Meet Rusty!

Rusty (he's a deep red) is the just about best cycling companion imaginable for a three-month, cross-country trip.  Although he's a little on the heavy side, he's a beefy, handsome machine who has obviously been weight training.  Even at the a youthful age of seven, he's already seen the world.  His first trip ever was to the Dordogne in  France in 1999, and the immediately following year he visited Austria and the Czech Republic.  Since then he's traveled around many different areas of the western United States such as the Oregon Cascades, the Trinity Alps in California, and parts of the "Lewis & Clark" trail through Idaho and Montana.

The picture you see here was taken in Montana a couple of years ago.  It shows some of my older camping equipment, but it's still my typical setup: panniers on either side of both front and rear racks, Thermarest mattress on the top of the front rack, tent and sleeping bag on the top of the rear rack.

Rusty is the quintessential touring bicycle.  It was custom built by the Waterford Company in Waterford, Wisconsin (the former high end division of the venerable Schwinn Bicycle Company).  The build specifications took into account my height, weight, leg and arm length, making for a bicycle that fits me to a tee.  The frame is constructed of Reynolds 753 steel; the forks of Reynolds 531.  With its long wheelbase and low center of gravity, it delivers a comfortable, stable ride mile after mile.

My philosophy is that it doesn't take much to go fast downhill.  It's going uphill where you need all the help you can get.  Therefore, the gearing favors toward the low end of the range.  The triple chain ring gives you a choice of 48, 45, or 24 teeth; the rear cassette has cogs with 12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32 teeth.  This setup is called Half-Step Alpine gearing, because it has low gears for climbing (the Alpine part), but mostly lots of closely spaced gears (in "half steps") in the midrange for cruising long stretches of pavement.  In the lowest gear, the pedals turn faster than the wheels!

You might be a little skeptical about the Brooks leather saddle in the picture (I have a model B17 on the bike), but appearances can be deceiving.  It is without a doubt the most comfortable seat I have ever used.  Like a favorite pair of shoes, it continues to get more comfortable over time, since it gradually conforms to your own individual derrière.  This one was comfortable out of the box and required no breaking in period.

Gear

A trip of this scope and duration requires lots of lightweight, high tech, state-of-the-art equipment.  Technically speaking, this is known as a shopping opportunity.  Oh boy!  This was an opportunity that I embraced with the utmost enthusiasm (to the profit and delight of REI Coop), and one which I will undoubtedly regret as I start climbing the first minor hill.  (I estimate the total weight on the bike to be 45 pounds.)

Home on the range

My home-away-from-home for three months is probably the most important piece of equipment (other than Rusty himself) that I'll have with me.  This one is big enough for two people; for one person, it's palatial.  It has a roomy 32.5 square feet of interior space (for all the gear I bought at REI), as well as two generous vestibules formed by the rainfly where you can leave your shoes, helmet, and any other gear you don't want  or need inside the tent.  This is a lot of room for just a little over five pounds, and since it's home, the extra weight was worth it to me.  Just in case you're curious, it's a Mountain Hardware "Haven 2". 

For those times when no rustic French bistro or homey Italian trattoria is readily available, the complete home on the range actually needs a range.  I struggled with the decision whether to take cooking gear along or not, because even Taco Bell is preferable to almost anything I could fix on a one burner camping stove.  Once the gourmet freeze-dried rations are exhausted, dinner is likely to be a box of macaroni and cheese ... for the umpteenth time.

Electronics

No self-respecting geek can go far without a full panoply of gadgets. I have a global positioning satellite (GPS) system mounted to the handlebars, as well as a cyclometer that measures speed, distance, time, cadence, average speed, maximum speed, total distance, and the national debt.

But why stop there?  If there is anything on this website that I have obviously uploaded during the trip, it is because I have my Dell Inspiron M700 laptop with me.  Moreover, I saved the weight of a paperback book by downloading a couple of murder mysteries onto an iPod.  That alone must have shaved off at least a full ounce, and maybe two.

As a native Californian I have been worried about weather.  We have precious little weather in California (it's just about the same every day from May through September), but those people in the Midwest have tons of weather.  The only way to prepare for that is with a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) capable "weather radio".  This radio is able to alert you not only of the risk of a thunderstorm or tornado, but also to a nuclear incident or a biohazard.  I certainly hope I don't see many of those.

To round out the geek package, I will have my trusty personal digital assistant (an HP iPaq PDA), a digital voice recorder, and Canon S70 digital camera.  About 98% of the photos on this site were taken with the Canon.  It's a great camera in a small package.

So what's in the panniers?

All of the above represents only a fraction of what I'll need to take along.  In the outerwear department, there's a second set of everyday warm-weather cycling attire, one set of cold-weather cycling clothes (early mornings in the mountains), rain gear, street clothes for the evenings, shoes, sandals, shorts and swim suit.

Even though it's vacation, there's still mundane chores like laundry to deal with.  For this you need liquid detergent, a sink stopper, and a clothes line.  A cyclist has to be meticulously clean in order to avoid his nemesis: the dreaded saddle sore.   One of those can put an abrupt end to any hope of cycling.  More than one Tour de France rider has had to bow out of the race on account of them. 

Keeping your gear clean is one thing; keeping yourself clean and healthy is yet another.  Toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, bath towel and hand towel are as necessary on the road as at home.  The medicine cabinet contains BandAids, antibiotic ointment, wound dressings, water purification tablets, vitamins, Ibuprofen, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, lip balm, and so forth.

Rusty also likes to be kept clean and lubricated.  To take care of him, I carry shop rags, grease and oil.  If he has a minor problem, I can help out with a set of tools, spare cables, spare tubes, a patch kit, a nylon spoke that will get you to the next bike shop, and touch-up paint.