Monday, December 29, 2014

Will the tandem fit?

Marcia and I have been considering appropriate rental cars for getting us and all our gear (including our very long tandem bicycle) to Oregon. I started looking at our Honda Civic and began wondering - would all our gear fit in a small car like our Honda? So today my curiosity got the better of me and I broke down our tandem and tried it. The results were pretty cool!

Here's the bike next to our Honda

 

 

 

Bike & Bob trailer in trunk

 

 

 

Plenty of room for our gear

 

Sunday, December 28, 2014

IPad panorama

I'm thinking about those plain states or mountain vistas where a panoramic view would be good. So here is my first try using the iPad. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the video footage I took on the iPad into this blog. I've tried utube but I don't like how it displayed.

view in back of our house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Getting Started

2015 Northerntier Bicycle Trip

My wife Marcia and I have wanted to do a cross country (USA) bicycle trip for many years. This will be the year and this blog is intended to document our ride.

Our plan is to leave Maine in late May 2015. We will rent a car, load our tandem and gear into the car and head for Oregon where we have friends who will get us to the coast. Cape Lookout will likely be our starting point. This trip will mostly follow Adventure Cycling's Northerntier route taking us an anticipated 3 months to get back to home in Maine. We will be doing a mix of hotels and tent camping depending on the weather and our desire at the moment. We also plan to take a leisurely pace and explore as the spirit moves.

Some of our apples ready for pressing cider

We are beginning this blog now for a couple reasons. The most important reason is to get used to blogging - especially from an iPad.

We have begun to make plans which will ensure the well being of our home. Typical stuff like mowing the lawn and gathering mail. But we also have a small apple orchard and other fruits that need care.

We are also going to the local gym several times a week as part of our training to be in the best possible physical condition by late May. Hopefully the snows will be gone early enough to give us several miles in the saddle before leaving. On the flip side - we hope for enough snow to give us ample opportunity to snow shoe and cross country ski. Steve also runs with his good friend Bob a few times each week. I've included the track of one of our trail runs.

12-22-2014 trail run with Bob

We have also upgraded some of our gear with a strong emphasis on High visibility. Our panniers, jerseys, camel backs, and helmets are all high visibility. We also have a front white strobe and two rear red flashers. One flasher will be attached to Marcia's back of the tandem and the other will ride on the back of our Bob trailer. We plan to run the lights whenever we are peddling.

12-22-2014 profile

 

12-22-2014 Stats