5 Days to go!

Yesterday was a great day. The culmination of years of dreaming, planning, thinking, reading, doubting and (insert appropriate verb). My bike arrived yesterday and I got him all put back together. The doggo’s were almost as excited as I was!

The first problem I ran into was my front rack. The one that I bought from amazon fit my bike correctly but once I set my front panniers on they were not perpendicular to the ground, they sat like 20 degrees off. Ugh. So I went to the nearest bike shop and tried to buy a new set. Here I ran into my second problem: they didn’t have any and neither did the next 3 shops I went to. The last place I went the guy went into their storage room and came back with a box that he literally blew the dust off from before handing it to me. So I got home, slapped em’ on and what do you know? They worked!

So today I loaded up my panniers with all my gear so I could take the bike out for a spin and see how he handles fully loaded. I had assumed that I would have trouble stuffing everything into my packs since it seemed I had made the same newbie mistake that all freshly minted touring cyclists do: overpack. Much to my surprise everything fit and there is so much room to spare. It’s almost making me question what the actual f!@# I forgot to bring! I guess I’ll find out once I actually get on the road.

So I take the boy out for a loaded ride and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t all that much different than my regular road bike. A little more work to get him going but once you get up to cruising speed it’s like driving an old Cadillac, smooth and pleasantly floaty. I couldn’t keep the shit eating grin off of my face the entire time I was out. I’M FINALLY GOING TO DO IT!!! It probably helped that the weather today was amazing and I was riding on a beautiful designated bike path next to the Great Dismal Swamp. Seriously, this place was some AAA riding.

So that was it. A perfect day. Now I just have to will the days to go faster so I can get started for real!