you today!

• Starting near Orlando, FL, heading south, we followed a Hansel & Gretel like path of green beans leading literally hundreds of miles south to Homestead, FL.
• The soil across the country has changed from brown in the Midwest, red in Georgia, white along the beaches in Florida and black as tar in the interior of Florida.
• We’ve watched the crops change too!  Miles of corn in Indiana, soybeans and green beans and then cotton in Georgia, then free-range cattle and sugar cane in Florida.  Louisiana and Texas have rice apparently.  Who knew!
• Indiana is rife with wooly worms.  EVERYWHERE.  We probably accidentally rolled over thousands.
• Louisiana has a Hansel & Gretel trail of Mardi Gras beads.
• The smell of skunk spray is 1000000000000000 times more appealing than road kill or factory farms.  We’ve actually even stopped downwind of it without even realizing because it’s that much more appealing.
• There are a massive amount of frogs and snakes as road kill.  It’s also very sad how many dogs, cats and hawks we’ve seen.
• The best way to stop a chasing dog quite literally in its tracks is to yell and wag your finger, “Go HOME!!”
• We have become the ultimate “old people” because we go to bed with the sun!  Sometimes that’s 6pm since it’s winter.
• Sometimes cars sound like Empire fighters coming up behind you depending on the type of road.  Then you can pretend you are a Rebel x-wing fighter.
• The most random and annoying songs play on repeat in our heads for hours.  Examples include: FreeCreditReport.com song, that heartbeat song from Rent, the Dirty Jobs and Pawn Stars theme songs, and Moves Like Jagger aka most annoying song EVER.
• Pancake mix can also be used to make calzones, pizza, garlic bread, pot pie and dumplins.
• Jessica is no longer a vegetarian after 6 years of resisting.
• Rachel is fascinated by Jessica’s new, insatiable desire for barbeque and chicken wings.  So many chicken wings.
• Rachel is now in love with barbeque too.  New fave food.
• On a long day, we can eat an entire pack of Keebler cookies.  Or any pack of cookies for that matter.
• Camping under a bridge is a pretty safe and good, albeit smelly (from bat guano) and a little nerve-wracking.
• People we meet at gas stations, on ferries, in restaurants, on the street, when buying jeans, etc treat us like the craziest celebrities they’ve ever met.
• Cows and horses almost always stop whatever they’re doing and stare at us as we ride past.  In Florida, a few cows even did a double-take and then backed up quickly because two women on bikes with kitty litter buckets as panniers is THAT SHOCKING.
• Sometimes horses (and once a whole herd of cows) run along with us.  It is seriously the coolest, most beautiful moment when it happens.
• Indiana is set up as a huge grid.  Really.  Each square mile is divided up by a road on each side.  Sometimes they are only gravel, which made for nasty riding, but mostly, they were like big bike paths.
• Georgia wins the prize for the least amount of shoulders on the road.
• Florida wins the prize for most amounts of shoulders.
• Texas wins the prize for the widest shoulders (so far).
• Louisiana wins the prize for WORST ROADS EVER.

The Big Easy

Monday, January 16th, 2012 Posted by Rachel. Published under Mini-Adventure, National Parks, Personal Stories. No Comments.

New Orleans, Louisiana has a reputation. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard something about the city. Since I was a small child, I heard about the amazing music, the wild nightlife, the debauchery during Mardi Gras (and the rest of the year too). Like most people, I’d heard how New Orleans was a city like no other, one definitely worth saving the citizens said in the aftermath of notorious Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But I wasn’t sure I was a believer in all that.

In 2001, my family and I came down to New Orleans (NOLA as the locals lovingly call it) to look at University of New Orleans. Being 17 and excited at the prospect of going to school in a city with such a fun reputation meant I was looking forward to our trip. All I really remember is a gigantic, thong clad bottom on Bourbon Street, the smell of trash, driving through poor neighborhoods and being only slightly impressed with the university. And then again on my second trip this past June for my cousin’s wedding, I felt like I was going to get hepatitis C simply walking down Bourbon. I wasn’t all that impressed.

