Denise Goldberg's blog

Boston to Oregon, a cross-country celebration
It's time to live my dream of riding my bicycle across the country

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Getting closer...

...and my route is all set

The countdown continues...just 10 days to go. The time is absolutely flying. I know that I said that before - but it seems like it just goes by faster and faster.

I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting with my parents and:"the boys" in upstate NY. ("The boys" are two very funny dogs - miniature dachshunds - that think they are people. They make all of us laugh!) And no, I didn't ride my bike there, and I didn't even take a bike with me. I will be passing about 45 miles north of where my folks live on my trip, but it will take me days instead of hours to get there. I'm looking forward to a visit from Mom & Dad in Booneville, one of the small towns in northern NY that is on the Northern Tier route.

It was a total rest weekend, which was much needed. I did spend a bit of time with both the Adventure Cycling maps and regular road maps, and mapped out the remaining part of my trip. In the process, I managed to give myself a good case of eye strain. My eye doctor keeps telling me I probably need reading glasses, and for really tiny print like road maps he is right, although I still don't have problems reading books or my computer. My mom supplied a big magnifying glass - problem solved. I'm taking a magnifying bookmark with me for the maps, and I also bought a tiny pair of reading glasses called GuestSpecs LifeSaver Readers that fit into a case that is not much bigger than a pen. I think I'm all set - I can comfortably read the small print on my maps, and I know how I'm getting from home to the Northern Tier. I'll travel on route 110 to 113 to 119 (west) in Massachusetts. I'll continue to follow Route 119 as it cuts across extreme southwestern New Hampshire, and then I'll cross the Connecticut River into Vermont at Brattleboro, where I'll visit with MarkG and family. Next I'll head north on routes 30 and 100 until I hit Stockbridge, Vermont - which is on the Northern Tier route. From then on I'll be following Adventure Cycling maps.

The weekend was a good opportunity to experiment with my camera too. My folks live in a barn that was converted to an apartment, and all sorts of critters congregate around the bird feeders and spilled (thrown?) bird seed on the ground. I tried to catch a hummingbird with the camera, but they were way too fast for me. I was able to get some pretty cool pictures of chipmunks and little red squirrels using the digital zoom on the camera. The optical zoom is 3x, which isn't bad, but the addition of the digital zoom takes the zoom to 11x which was helpful in capturing the skittish animals!


Dad and "the boys". I asked the dogs if they wanted to join me on my trip - but they said there was no way they would sit quietly in a basket on top of the trailer. Guess it's still a solo effort!


This trip is a first for me in more ways than one. It's my first cross-country trip, but the thing that really feels odd to me is that it's the first time I'll be leaving from my house. Every other trip has involved flying and reassembling my bike before I started. I'll need to head east before I start my trek west - for the ceremonial dipping of wheels in the Atlantic Ocean. Steve, Ellen, and Skip volunteered to drive me to the ocean to start my trip, but the more I thought about it the weirder that felt. That's because I live fairly close to the coast, and because I've decided to head west across northern Massachusetts before cutting across the southwest corner of New Hampshire and then into Vermont. Steve & company would drive me to the beach, and I'd then start back toward my house. I'd probably get a little past there, but not by much - so I'd end up staying not too far from home. That just feels totally weird! I think instead what I'll do is an out and back day trip to the ocean, coming home to sleep - probably a couple of days before my scheduled June 10th start date. Then I'll start heading west from home. Some might call that cheating (sleeping at home again...), but I think it is a good start to the trip

My 'to do' list for the trip gets shorter, then it gets longer again. Things get done, and other things get added. I still feel like I've been constantly running around trying to get things done... my goal is to have a relatively quiet week at home next week, relaxing, visiting with friends, and biking. That should work, since I just have a few things left to do - besides packing, that is! I plan to ease up on the biking mileage too, so I'll be able to start my trip in a rested state.

Friday, May 24, 2002

The countdown continues

...just over two weeks before the bike & I take to the road

I can't believe how fast the time is flying. My trip is just over two weeks away, and I still get that "I think I'm about to jump off a cliff feeling" every so often. It's a mixture of excitement, joy to be off on a biking trip, and sheer nerves - but I know I'll be fine once I'm on the road. I had the same feeling before I set off on my previous trips, so I guess it's just a part of me.

It's been a good week for training rides, although the weather was pretty raw at the beginning of the week. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous - blue skies, and temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s, my favorite. Today was a bit warmer, but still pleasant.

Time to practice pack - and everything does fit in the trailer. But I had a bit of an argument with myself about taking a stove with me. I decided that my trip is too long to be camping without being able to cook - although I could change my mind after I'm out on the road. The problem - I really don't want the smell of the fuel in with my clothes, tent, and sleeping bag. So I decided to put a rack on the bike and carry my cooking gear in a single pannier. It might look a bit odd - and certainly somewhat lopsided - but I've ridden with a single pannier before and it hasn't caused a balance problem. Hmm... backpackers must have solved the fuel smell problem, but I can't seem to get away from the odor. But I think the addition of the pannier solves the problem for me. If it ends up driving me crazy I'll try something else!

