Sun - May 23, 2004
Time To Go!
Start watching the other Blog from today
on....
We just returned this evening from our
annual "Spring Training" weekend with the bike club in Potter County
Pennsylvania at the Susquehannock Lodge. Three days of mountain riding in North
Central PA is just what we need to get our legs warmed up for what's to follow
starting Friday of next week when we saddle-up and head out from
Frisco.
Tomorrow, we're moving out everything of value out of the house and into safe keeping. Friends have the keys, and we're hopping the plane Tuesday morning @ 6am.
Effective with this log entry, all updates are now going to be posted on the TandemTransAm blog.
(http://tandemtransam.blogspot.com).
Come along along for the ride!
(Don't worry .... we'll take care of the pedalling!)
Brian and Karen
Tomorrow, we're moving out everything of value out of the house and into safe keeping. Friends have the keys, and we're hopping the plane Tuesday morning @ 6am.
Effective with this log entry, all updates are now going to be posted on the TandemTransAm blog.
(http://tandemtransam.blogspot.com).
Come along along for the ride!
(Don't worry .... we'll take care of the pedalling!)
Brian and Karen
Posted at 09:07 PM Read More
Thu - May 20, 2004
Five Days Till We Leave Rochester, and ...
The Excitement is Almost Unbearable!
Karen finished her last day of work last night, and I
just said buh-bye to my cohorts @ MCC (Monroe Community College) this afternoon.
When I got home and checked email, I found a message from Clay, the owner of
City Cycles in SF, that the bike was assembled, and in fine condition ... ready
for the trip!!
(Thanks again Clay!!! You're a HERO in our book!)
We're headed down to Potter County Pennsylvania in the morning for our annual "Spring Training" weekend in the mountains at Susquehannock Lodge. Three days of hard hilly riding with RBC club members down there will be a nice "gentle warm-up" for what's to follow just a week later in the Sierra Nevada's of California.
Everyone says that the long gentle slopes in the mountains out west are no match for the steep climbs of the East.
We'll let ya know what WE think! ;-)
Brian
==========================
Movement.
On a cross-country ride,
it's your lifeblood.
- Frosty Wooldridge, Adventurer
==========================
(Thanks again Clay!!! You're a HERO in our book!)
We're headed down to Potter County Pennsylvania in the morning for our annual "Spring Training" weekend in the mountains at Susquehannock Lodge. Three days of hard hilly riding with RBC club members down there will be a nice "gentle warm-up" for what's to follow just a week later in the Sierra Nevada's of California.
Everyone says that the long gentle slopes in the mountains out west are no match for the steep climbs of the East.
We'll let ya know what WE think! ;-)
Brian
==========================
Movement.
On a cross-country ride,
it's your lifeblood.
- Frosty Wooldridge, Adventurer
==========================
Posted at 10:37 PM Read More
Fri - May 14, 2004
Screamer in Frisco
Pretty fast bike ... all the way across in 4
days.
Safe and
Sound!
Our tandem and all it's gear has arrived at the bike shop in Frisco. That was pretty quick!
Bye for now ..... We'll catch up w/you in Frisco.
I REALLY LIKE Fed-EX!!! These guys don't mess around.
We're next! Now it's Air-Trans' turn to deliver. ;-)
11 days from now.
b
Our tandem and all it's gear has arrived at the bike shop in Frisco. That was pretty quick!
Bye for now ..... We'll catch up w/you in Frisco.
I REALLY LIKE Fed-EX!!! These guys don't mess around.
We're next! Now it's Air-Trans' turn to deliver. ;-)
11 days from now.
b
Posted at 09:34 PM Read More
Thu - May 13, 2004
Two Weeks!
The Screamer has a big head start!
We've been getting a bit anxious this week. Not just
because we're so close to leaving, but more so because we shipped out the
tandem, trailer, and gear to San Francisco on Monday via FedEx. We got tracking
numbers but .... FedEx hasn't been scanning the boxes and updating their website
showing exactly WHERE everything is quite as frequently as we would like.
When I came home from work today, the last we'd heard from the trailer was in Columbus Ohio on Tuesday, and the TANDEM had NOT been heard from since Monday.