Jessica and I still wanted to come down to the Big Easy on this trip though. I mean, you don’t go to Gonzales (about an hour driving north) and don’t make the trip down. We were a bit worried about our safety, worried that it wouldn’t live up to it’s reputation yet again. But we hopped on the LA Swift bus last Tuesday anyway. Side note: We took the bus down because it was only $5 and we’re completely over riding our bikes into cities. It whisked us away and within an hour, Jessica’s high school classmate, Hillary, was picking us up to take us to the apartment she shares with her husband, Zack, in Uptown.

During the 5 mile drive from the tip of the French Quarter to their apartment, Hillary gave us a quick rundown of the area. Turns out that the St. Charles Street has a streetcar line and as a result is a vibrant, albeit pretty rich, community along it. She pointed out Loyola and Tulane and a gigantic park called Audubon Park, home to the NOLA Zoo and a 2.5 mile running and bicycle path that is very well used. Hillary also took us back to the French Quarter on her way to a meeting so we could have dinner that night. Thanks to her, we had an amazing meal. Check out Coop’s Place on Decatur if you are ever in NOLA. Jessica highly recommends the Creole Pasta. It’s her fave of the ENTIRE trip so far.

Over the past week, we’ve discovered that NOLA is exactly, exactly like the reputation. Its citizens are unbelievably sweet and so grateful for your business. The owner of the restaurant Fat Hen in Uptown gave us cookies and lots of extra dressing for our food just because we were new patrons. An antique store owner told us we absolutely had to go to Frenchmen Street, and then every single other person told us the same thing. Apparently, it’s THE place for good food, good music and more locals than tourists.

What really made the trip special though, was the warm reception from the women we ended up interviewing. On our first night in town, we walked past an Urban Outfitters where I hesitated because I had become obsessed with getting back into jeans, which are my favorite item of clothing. Jessica said, “Just try a pair on to feel it again.” To which I replied, “I’ll never take them off again.” When I didn’t like the first pair, I sent Jessica to find a second one, and the fitting room attendant stepped in to help. Jessica said, “Sorry she’s being so picky, she hasn’t worn jeans for 5 months.” The conversation was started then and we asked if she would be willing to talk to us on camera. Aba, that was her name, is amazing and so strong. We can’t wait to share her story with you all.

Then on Thursday, the evening before we were supposed to leave, we met up with 4 women whom I’d emailed from the National Organization for Women Meetup, hoping they might know someone we could interview. The conversation was easy and fun. They explained that NOLA is very, very liberal and a great place to live. They also convinced us to stay an extra three days so that we could interview them later. It was easy to say yes! And so worth it as well. It also allowed us to see a few more sights we’d been meaning to get to but time hadn’t allowed. There’s a fantastic World War II museum, and the National Historical Parks are informative and great. They talk about what life in LA is like, its history and the Jazz park has free performances, so we caught some great jazz too.

As much as I have loved every single place we’ve stopped, loved the people we’ve met and stayed with, the food we’ve eaten and the cities we’ve gotten to know, I haven’t been actually tempted to actually move to a place yet. I’m not sold since I absolutely melt in temperatures over 85, but NOLA is now my second favorite city on the planet after Berlin. I’m even a little sad I didn’t go to school down here afterall. It is alive like no other city. It should be at the top of everyone’s list for places to visit. Just make sure you ask Jessica and I to hook you into the local crowd. Locals love to show off their city and will make sure you don’t just get the Bourbon experience. We’ll be back for Mardi Gras and for Southern Decadence (their “pride” weekend) and just for fun.

Roam Your Soul – Expanding Women’s Empowerment

Monday, January 2nd, 2012 Posted by Rachel. Published under Website Profiles. 2 Comments.

It’s been great to expand our readership over the past few months of riding.  We always expected this to happen, but it’s been a vital part of how we keep energized about the project.  One of the best relationships we’ve formed along these lines is with Christine Perigen.  She’s founded Roam Your Soul, an Online Adventure Workshop for Women.