I also took some time this week to make sure that I really can update my journal using my little handheld PC. No problem. And I can even upload pictures successfully - as long as I remember to shoot some at 2 megapixels, not 4! I can use the compact flash card from the camera in the Jornada, either in the compact flash slot, or using the PCMCIA card compact flash adapter that fits in the Mindstor. I'm really happy about that. Now the only thing I will need to do is find a phone line every so often.

I'm going to owe my neighbors big time after this trip - they've agreed to pick up my mail and keep an eye on my place for me while I'm gone.

I still need to do some route planning. I didn't spend any time this week with my maps, so that project will need to be done next week. The puzzle - how to join up with the Northern Tier route in either New Hampshire or Vermont, with a starting point on the coast in northern Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire. I'm glad I'm using the Adventure Cycling maps for most of my trip. It's so much easier, although sometimes it feels like cheating.

I continue to talk with people about my trip, and I'm getting the usual mix of reactions. My friends know that I've wanted to ride across the US for a long time and are excited for me. Other people are very worried about my safety - or just think I'm crazy. Luckily I know this trip is the right thing for me to do and can ignore the "advice" of the people who either tell me not to go alone, or not to go at all! I think that all of us who attempt this type of journey must get the same types of reactions from people. I'm looking forward to the adventure, and to meeting new people and seeing new things, and I'm looking forward to doing the trip I've been dreaming of for years. And yes, I'm addicted to traveling by bike!

Things are really coming together.

Saturday, May 18, 2002

Waiting, planning preparing

...three weeks to go!

I'm sitting here writing my journal entry and listening to the rain. I'm thankful to be inside, and I'm sending my good wishes for dry weather to the crazyguyonabike authors who are already on the road on the east coast and who are probably enduring this cold rain. Lucky for me that the rain earlier in the week coincided with my need to take a break from training. I've done my share of riding in the rain, and I'm sure there is more to come - just not today!

It just got quiet outside - no more rain - but I just caught something out of the corner of my eye. This is nuts - it's May 18th and it's snowing! Wait, I thought I was done with my winter cycling clothing. Guess not!

I've been out of work for a week and a half now, but it seems like forever. I don't know how I ever had time for work - it seems like I've been busy every minute of every day. My time has been spent with training plus some planning for my trip, visiting with friends, some general logistics with things like health insurance, and using my Yoga/Pilates class to help keep me calm. I've been making lists of things I need to do to get ready, and actually getting those things done. I have a habit of making lists and then ignoring them, but there's just too much to do to ignore the lists this time.

I had a huge jump in training mileage the week of May 6th, which was the week that I was laid off. Riding helps keep me sane, but jumping from 100 miles to 150 miles in one week made me a bit tired. I took Sunday off, and went to the Boston Big Dig's open house on the new cable-stayed bridge. It's a beautiful bridge that unfortunately will carry only motorized traffic once it opens later this year. It was fun to get a chance to walk on it, even though that entailed waiting in a long snaky line in the rain for an hour and a half. I met other people who were in line with me, and had a chance to talk with them about my trip. I always like talking about biking!



One of my goals for next week - besides riding, of course - is to spend some more time with my maps and to figure out how and where I am going to hook up with the Northern Tier route in New Hampshire or Vermont. I stopped by the local AAA office to pick up state maps, and caused a bit of curiosity by asking for maps of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. Now I have 2 big stacks of maps - one from Adventure Cycling, and one from AAA. I think I'm going to take a shallow angle path across southern New Hampshire and Vermont and will probably hit the Northern Tier route somewhere in Vermont.

The other thing I need to do next week is a "practice pack". I want to make sure that what I think I'm taking with me fits nicely in the trailer, that I'm not taking too much or too little (although I'm not sure how to figure that out), and that I still have room for food! I have my packing list from my previous trips, so I think I know what I need. Packing in a trailer instead of panniers is different for me, and I can't really tell if the actual packing space is similar. But - I'm sure everything I need will fit.

Tomorrow my local bike club is having a century ride. I'm planning to do the metric century, which should be a nice addition to my training schedule. This week I'll be above 150 miles on the bike again. If I get out today, plus do the club ride tomorrow I should be closer to 200 miles for this week. I think if I can keep at this level of riding until I leave that I'll have a good base for my trip - even though I figure I'll be riding about 300 to 350 miles a week once I'm on the road.

Monday, May 13, 2002

Gadget girl

...or many electronic toys ARE you taking on your trip?

My friend Steve has started calling me gadget girl...

