Preliminary Thoughts #1

Ted and I wanted to do another bike ride a few days after we finished the last one in Wisconsin. He had the time and desire to ride back home but the East Coast called and I had some other things to do. We made the commitment to do it again. Now that June is practically looming on the horizon I thought that I would start afresh with a new blog about the upcoming trip.

Equipment changes since last year:

• New bike frame for Andy -- I got a Surly Long Haul Trucker touring frame. It's heavy but promises to be worthy. I basically swapped all of the other components over.
• New brakes for both of us. Ted now has mini-v brakes and I have big v-brakes to fit over my fenders but I had to use a device called a travel agent. We can stop really well now.
• Fenders for Andy -- I have been riding to school every day this year and they are nice to have on the days (all of 4 or 5) when there has been water on the pavement. Ted says he doesn't want any. At least he says that now...
  
• New wheels for Andy -- I picked up some new Phil Wood touring hubs on Mavic rims with sealed bearings and really heavy-duty axles on Craigslist . My old wheels were okay but I didn't trust them. I kept having fears about them breaking on a big descent. These wheels are bomb-proof and the hubs will last a lifetime.
• New rear racks for both of us. My racks were literally wearing through due to rubbing from my bags over 12,000 miles since I got them. Ted's racks were meant for 10 lb loads and were already bent. We got Tubus racks designed for 90 lbs. By far the best out there.
• I got new rear panniers. I ended up with some very nice, large Ortleib waterproof bags.
  They are top of the line.
• Sealed deraileur pullies because we were driven to distraction by squeaky ones last year.
• New tires. We both replaced our Panracer 700x32 tires with some higher quality Schwalbe Marathon 700x32 tires. They are heavier but promise to be bombproof and wear longer. My old rear tire was worn bald after only 5000 miles. They also have a nifty reflective sidewall...
• After much thought and some experimentation I have swapped out my 52-40-30 front chain rings with a 48-36-24 set of chain rings. This will give me a much wider usable range with a slight loss at the top end. Ted will be able to outdo me pedaling with the wind on the downhills, in theory. I keep reading about the killer 2000 meter climbs in Mexico and I wanted some ultra low gears when the time came. My gear range is now between 19 and 118 gear inches (or pedal/wheel rotation ratio of .7 to 4.4). I offered to put on a smaller small chain ring for Ted and he seemed to think he was ok.
• At the same time I got a new bottom bracket. My old one was ok for now but was feeling dubious when I took it out and played with it. It was out of my old Bianchi and was 10 years old and probably had 8000 miles on it. They are cheap enough and important enough to replace as insurance.
  

Where to go?

We have thrown around many ideas -- Wisconsin to east coast, Albuq to Vancouver, via the Rockies but we finally settled on Portland, OR to Albuquerque. About a month ago I was reading a story about a couple who left their home in Arizona and headed south. That was 6 years ago and they haven't stopped since, although they went to Asia after they got to the tip of South America. They were effusive about how great Mexico was. Since Ted and I really like going to Mexico too we changed our plans.

We could also really both benefit from being immersed in a spanish speaking culture donde podemos practicar nuestra espanol. Actually my Spanish is pretty decent for basic communications like "I have a burn on my neck" but I have to concentrate really hard to understand things spoken to me. Sometimes I have no idea what somebody just said if it is rapid or colloquial. Usually I understand about 75% of things and fake the rest. Ted takes Spanish in school and could use as much exposure as he can handle.

Our plan is to put the bikes on a bus here in Albuquerque, cross the border in El Paso/Juarez and continue south to Guanajuato, a couple of hundred miles north of Mexico City. That's about a 20 hour bus ride, I think, so maybe we'll break it up with an overnight stop somewhere. It will also get us through the empty desert to where there are more people to talk to and fewer places to die of sunstroke. Mexican buses are fast, modern, comfortable and cheap.

Once we get off the bus we'll ride south until we get close to Guatamala. At this point my plan is to see a smoking volcano (Popocapetl?), visit Oaxaca, ride along the Pacific Ocean and visit San Cristobol de las Casas in Chiapas, where Dan Cummings and his wife have been living for the last year. Palenque ruins might be nice but could be hot since it is in the low jungle. Dan points out that we are crazy because there are lots of big mountains and it's the rainy season. I guess we'll just deal with it by riding in the mornings and becoming hill climbing machines.

A great resource for planning or even checking feasability of this plan is: crazyguyonabike.com

We'll leave during the first week of June and be gone for around 3 weeks.