It’s a place for women who “want to explore their daily lives with new eyes, experience adventure and roam their inner soul of who they are.  The workshop will help [women] on an internal adventure that results in soul growth and learning about [oneself] through daily explorations, weekly reflections, and the relationships [they] build.”

We want to share this great project with you all because we’re working with Christine to form a challenge for Week 3 based on Against The Grind.  Since we have similar goals – to inspire women to take more risks and push themselves to face challenges head on – this was a great match up for us.  And we think it’s a great match up for you too!  (I know we have a lot of male readers, and sorry that you can’t join, but you probably have women in your lives who might be interested in the Roam Your Soul workshop.)

Sign up here– $20 for the 4-week workshop:

if you’d like to use a New Year’s Resolution to be a bit better at facing challenges in 2012!  (You’ll get to see some videos we haven’t released yet too!) While we’re working with Christine in Week 3 in January, the registration for January is closed, but your chance to participate in February is still here! The workshop will run from Feb 17 – March 18 and we’ll be Week 3 again!

Overall, we mostly just like sharing stories, in any form, of women doing great things to break down the barriers and challenges we face each day!

A Discovery of Nice Sized Purportions

Monday, December 19th, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Personal Stories, Riding. 2 Comments.

When we started this trip, we were either making friends or visiting friends on a very fast schedule.  Within the first week, we had visited my alma mater and some friends in Milwaukee, and within the first month, we had visited family friends, met really cool strangers who are now friends and it all kept our spirits high.  When we hit Georgia, Jessica said, “This now is the first part of the trip where neither of us have really been.  It’s the first time it really feels like a bike trip.”  I agreed.  But then we had such a warm welcome in Atlanta and Savannah and then stayed with great friends of Jessica in St. Simons that it still felt great and new and fun.

And then, after we departed Orlando, as you know, it went a bit downhill.  It’s interesting as each day dawns anew after we’ve gotten out of South Florida, the tone of the trip is so different now.  I tried to edit a video that I had started back in Georgia and it just felt so cheesy and naive.  Last Friday, we went to a Shabbat dinner with our Couchsurfing host and explaining our trip to people has clearly shifted.  It’s a more mellow and humble description.  We have both ups and downs to share now as well.

But as we ride through northwestern Florida, headed to Gulf Shores, I’m going to remind myself everyday of a moment that happened on the day we were riding into Tallahassee last week.  As we sat, eating lunch, we saw from across the way, two bike tourists pull into a gas station.  We immediately jumped up and ran over there to talk to them.   It was a bit silly and I even laughed at it then.  We were so excited to see them and it showed.  We couldn’t pack our lunch away fast enough.

It turned out to be just what I needed to remind me of the ups on the trip.  They laughed at our jokes about riding, shared gear tips, got excited about our route because they had just come from there (across the Southern Tier through the Southwest), and knew the kind of exhaustion only a bike tourist can feel.  It was fantastic.  By the way, they are Khara and Emir of The UnTour and you should definitely check them out!

So I realized as the high from meeting and chatting with them kept me going over all the hills leading into Tallahassee (they aren’t huge, but it was the first hills we’ve had since mid-October!), that we had simply gone far, far too long without seeing friendly faces.  Now, it’s not as though we didn’t meet wonderful and friendly people in South Florida, we really did and their smiles helped a lot.  But sometimes the face needs to understand just exactly what you’re going through.  We need to find ways to meet up with far more people who can give us this vital nutrient on the road going forward.  It’s clearly not enough to know we’ll see family members in a month, a few weeks, a few days (as we are in Gulf Shores), not enough to know we’re doing great things.  We have to see that twinkle in other people’s eyes.

So as I have before, and I will again, I realize that the most important thing in my life is all of you.  Our friends and family.  Thank you for recharging our batteries when we couldn’t do it ourselves.  Thank you for opening up your homes and hearts when we ride into your town.  Thank you for staying where you are so that we can roam ourselves.  It’s not a new discovery, but sometimes I have to remember it.

I bet you’ll think we’re crazy!

Monday, December 12th, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Personal Stories. No Comments.