It seems a bit odd to be taking high tech toys on a biking trip, but that is exactly what I am doing! I kept a journal with pen and paper on my previous trips, but what I really wanted to do was to write the journal on a computer - especially since I type much faster than I write. I've been looking at handheld computers ever since my first self-contained trip in 1998, and I finally decided to buy one. My first gadget, purchased with bike trips in mind, is an HP Jornada 720 handheld computer. It has a full keyboard, and although it is small I can manage to touch-type on it. And it has what is referred to as a half-size (color) screen. Half of what, I don't know - it's small, but it works! It runs Windows 2000 for Handheld PC (which used to be called Windows CE), and includes pocket versions of Office. I can connect to the Internet, so I should be able to update my journal and check email from the road. I'm looking forward to being able to stay in touch with folks while I'm on my trek across the United States. I'm taking an extra battery with me too. The batteries are supposed to last for 9 hours, but of course that depends on how bright the display is set. I can use it on a dim setting indoors, but for outside use it will probably need to be set to bright.

I always like to capture my trip on film, but this time I just couldn't begin to think about juggling all of the rolls of film I would need for a trip of this length, to say nothing of the processing costs. Luckily I started looking at digital cameras a couple of months ago, so I wasn't starting from scratch on my research. I decided I wanted at least a 3 megapixel camera, and it had to be small. I like to ride with my camera in a very small fanny pack. That way I can easily stop to take pictures without getting off of the bike. Stop, foot down, camera out, shoot... I decided on the Canon S40, which is a 4 megapixel camera. My timing was good on this one, because there was a $100 price drop on the camera right about when I was ready to buy. I also found a 10% off coupon, so I'm very happy with the price. The camera showed up last Friday, and I've been experimenting with it ever since. The pictures it takes look great - I can't wait to use it on the road. And this is another device that I decided needs a spare battery - so two batteries for the camera are traveling with me.

What next? Well, I have no idea how many pictures I'll take on this trip. I took 250 pictures on my one-month Rocky Mountain bike trip back in 1998. This is a 3-month trip, so will I take 3 times that, or more? My guess is more, based on conversations with others who have made the switch to digital cameras. Since I won't need to pay to process every picture, it seems that it will be easy to take more pictures than I have in the past. I'm not taking my "real" computer with me, just my Jornada, which can't be used to store pictures since it runs on memory, with the only available storage the same as the camera - Compact Flash cards. It also has a PCMCIA card slot and a Smart Card slot, but again it's not feasible to store a summer's worth of pictures there. How many Compact Flash cards will I need to take with me to handle the possible large number of pictures that I'll take? I just couldn't figure that out. My first thought was to stop at places that have digital photo processing (am I really going to see any of these places?) and have the pictures pulled off of the Compact Flash cards and put on CDs, but I decided that I don't want that constraint either, so I've ordered a MindStor 5gb drive. My friend Bruce told me about the digital wallet, and the MindStor is the next generation digital wallet - the original doesn't seem to be sold any more. I still wasn't sure about it, but last week I spoke to Mark Goehring about it. He did the Transamerica route last summer - see www.pedal2pardise.com for his trip journal - and used a digital wallet to store his pictures. He confirmed that the device definitely was a good solution to this problem. Our conversation helped me to decide to go with the extra gadget! The MindStor is pretty small too, and if I shoot at 4 megapixels I will be able to fit over 4000 pictures on it. OK, OK, I really don't think I'll come anywhere close to 4000 pictures.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer of my digital wallet is no longer in business. But as I move this journal to its new home in 2009, the world has changed... flash cards have come down in price, so it might be reasonable to carry enough media for the entire trip. More and more people are traveling with laptop computers. And stores may be available along the way to burn your precious photos onto CDs or DVDs.

I've also finally given in and purchased a cell phone. Unlike my first trip in 1998 where there was little or no cell phone coverage, the route I'm following should have cell coverage for a good portion of it. Just one more gadget that needs to be charged, but I plan to leave the phone powered off except when I am using it for outbound calls. That should help some.

Of course, all of these devices only run on proprietary rechargeable batteries, and they all use their own chargers. So I'm going from not taking anything electronic on my bike trips to carrying a bunch of gadgets and a bunch of chargers. Guess that's the way it will be, since I want to have my playthings with me! I did figure out that a couple of the cables / cords were duplicates. The camera and the MindStor have the same connection type from the device to a USB port on a computer, so I'm only going to include one cable. And the cord from the electric outlet to the charger for the MindStor and the Jornada is identical, so I'll only bring one cord. That means that I can't charge the Jornada and the MindStor at the same time, but I think I can live with that, especially since I have 2 batteries for the Jornada. (I also have 2 batteries for the camera.) Here's hoping I have access to power and phone lines every so often on my trip. I'm hoping at least once a week...

Of course, there's another price to pay for my electronic gadgets - extra weight. I packed my electronic toys and their recharges, cords, and cables in a padded "cell", and then weighed it - 5 pounds! Oh well, as I said before - I want all of these devices so I'll have to live with the weight!