The Ceremonial Start

We officially began our bike ride across the country with a ceremonial dip of the rear wheel in the ocean today. We loaded our bike with nearly everything to  test our ability to carry all that stuff. Then we rode to Mission Beach 16 miles and dipped the rear tire in the surf.  Our bathroom scale said the bike weighed 56 pounds and the gear added another 63 pounds, but the bike handled well. The weather was perfect and we stopped at Rubio's for lunch. Overall it was a great 32 mile ride to start our journey.

The truth from Ruth: There was a girl scout selling cookies and I talked my husband into buying some for me. Yum yum!

Training

We've been doing training rides over the past month, but mostly running. Jeff ran a Marathon and Ruth ran a Half-Marathon last Saturday. Jeff was hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but missed it by 34 seconds. It is such a relief to have that out of the way and be able to focus on biking.

We typically bike 30-40 miles on training rides, for example to the beach or Alpine or Lake Miramar. We upgraded our shifters and did a lot of shopping for clothes and compact camping gear.

Now we've assembled almost all of our gear and will strap it on for a ride to the ocean tomorrow, where we'll dip our rear tire in the water to officially start our ride and test our ability to carry that much stuff.

We were planning to ride from the ocean to our house Saturday, Feb 4th, and then continue on Monday, but the weather forcasts predict rain for Tuesday and Wednesday, so we'll probably wait until Thursday to leave home. We'll play it by ear.