I have to confess that I have a bit of writer’s block today.  The thing is that since Jessica last wrote, we haven’t done all that much.  At least not anything that is really worth sharing.  We stayed in Clearwater for about 5 days with Wendy, our Couchsurfer host from Day 1 (she moved from Johnson Creek!), and her roommates.  They were super sweet and it was wonderful to catch up and see how life has changed for ourselves and for Wendy in three months, but we mostly just used the time to relax.  Her roommate, Aaron took us to a bar to watch the Green Bay Packer game (what a nail-biter!), we edited video and photos, slept and read.

We then moved on to Spring Hill, where we stayed for two days with Marilyn and Phil, friends of my parents who snowbird each year.  Again, we slept, read, caught up on some TV, and edited video.  It was very relaxing and lovely and just what we needed.  But I have to say, doesn’t seem to make for riveting blogging.

One thing that I do have to mention is two bike shops we had to patronize in the last week or so.  City Cycles & Supply Co. in Clearwater helped me figure out that a bit of plastic was rubbing against my rear tire with such wonderfully friendly banter.  I would absolutely recommend taking your bike there if you need work and happen to be in Clearwater, or are looking for a bike or something.  Then in Spring Hill, I had a massively squeaky brake that needed attending to.  Again, we found a gem in Z and his shop, Extreme Bicycles.  I would absolutely recommend going there if you are near Spring Hill for your biking needs.  Thank you to both!!

Since that’s about it, I think I’ll just wow you with a gallery of the photos I worked on over the week.  They are all from the Everglades, and are the reason for the post’s title.  You’ll wonder why we thought it was so miserable down there.  If I saw my photos, I would.  Enjoy!

Culture Shock

Monday, November 21st, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Personal Stories, Riding. 1 Comment.

When I was 18, I arrived in Germany to live for a year as an exchange student. One of the first things they tell new exchange students is about culture shock. They say, “it’s not the first few weeks that are the toughest. Yes, you are tired and in awe and overwhelmed during those first few weeks, but culture shock doesn’t actually hit until your third through sixth months.” That is when you start feeling frustrated that you can’t get products you’re used to having, you realize you really aren’t going to speak your native tongue that much, so on and so forth.

As it would turn out, this little bit of advice has been very helpful over the years when I’ve had a huge transition in my life and it applies to this trip in huge, huge ways.

One and a half days out of Everglades National Park, and I literally lost all my brain cells and broke down. Jessica asked for a break at around mile 30 and maybe a mile from what looked like a hotel in the middle of a swamp. I pulled out the video camera, handed it to her and confessed, “I want to quit.” She eventually convinced me that we should pull into said hotel, despite the fact that it is an Indian Casino and therefore quite pricey for the night. Over the course of the next few hours I continued to break down. I was less severe in my assertion to quit as the air conditioning, shower and buffet dinner settled upon and in me, and I was more able to focus on the real problem.

It’s not that I actually wanted to quit. That would be too easy. As I look out over the swamp from our hotel window, which I have grown to despise, I still know it would be very easy to simply ride to Miami airport and catch a flight home in time for turkey dinner. It would be too easy though. I might not regret it today, but I would regret it down the road.

And as I said to my mom last night, “I didn’t come all this way to not go into Everglades National Park!” I just hope the park lives up to its reputation as being amazing and thus worth the trek. I’m sure it will be.

So why did I have the break down, you ask, dear reader? This list is long and quite whiney. It basically boils down to this: South Florida is a swamp – everywhere, all sides. Nothing but animals can really live there. There is nowhere to camp except in paid campgrounds, which are few and far between. Gas stations are found even less out there in the wet, wet wilderness. After riding down State Road 997, which has zero shoulder and nothing to see but sawgrass for miles, and cars whizzing past, and our 6th day of insanely strong headwinds, I couldn’t see the positive light on our trip anymore. Everything bad came crashing down and I couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. All I could see ahead of us was a week in the park and then another two weeks of riding back north, through the swamp. Not enticing.

