A Week to Go

A week from tonight I’ll be arriving in Astoria and a week from tomorrow it’s the first ride which is a 29 mile round trip from the hotel to the Pacific Ocean for the ceremonial wheel dip.  Then on Monday, June 20^th the riding starts for real!

This was another good week of training with almost 225 miles racked up.  Marci and I were going to have done 100 miles today, but she had to go to work at noon, so we took a hard, fast 25 miler early this morning.  She has gotten faster.  But so have I, so it was a real good ride.  I’m just taking one or two more short rides early this week. At this point there’s not much to be gained by hard or long rides.  I’m either ready or I’m not.  I think I’m ready.

Early in the week all of the participants got an email from the tour leader.  Since everyone’s email address was on that email, it started a two day blitz of introductory emails and connecting with each other.  Not everyone was heard from, but it sounds like there are several people from my age group (60+).  And many of the people have the same concerns I have about whether they are prepared for what we’ll face on the ride.  If misery loves company, I’m glad that I may have company! 

Two other riders and I are going to meet up at the Portland Airport next Saturday afternoon and rent a car for the trip out to Astoria rather than take the bus  It will be nice to get to meet some of the other people even before I get there.  I also recognized one of the riders as someone who I had spoken to a couple of years ago when I asked America By Bicycle for former riders as references.  He had taken one of their other cross-country tours and now is doing this one.  On his previous tour he had used a Go-Pro and made a rather professional hour long video of the tour.  He says he’s doing it again.  So I’ll look forward to getting a copy from him (I guess that means I have to put on my happy face even when I struggle up the hills.  Wouldn’t want to be seen frowning in his video.)

Now that the others on the tour are becoming “real” through emails, and as of tomorrow the trip is “at the end of this week."   I’m getting excited. 

My bike went out via Fedex on Tuesday but that has turned into a potential fly in the ointment.  Fedex's website tracking showed the box leaving Hagerstown, MD early Wednesday morning and it has not shown again anywhere.  I know from tracking other packages over the years that even when traveling long distances they tend to get scanned at intermediate points at least once every 36 hours.  With it not having shown in over 60 hours, I made a couple of calls to Fedex yesterday afternoon without getting a responsive answer.  Finally, I got a supervisor to call me back and she assured me that the reason it doesn’t show is that it is in a truck that goes from Hagerstown to the West Coast without being touched en route.  Sounds a bit unlikely to me (ok….sounds like a fishy excuse!), so I asked them to please put a trace on it and make sure it’s not sitting somewhere here on the East Coast.  I was told they can’t track it until it is “overdue”, which will be COB Tuesday.  She assures me that it is indeed on a "nonstop" truck and it will show up in Portland on Monday and be delivered on Tuesday.  I’ll feel a lot better when I see it emerge somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

Until it emerges (or until I go nuts because it doesn’t emerge), that’s all for now.