Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Pie
Sunday, August 7, Sandpoint, Idaho
T
To judge from reader comments on my blog, from tweets of those who are following
me, emails to my
New York Times
address, and from inquiries of people I've been meeting
along the way, the practical aspects of a cross-country bike trip are of real interest.
People want solid facts. Not just where did you start and where are you going, but what's
your route, how many hours a day do you ride, and when do you think you'll be fin-
ished? How do you do your laundry, how many flat tires have you had, what sort of GPS
are you carrying? Then there's one I've been asked three or four times recently: What's
your favorite thing about the trip so far?
This is Day 19, counting the four days I spent off the road for the funeral. I can answer
these questions, some of them anyway, on a first-impression sort of basis. I usually ride
six to eight hours a day: 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. is a perfect schedule, by my lights, though
it rarely works out perfectly. (And then there are days like today, when I rode thirty
miles in two and half hours, arrived here just after noon, and spent the rest of the day
napping on the town beach.) I think I'll be back in my apartment by mid-October, but
I could be wrong. As for laundry, now and then I'll find a washing machine in a motel,
but more often I simply wear my bike clothes into the shower with me, peel them off,
and then hang them to dry on a nearby fence.
I haven't had a flat yet (that can't last, can it?), but I did take the bike in for a tune-
up this afternoon—the brake cables were tightened, the wheels trued, the chain cleaned
and oiled, the derailleur adjusted. Yes, I'm guilty of using a bike shop to tune my bike.
Anything I can do for a bicycle someone who works in a bike shop can do better.
Another confession: a couple of times, faced with unrideable conditions—a gravelly
and sandy road, a highway bridge with no bike lane—I've turned my bike upside down