I feel better as I write this since I’ve had a cozy nights sleep and a good few meals and a nice long talk with Jessica and my parents. I’m looking forward to the park again and I’m even looking forward to getting ourselves north again. We’ve rented a car (not as expensive as we thought! Same price as the Greyhound would have been), and are going to skip riding back through the swamp. It gets us to Tampa in time to hang out with my mom for a few days (she’ll be there for work) and catch up with our first trip made friend – Wendy – in Clearwater too.

As my mom said last night, “Sometimes a break down is good then!” Yes, she is right. It allowed Jessica and I to see that we can’t just go go go. We can’t just gloss over the troubles and hope it will get better tomorrow. We have to make tomorrow better. I think we have. I have culture shock, that’s all. Remembering that advice helps me to remember that I don’t want to quit when the going gets tough. I just want to change a few things.

Everglades Ho!

Monday, November 14th, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Personal Stories, Riding. No Comments.

We just left Orlando, FL for Everglades National Park yesterday! Orlando, and its surrounding areas is (you may say surprisingly) one of my favorite places on the planet. It has nothing to do with the strip malls or the tourist attractions *cough traps*.

It all began when we stumbled on an island near Jacksonville called Little Talbot Island. We needed a place to stay the night and the Florida coast is solid private property for the most part. Normally, we wouldn’t mind this, just walk up, knock and ask for a spot in the yard, but we had just finished riding through Amelia Island, which is posh to say the least. Security gates and cameras everywhere. Not exactly conducive to getting a yes answer to the yard question.

Turns out Little Talbot is GORGEOUS. There’s definitely something to the fact that Florida State Parks have twice been labeled the best parks in the country. The overnight fee is a bit steep: $27, but for that you get clean facilities with free showers, electric hook up and lovely views. We went for a hike along the beach and in the dunes, slept in a live oak grove with spanish moss everywhere and woke up refreshed! Well, I did. The neighbors were loud and Jessica has trouble sleeping with noise like that.

The second night was spent in St. Augustine, and while there were some strange goings on that night, I’ll leave it for Jessica to recap it.

The third turned a little bleak for us. One we hope to never repeat. After Jessica knocked on 4 doors and almost a 5th, we finally secured a place to stay on a farm. We’ve now learned to check our surroundings very closely before pitching the tent because while we were avoiding pitching inside the horse barn because of horse apples, we neglected to think that the dogs had used everywhere as their restroom. It was raining and we were hungry too, so that compounded our speed and resulted in us pitching the tent over dog droppings. The rain made everything wet, which allowed for extra strength doggie seepage, so now everything smells so foul. I had the great luck of sleeping on it, so my bag and pad are none too fresh now.

After the dog fiasco that morning (fourth day in FL), I managed to also get my Camelbak spout stuck in my spokes and almost get hit by a nasty big truck in DeLand, FL. We had only gone 25 miles at this point, but I needed to get off the road for the day. Jessica was leery but looked up a state park for which I had seen a sign. She was still leery but read aloud that they were a manatee sanctuary so we might see some manatees! She was sold. 2 miles more down the road and we were yet again in a lovely Florida State Park, this time Blue Springs.

Now, for anyone out there reading this who might to to Orlando in the months between November and March, you MUST, and we both mean MUST rent a car and head the 40 miles northeast to Blue Springs. It was a once in a lifetime, amazing experience. Apparently, manatees, which are mammals, need water warmer than 60 degrees Fahrenheit to survive so they swim inland each winter. Blue Springs plays host to upwards of 200 each year. And if you are very lucky and there are some but not a ton of manatees in the springs (we counted roughly 8 or 9 at the most) the authorities will let you go swimming with them. Yes, you read right, swimming with some of the cutest, most amazing and endangered animals out there. Needless to say, this picked my day up right quick.

Now, you aren’t allowed to touch them. It’s a huge fine if you do. And you are supposed to stay a minimum of 50 feet away from them. But try as we might, that was nearly impossible to do! The manatees love humans and one wouldn’t leave us alone. It chased us all over the spring, wanting to get as close as possible. I wish I could have understood why it loved us so much. Maybe my fins looked like food? Regardless, Jessica and I had the most amazing time at Blue Springs and will certainly return (as long as manatees still exist on this planet).