Alas .... this evening, everything has shown up in Sacramento California! Right on schedule .... whew!!!
So, we guess the bike will be in Frisco in the morning, and probably at the bike shop by Monday. And WE are only two weeks behind it!
bcm
Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing. - Helen Keller
When I came home from work today, the last we'd heard from the trailer was in Columbus Ohio on Tuesday, and the TANDEM had NOT been heard from since Monday.
Alas .... this evening, everything has shown up in Sacramento California! Right on schedule .... whew!!!
So, we guess the bike will be in Frisco in the morning, and probably at the bike shop by Monday. And WE are only two weeks behind it!
bcm
Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing. - Helen Keller
Posted at 09:48 PM Read More
Thu - May 6, 2004
Now it's THREE!
Karen's thoughts as we go under three
weeks before leaving ....
Less than 3 weeks left! So much to do yet, so
little time! In reality, looking at our "to do" list, we are actually doing ok
getting ready.....then why do I feel so
overwhelmed?
It was only mid January that we even thought we could pull this off this year. It seems like so long ago and yet here we are down to the final phase now. All the arrangements have been made for being gone, contacts established, and we have both turned over our duties in the bike club to others. We spent this past weekend, well ok...Saturday (it rained Sunday) doing a trial run fully loaded, even carrying the 2 gal jugs of water we will need through the desert! Now the bike is disassembled and sitting in a bike box waiting to head west!
A huge thanks to our many friends and neighbors for helping us out in so many ways, and the many soon to be friends for their help while we are on the road! We are looking forward to meeting them ("TCA" - Tandem Club of America members and many others) and hope in the future we get a chance to return the favor!
-- Karen
The Screamer (frame) boxed up beside our sweetheart Sterling.
(Sorry sweetie ... you're sitting this one out, but we'll be home doing club rides before ya know it!)
It was only mid January that we even thought we could pull this off this year. It seems like so long ago and yet here we are down to the final phase now. All the arrangements have been made for being gone, contacts established, and we have both turned over our duties in the bike club to others. We spent this past weekend, well ok...Saturday (it rained Sunday) doing a trial run fully loaded, even carrying the 2 gal jugs of water we will need through the desert! Now the bike is disassembled and sitting in a bike box waiting to head west!
A huge thanks to our many friends and neighbors for helping us out in so many ways, and the many soon to be friends for their help while we are on the road! We are looking forward to meeting them ("TCA" - Tandem Club of America members and many others) and hope in the future we get a chance to return the favor!
-- Karen
The Screamer (frame) boxed up beside our sweetheart Sterling.
(Sorry sweetie ... you're sitting this one out, but we'll be home doing club rides before ya know it!)
Posted at 11:02 PM Read More
Wed - April 28, 2004
4 Weeks To Go
Entry #2 and we're changing plans
again.
This last weekend, we gathered up our gear
and started weighing everything. The Bob trailer is only rated for 70 pounds
(isn't that enough?) and we REALLY want to be on the "lighter" side. Everything
was looking OK, till we loaded on the two one-gallon jugs of water which we KNOW
we will need out in Nevada and Utah. That put us over the top and we had to
start looking at what to skim
off.
Looks like the laptop is staying home after all. As nice as it might be to have it along for communication and writing, it's NOT an essential piece of gear. In fact, not having it along would probably ADD to the quality of the trip by avoiding the complexity of hauling technology along with us.
This IS a vacation you know! :-D
Since the laptop is staying home, that means that once we hit the road, the blog at TandemTransAm on Blogspot will be the place to go to check up on our progress. Unlike this blog which I can only edit/update with software, we can edit blogspot from wherever we can get a web-based connection to the net, like public libraries, or maybe police stations? ;-) Bookmark THAT site, not this one.
Looks like the laptop is staying home after all. As nice as it might be to have it along for communication and writing, it's NOT an essential piece of gear. In fact, not having it along would probably ADD to the quality of the trip by avoiding the complexity of hauling technology along with us.
