Are we prepared? Nope! Are we ready? Hell yeah!!!
Mental Preparedness
We are over-ready to be on the road.
Fitness?
I meeeeean...? It's not like we've been regularly biking 50-80 miles everyday. But we've been working out a lot since March, and we're copacetic with some early physical discomfort; we'll try not to cry too much, or at least not to post about said crying.
Sara's done a handful of rides in recent months, topping out (but not maxing out) at 55 miles and 15mph. Beau's peaked at 33 miles recently. He's long been more of a runner, and his wind is up, but just look at those scrawny thighs… This kid's gonna suffer.
We'll be sure to take before and after photos.
Gear!
Just some classic pre-trip gear shots.
This is everything save the clothes, toiletries, and panniers (bags). Most of the camping gear we had previously, since we like to camp. We're happy campers.
We had to pick up a solar panel, a 1/2-sized guitar (a used Hondo), and the red camp-pillows — we decided to treat ourselves, rather than using rolled up clothes as pillows, which is what we've usually done before!
Sara's mom made us pack towels by cutting two towels in half and putting in grommets — neither of us is fond of micro-fiber's texture or price.
Sara got an old GoPro for the trip; Beau's bringing along a Nikon D80, which he bought second- or third-hand on Ebay last fall. (He was nostalgic about the D80 he had from 2008-14, before it finally gave out on him. The D5300 he had in the interim proved to be a lemon.)
There's other stuff in there, too. Like Sara's beloved (and very-well-worn) Fabric Horse utility belt.
Bikes!
Bikes are super hard to get ahold of this year! With the exception of the super-high-end, there were legitimately no complete bikes in our sizes on the market when we started looking.
Fortunately, we were put into contact with Kyle, a friend of a friend in Charlottesville who has his own bike shed in his backyard. The shed even has cassettes and chains laid into the concrete!!! (This is Sara testing out her bike for the fitting in Kyle's shed.)
We scoured the internet for frames, found the ones we wanted, and got them to Kyle. We both went with All-City frames, and here's why:
We actually found our sizes in stock
We prefer the look and feel of steel bikes (over aluminum or carbon).
These are versatile frames that can haul weight, climb mountains, and cover a hell of a lot of road.
All-City bikes are friggin pretty.
Once Kyle had the frames, it wasn't long before we had bikes. Here's a few of our New Bike Day shots (it's a scroller).
Beau just got his front rack in this week (it's called a "pizza rack", so he thought he'd try it out).
He also got new pedals, and we took them out for a light 20 miles. Sara just picked up her handlebar phone mount. We have a giant packing spreadsheet. We've made a preliminary grocery run. The virtual play-reading that Sara's been directing this week goes up tomorrow night! We start in two days.
Ready or not, here we go!