After a morning of swimming, we packed up and left for Orlando. This is the kind of riding we really hate. Riding into cities. It’s gotten to the point where we are now re-routing ourselves to avoid cities as much as possible. We are skipping Miami and likely also Los Angeles now because of it. Heavily populated areas have minimal shoulders and high traffic volume. We haven’t had many honkers in Florida yet, but that doesn’t mean they’re nicer drivers. But we made it into the city and are staying with a really amazing friend Matt. He is someone I know from my Milwaukee days, and we pick up where we left off each time we meet up. We’ve spent the last few days laughing constantly (he’s a comedian) and just plain having fun. We went to Universal Studios and Disney because when in Rome, one must see the sights right? And we got to know a few more people like his roommate Matt, also very funny, and his lady friend, Jessica, also very funny. We could have stayed for years, but then we would miss the Everglades, so we had to move on.

All in all, we’re having a blast in Florida. Maybe it’s been more fun because we’d heard it would be boring riding (might be, but we’ll take its flat landscape), and that it would have nasty drivers (no worse than anywhere else). We set the bar low, and are being rewarded! Everglades, ho!

A Typical Day

Monday, November 7th, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Riding. 2 Comments.

We’re well on our way to Orlando, Florida from St. Simons Island, GA now and I felt it might be time for us to tell you how a typical day on our bike goes. In addition, I’m sure you’re all wondering what we’ve ended up eating all along the way too.

When we leave a place where we’ve had a bed, we usually wake up between 8 and 9am. It doesn’t take us all that long to get ready when leaving from a house because there isn’t a tent to pack up. We eat breakfast, usually cereal, sometimes eggs, pack the remaining items and usually get on the bikes by around 10am.

Jessica and I have after 1050.03 (last totaled in St. Simons) miles developed a pattern of riding, which is to ride 10 miles and take a short break. We ride a rough average of 10mph, so our first break is around 11am. Our second, and longer, break for lunch is around noon. Our third break is anywhere between 1.30pm and 2, depending on how long we lingered at lunch. We don’t always take a fourth break. It depends on how far we go after that because we usually attempt between 40 and 50 miles a day.

We try to spot out a nice house (brick usually) and knock on the door. We ask if we can camp in their yard and have had a 80% success rate! This is anywhere between 2pm and 4pm depending on how fast we ride and how far. We’ve also stayed at a few campsites, a few hotels (while we were sick and hot), at a church and at a doctor’s office over the weekend.

I pitch the tent, Jessica sometimes helps, she cooks, we eat and then we relax. Sometimes I would listen to the baseball game. Other times we would read. I journal and work on some artwork. Jessica likes to read a lot. We’re in bed by sundown, but don’t always go to sleep by then. We listen to “TV” – audiobooks for a while and read. We rarely talk much because as many other bike tourists before us have attested, we often don’t have much to say since we see the same roads, sights and sounds, eat the same food and have been experiencing the same things all day. We’ve started joking that the only time we really spend apart is when we’re in the restroom! (Sadly, it’s true.)

We wake up with the sun the next morning and do it all over again!

What do we eat, you may wonder?

For breakfast on the road, we’ve done hard boiled eggs (but have gotten sick of them). We’re now onto english muffins with cream cheese (we’ll see how long the cheese lasts!) or butter and jam. We tried oatmeal but it just wasn’t practical to cook in the morning (too much time), and by golly, oatmeal tastes like mushy cardboard when you don’t have fruit, maple syrup or any other fun thing to put in it.

For lunch we have been eating tortillas (packs better than bread) with peanut butter or nutella or chocolate flavored peanut butter. We also try to have nuts or dried fruit. We’d been eating hummus and carrots but have found that the heat actually means we end up throwing out mushy carrots and sour hummus. We have also found that a bag of cookies is a perfect cap to the meal. I usually drink some electrolyte drink at that time too. Jessica is happy with just water.

