Route tracking and pictures

Scott Morris graciously added me to their site so my entire SPOT history can be saved.

Here is me and all the gear:

I will be getting an early start tomorrow, until then going to relax with my brother. 

Still not riding yet.

Due to gear issues I have yet to hit the trail.  This happens when you decided to make your own panniers and bike racks, doing this is much cheaper but has its trade off in difficulty.  Not to fret though, I have everything all up and running with time tomorrow for final tweaks and testing.  So if all goes without failure then I'll be on the trail Aug 1

I woke up this morning with some radiating pain in my ankle, it is usually bad right when I wake up but today was the worst it felt in several weeks.  Happily it did not persist and I am moving around like normal.

I did have a little surprise today, when my brother came home he gave me a SPOT tracker.  This will give a live feed on my progress (SPOT's website only does a seven day history though).  I sent off and email to trackleaders.com which can store all the way points I want (site was created by two Tour Divide racers).  Hopefully I will get in contact with them before I head out.

I'll have some pictures of the bike with all my gear tomorrow.

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Route info and the gear saga continues.

So I have been asked several times to show the route that I am taking so I did a quick sketch.

The Red route is the Great Divide Route (Tour Divide).  The green are alternate routes that depend on time, weather, and what I feel like doing.  The green routes in Colorado depends on if I leave from Boulder or Lakewood.


1: Follows along US HWY 2 mostly
2: Follows Canada HWY 3
3: Route 1 (Trans-Canada) to HWY 5 (to make it a little more interesting 5a can be used which bypasses Kamloops)

I am looking at importing the gps route into google earth and then you can track me with google latitude plug-in.  I will give more info on this after I have it set up tonight.  The usefulness of this is highly dependent on my phones gps signal though.

Went shopping for three hours with the family yesterday, as the Brits would say my nephew was wobbling (their slang for tantrum)... I survived that so the Tour Divide should be a piece of cake.  Gear I picked up:

bear spray
cable lock
food
13/14/15/16mm cone wrenches (really only need the 13/15mm ones but it came in a set)
Avid Disc Brake bleed kit
AA batteries
AAA batteries
2303 Batteries (for my bike computer)
GP1 Ergon grips
LP2r Flashlights*
Romisen RC-N3 Flashlight*
Katadyn  Combi microfilter**

*I already have spectacular LED flashlights (Solarforce L2) but they take a 18650 rechargeable battery which takes ~6hrs to charge so is not very useful for this trip.  The LP2r and Romisen take AA batteries so I wont have to worry about charging just replacing (I know I am a horrible consumer by doing this but one must sacrifice sometimes).  I bought two as they are from online companies and I was not sure if the LP2r would arrive in time and it is not essential enough to wait for, lets hope at least one of them arrives by Friday.  If not then I will rely on my headlamp and have my brother ship the flashlights to a town ahead of me on the road so I can pick them up.

**Hopefully my final purchase on a water filter.  It has a ceramic core so lasts for 13000 gal with a replaceable carbon core.  Still wont filter out viruses so I would have to use either use tablets or boiling to take care of them.

Gear I still need:

Sunscreen
Duct Tape
Restock my first aid kit
Hydraulic brake line
Bandana
Spare spokes
Painter Tarp

Off to go play with the bike rack mounting.

A world full of bears.

There are plenty of dangers on a trip like this that I can encounter, but none instill the shear amazement that bears do.


Bears from Flannon Jackson on Vimeo.

A good portion of my route exists in bear country, mostly black and a little grizzly. 

So what do you do, simple really all you need is bear mace and common sense.  No guns required (the only guns that would be even remotely useful are rifles or 12ga shotguns with slugs.  The only handguns the provide the necessary force are 480 Ruger or the 500 S&W though even with those it is quite difficult to kill a bear.  I wont be out to kill anything either so that leaves me with mace... let alone the weight of caring a gun isnt worth it either.)

So far here are some of the bears that I have encountered in my life:

And a no chew bear (who needs a mouth anyway, thanks Peggy it reminds me of The Island of Doctor Moreau)

 

Thanks Darren for adding to my bear collection.

Water Cunundrum

So after more thought and disscussion with my friend Darren I am back to being undecided how I want to get my water.

Both the First Need XL and Lifesaver are not nessessery for travel in the US as water borne viruses are not a problem here.  Though roughly 90% of our streams have Giardia so a filter of at least .2 um is needed this would also eliminate any worry of pesticides and toxic chemicals.

Though if I ever decide to cycle in developing nations then viruses become an issue.  So I would have to either have a ceramic filter and some type of chemical or boil it.  If I boil it then added fuel consumption becomes an issue also the time requirement for boiling needs to be taken into account (though since I would be traveling on my own schedule really time isnt so much of an issue).

If I dont want to boil the water I would need a purifier which looks like the Lifesaver would be my choice; I would have to carry not only the weight of the bottle but also the extra filters...

So added weight of fuel vs Lifesaver and filters. 

Enough of this talk of logistics... more cycling!

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New gear!

Today was a big fail in terms of purging my heaps of materialism.  My boss gave me a $100 gift certificate to REI.  So I looked at items that I would like to have but would not have gotten myself.

My bike gloves are tattered scraps of cloth that have no function other than make my hands look like they are from a Mad Max movie.  The new Cannonndale gel padded gloves make my hands feel like they are wrapped in a cozy blanket while also giving them some protection.  Now when I fall I wont tear off half of my hand in the process.

Bought a nice water filter/purifier (First need XL).  Doesn't have the frills of other filters but it does a great job.  It is quite bulky though which might cause packing issues.

Also purchased was a 6L Dromedary (a rugged water container basically)... I now can carry up to 3.5 days of water which is completely overkill for this trip but will be good for large backpacking trips and touring outside of the states.

Only have a couple items left to get and I am all set to go; still need spare batteries, tent stakes, and bear mace.

In the beggining...

My employment is coming to an end, I have relatively no responsibilities.  So what better than to leave my current life behind in search for that tantalizing unknown. 

I have a tendency to do things haphazardly and usually will just "wing it."  So riding a bicycle across ~2700 miles of terrain with only a small idea of what to expect is a good way to get into some trouble.  Though, what is life without a little challenge?

So some details:  I'm about to be jobless, homeless, and no responsibilities (other than keep myself alive of course).  So what better time than to up and explore the mountains on a bike.  I have never done a touring trip before, hell the farthest I have ridden in a day has been 45-50 miles; now I have to do that every day for many days on end... it shall be interesting.  Let alone the fact that I will be riding injured too.  I tore some ligaments in my left ankle a couple weeks ago and being the crazy man I am I have been riding on it and using it as much as it will allow instead of staying off of it and letting it heal properly.

I will be taking the Tour Divide route from here to Banff, then the Northern Tier route to Bellingham.  Here is a link to the major touring routes across the US:
http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/RouteNetwork.pdf