From May 1st until June 30th, I am going to be riding my bicycle with a few others across the country, ocean to ocean. We are going to drive back to the East coast with our support vehicle which is a 25 foot motorhome, and start at Yorktown, Virginia and in 60 days ride back to Jefferson and then to Newport, Oregon. It is about 4,000 miles and we will need to average 67 miles each day to make it.

I just finished mapping out each day of the trip. I even have each campsite picked out with phone numbers, and in a couple of months, we will start calling making reservations. I have checked out the entire trip via google earth. I didn’t travel it all with the Google earth camera, but I did check about every 20 miles to see what the roads were like, and the terrain. I did quite a bit of research on each of the campsites checking the recommendations and critiques left by former bicyclists. Some places are definitely bicycle-friendly, and other sites regard bicycle riders as crazy and the enemy.

I will have my little tent, a little camp chair that is short so I can sit on it in my tent if the mosquitos are bad, a jet one burner cookstove that I heat water with for my freeze-dried meals, coffee, and oatmeal. I have a very comfortable air mattress, a lightweight but warm sleeping bag, a blow-up pillow, and a bag of a few extra clothes. I also have a bag of tools that will work to fix anything on the bicycle, spare tires, tubes, spare cables, and a repair manual. I will also have a bag with toothpaste, toothbrush, razor, soap, sunscreen, Parkinson’s medicine, vitamins, ibuprofen, and lots and lots of butt butter. I will also have my iPad and cell phone so that I can read and write on the entire trip. My goal is to write at least 40 sermons on the trip. I have come close to that on all previous bicycle Trips except last year because it got cut short because of the severe heat. I usually listen to about four sermons each day while riding as well.