For dinner we have tried to make sure to cook each night. A hot meal does wonders for the soul. My favorite food is mac and cheese and thankfully, it’s cheap and Jessica likes it too. We get two boxes and eat it all at once! We flavor it up with some spices like cayenne or garlic salt too. We’ve also been eating a lot of Indian sauces and rice. They are great because they are flavorful, usually come with cheese. We like to include a protein every night. And our other meal is what Jessica calls “Mexican rice surprise.” No real big surprise – it’s just rice, refried beans and if we’re lucky salsa and an avocado. Boy is it tasty!

And lastly, Jessica eats ice cream as much as she likes and wants and I eat candy as much as I like. Bike touring is a gem for a sweet tooth!

It’s all a matter of opinion.

Monday, October 24th, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Gear + Product Review, How to..., Riding. 1 Comment.

When Jessica agreed to let me come on this bike tour with her well over a year ago now, I immediately attempted to soak in as much detail about how to go about doing a trip like this.  But now, as I sit here in Savannah, GA, I wonder how much sunk in, and how much was really all that important to begin with.

In this last leg of the trip from Atlanta to Savannah, we were really pushed to our limits.  As it would turn out, Georgia is incredibly hilly.  I’m assuming it’s the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains that trail off well into the state, but it highlights my point exactly.  (Now, a caveat here, I am not writing this to be mean or undercut people’s advice.  I have and always will appreciate hearing advice from anyone and everyone, but I am now taking it with a grain of salt.  Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming.)  We had been told to ride down in the valley to the west of the Smoky Mountains through Atlanta to get to Savannah in order to avoid riding the Appalachians in South Carolina.  And this turned out to be sound advice through until about Acworth, GA (about 30-45 minutes north of Atlanta).  We hit this hills anyway.  I’m not saying that I regret taking the advice given.  Not at all.  In fact, Atlanta turned into such a joyful and wonderful place that I will never regret going there before Savannah.  But I learned that advice only goes so far before it starts to falter.

When it comes to bike and camping gear, this is an even worse game of cat and mouse.  For instance, Jessica has Schwalbe Marathon tires on her bike.  They are built with incredibly thick rubber, have Kevlar inside and are an overall great tire.  She rode two years in Boston (and Boston potholes) without getting a flat.  And she tried pretty mightily to get me to switch from my high pressure Bontrager tires because she’d heard that the Marathons were the only tire to tour on.  That is until she got our first flat in the Oconee National Forest.  Again, the advice was good to a point.  We made it well over 1000 miles before either of us got a flat, but we can’t prevent life from happening to us, and there we sat changing her tire.

Or how we’ve done really well so far with titanium cookware when everyone has told us we’d need a heat dispersal mechanism or prepare for burnt food.

Or how we have been scoffed at for carrying so much weight (or told it wasn’t enough.)

Or how we have been told to be wary of every person in the next county over only to be greeted just as nice and warmly as in the previous county.

Or how we have been told 1000 different versions of what riding in Florida will be like.  Most of it has been negative, but each person has hated riding in Florida for a reason.  Some hate the drivers.  Others are bored by how flat it is.  Others found it too expensive.  Maybe we’ll feel the same way, but we decided to find out for ourselves.

How about how I was told we wouldn’t need to drink Gatorade until the afternoon, but in reality, I need to drink it all day, while Jessica never hasn’t hardly touched the stuff?

How about how I was told I’d hate not having more aerodynamic handlebars, when really someone should have been telling me I’d hate my shifting system?

How about how people can’t believe Jessica doesn’t ride clipped in (myself included on this one sometimes)?  I actually can only ride half clipped in anyway, so again, kind of a moot point.  (Half clipped in means my right foot is attached to my right pedal via a cleat, but I have to leave my left foot free because I get horrific knee pain.)

How about how every other bike tourists says we’re going the wrong way across country and we’ll only have head winds if we head from east to west?  I have yet to experience this.  We’ve had our nastiest headwinds come from the east as we head from west to east… and our best tailwinds came from when we were headed due south. Not to say we won’t have this all switch on us once we head due west, but the weather systems just don’t seem so regular!

