So I’ve been spending most of this long weekend planning a possible trip by bicycle to the West Coast. Whether this is still going to happen is still up in the air. But I thought we may as well plan as though we’re going to do it by bike. The good thing about the planning is that nearly all purchases can be used after we move (example: the panniers can be used to haul groceries). We still have to get rid of (by giving away and selling) all our stuff so that exercise will not be wasted.

Since this is the sort of thing I find exciting, I’ve gotten together our gear list and am now mapping out our journey. The purchases will start in about a week or two…we currently have the money to do the trip, but I want to have a bit more gravy so that I can relax a little bit after we reach our destination instead of going out on job hunts rightaway.

I’ve gotten an account on CrazyGuyOnABike.com and if we do do this trip, it will be blogged about on crazy guy.I’ll link to it if and when we do leave.

Anyway..about the actual journey. Most people whose accounts I’ve read about did the coast to coast trip by relying on maps from adventure cycling. Looking at the maps and reading accounts doesn’t make me too thrilled about the trip. For one I don’t want to head south, then west, and then north in order to get to where we want to go.  I also don’t want to deal with dogs that chase me trying to bite my ankles, or dour townspeople and aggressive auto traffic. This sort of excitement I want to keep at a very minimal level. So I’ve been putting together my own little route just to see if its any better than the Trans-Am trail (which goes from Virginia to Oregon).

The idea for cobbling together my own route really came from an adventure cycling event I attended earlier this year. One of the proposals that the organization is putting together is to establish an official (DOT approved, If I recall correctly) bicycle pathway across the country. This would connect all the bike paths from all the states up with each other.  It would be like the interstate highway system, except its only available to bicyclists and no motorized vehicles like ATVs. In Pennsylvania there are a few bike paths one of which is the Route S which goes from Philadelphia area to Pittsburgh and hits West Virginia. Then in this proposed bike path system, a bike path from W. VA would link with Route S. Since that map doesn’t exist I am putting it together myself. Our desire is to experience as little auto traffic as possible. And many bike paths tend to ban automobiles and other motorized vehicles.

The good thing about not being a pioneer is that someone already does all the hard work for you. So I am relying on google and bikely.com to get everything together.

I also spent most of the weekend (in addition to celebrating freedom) reading journals. My biggest inspiration is Heidi Domeisen. She finished her first trip from North Carolina to Alaska and back very, very frugally. She camped every single night and cooked almost all her meals every single day. So…since we plan on being as thrifty as possible I took alot of notes of her experience when I read her account 2 years ago. Yes, this trip has been on my mind for over 2 years. My second inspiration is the founder of crazyguy, Neil Gunston. He used the Trans-Am trail to bike from NYC to Oregon and has a sense of humor that is very appealing to me. And since he is married to a brown skinned Asian lady, I’ve been very interested in reading about their joint bike trip experience. And my third inspiration is Tzuo because he too was very frugal on his trip in addition to possessing a very good sense of humor.