This IS a vacation you know! :-D
Since the laptop is staying home, that means that once we hit the road, the blog at TandemTransAm on Blogspot will be the place to go to check up on our progress. Unlike this blog which I can only edit/update with software, we can edit blogspot from wherever we can get a web-based connection to the net, like public libraries, or maybe police stations? ;-) Bookmark THAT site, not this one.
Posted at 09:19 PM Read More
Wed - April 21, 2004
Planning Stage!
Entry #1 in our Trans-Am
Logbook
Welcome!
This is our story of celebrating our 10th Anniversary by crossing the USA on our recumbent tandem bicycle.
When we (Karen and Brian Managan of Rochester NY) married on June 25th of '94, we celebrated by taking a tour around the perimeter of the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York ... our "backyard", so to speak. We rode our brand new custom road touring tandem, a "Sterling" built by Steve Bilenky.
Our Sterling/Bilenky Custom Road Touring Tandem (June 28th, 1994)
Although it's a beautiful ride, (our favorite of 3 tandems we own) we have always thought that being on the road all day, and eventually getting tired and sore would cause us to droop our heads and stare at the asphalt miles rolling by, instead of looking UP at the beautiful country we're riding thru. What a WASTE!
So, for THIS trip ... Here's the bike we're using:
The Rans Screamer Recumbent Tandem
Ok ... kinda weird, kinda heavy, and for us ... kinda slooooow climbing up the hills. But, no matter how tired we get on that thing, we always have our heads up, and we don't get the aches and pains from riding all day ... just tired, and that's to be expected anyway.
So the plan is to load up everything on this monster and it's "Beast of Burden", the Bob trailer, and head out from San Francisco on May 28th on Adventure Cycling's Western Express Bicycle Route. We'll climb the Sierra's near Lake Tahoe, head straight (or as straight as we can go) across the Nevada basin to Utah and Colorado, and connect to the original TransAmerica Trail at Pueblo. From there, we finish out the trip by crossing Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and finally to Virginia and the Atlantic coast at Yorktown. 3800 miles.
If we can work it out, space and weight-wise, we'll take my titanium Mac laptop along to store photos, write stories, record video, and edit this blog. If we decide to cut the weight, we'll use: Our Other Blog to get the latest news out to ya'll.
Just one month till departure!
Brian
This is our story of celebrating our 10th Anniversary by crossing the USA on our recumbent tandem bicycle.
When we (Karen and Brian Managan of Rochester NY) married on June 25th of '94, we celebrated by taking a tour around the perimeter of the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York ... our "backyard", so to speak. We rode our brand new custom road touring tandem, a "Sterling" built by Steve Bilenky.
Our Sterling/Bilenky Custom Road Touring Tandem (June 28th, 1994)
Although it's a beautiful ride, (our favorite of 3 tandems we own) we have always thought that being on the road all day, and eventually getting tired and sore would cause us to droop our heads and stare at the asphalt miles rolling by, instead of looking UP at the beautiful country we're riding thru. What a WASTE!
So, for THIS trip ... Here's the bike we're using:
The Rans Screamer Recumbent Tandem
Ok ... kinda weird, kinda heavy, and for us ... kinda slooooow climbing up the hills. But, no matter how tired we get on that thing, we always have our heads up, and we don't get the aches and pains from riding all day ... just tired, and that's to be expected anyway.
So the plan is to load up everything on this monster and it's "Beast of Burden", the Bob trailer, and head out from San Francisco on May 28th on Adventure Cycling's Western Express Bicycle Route. We'll climb the Sierra's near Lake Tahoe, head straight (or as straight as we can go) across the Nevada basin to Utah and Colorado, and connect to the original TransAmerica Trail at Pueblo. From there, we finish out the trip by crossing Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and finally to Virginia and the Atlantic coast at Yorktown. 3800 miles.
If we can work it out, space and weight-wise, we'll take my titanium Mac laptop along to store photos, write stories, record video, and edit this blog. If we decide to cut the weight, we'll use: Our Other Blog to get the latest news out to ya'll.
Just one month till departure!
Brian
Posted at 11:26 PM Read More
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Published On: May 23, 2004 09:08 PM
Published On: May 23, 2004 09:08 PM