I could keep spouting all the different ways we’ve gotten advice that we then have had to alter based on experience, but I’ll shut up now.  It’s clear to me that the best way we all communicate with each other and deal with strangers is to give and receive advice.  It’s a great conversation to have.  It’s also ended up with some real success stories, like the guy in Chicago who told us to bellow out “GO HOME!” to chasing dogs.  It really works!

So I know that someone might be reading our blog, thinking about how they’d like to do this some day, looking at our product reviews and pondering the choices.  And I’m happy to give advice to anyone who wants it.  I just have to say, you will have your own opinion about what’s best in the end, so don’t listen to me or anyone else.  Get the gear you want, go the route you want, eat what you want and trust that everyone will be kind and wonderful along the way.  (Except maybe logging truck drivers.  They never get over.)

Book Review: Hell on 2 Wheels

Sunday, October 9th, 2011 Posted by Rachel. Published under Gear + Product Review. No Comments.

Last night I finished a book called Hell on 2 Wheels.  It was introduced to me by our wonderful Chicago host, Heidi.  She’s a big cyclist herself, more of the racing/ exercise type, though.  It was sitting on her shelf and I was intrigued by it before she’d even mentioned it herself later.  Needless to say, it’s a pretty catchy title!

It’s a non-fiction story about the most difficult ultra-cycling race in the world, the Race Across America (RAAM).  What’s ultra-cycling you may ask?  I didn’t know either!  Apparently, there’s a whole subculture of cycling in which a person rides for as far and as long as possible, usually without the cushy breaks that the Tour de France bequeaths upon its racers.  Instead of getting off the bike at 5pm, going and having a massage, socializing, eating a lush dinner and getting a good night’s sleep, all while the race clock is stopped, these ultra-cycling races don’t stop the clock.  Therefore, the riders don’t stop either.  This race in particular starts in Oceanside, CA (just south of San Diego) and ends in Annapolis, MD.  That’s a far ride at a killer pace!

So how was the book?  Well, if you can overlook the horrific copyediting (so bad a person who hasn’t taken an advanced English class ever noticed it all over the book) and the extraordinarily simple prose of the author, it’s a gripping read.  The author describes in somewhat lacking detail the race and what happens to the human body when it doesn’t get a break.  These riders are on their bikes for a minimum of 20 hours a day, riding on maybe 2 hours of sleep for upwards of 12 days (that’s the race cutoff time).  They can succumb to a condition known as Shermer’s Neck.  It’s named after one of the co-founders of RAAM, Michael Shermer, who in his second year of the race, experienced complete failure of his neck muscles.  Yep, that’s right, they couldn’t hold up his head anymore.  Just thinking about the limp neck and swinging head makes me get the goosebumps.

I also didn’t really like the focus the author put on the male riders, to the detriment of her coverage of the female riders, but as she writes in the end of the book, it’s nearly impossible to cover every rider all the time.  Each rider can be upwards of 500 miles from one another and the author had to go without sleep herself as it was just to cover what she could.  It was a disappointment, but it just makes me want to find one of the amazing women who’ve done this race and interview them for our documentary instead.

What I loved about the book was the emphasis on how these riders really have to dig deep within themselves in order to even finish this race.  The author talks about how the cyclists cope with the pain they experience, how they withstand utter exhaustion and how they keep pedaling for well over 2500 miles.  While Jessica and I might not be going at this cutthroat pace, I can certainly relate to this all.  In fact, I have found it comforting to read about their struggles.  It has helped me to understand that I might just hate each hill we go up, but I shouldn’t look at it as a reason to give up.  I should consider each challenge, each drop of sweat as a gift.  I am blessed to be able to push my mind and body to an extreme I never thought I could handle.

Overall, I highly recommend this book.  I had never heard of this race before, I will never partake myself, but I might just go to the finish line someday just to see these amazing athletes conquer the most difficult challenge that they have set before themselves.