Author Archives: Anna
[Road Brief] Day 60 — Under the Cover of the Night
posted by Anna
Day #60
Miles Covered Since Salt Lake City, UT: 123
Hours on The Road: Lots!
Miles Traveled Since Beginning: 2,995
Where We Are: Delta, UT
Day Overview: The theme words for these past two days have been: hot and windy.
Yesterday, we were struck with a record 100 degree day yesterday, in a part of Utah with little life and little shade to hide from the scorching sun. All of a sudden we were chugging water at uncontrollable rates and draining our sunscreen supplies.
In the middle of the day, Boris had another trailer mishap, where the left side of the base snapped and broke. It took a few hours to deal with the issue, again requiring some creative thinking to compensate for snapped aluminum support. We wonder what will be left of this trailer by the time we arrive to San Francisco. Continue reading
Making your life a little easier
posted by Anna
Our Airbnb host, Janet, from Boulder, CO made the most interesting analogy to electric bikes I’ve ever heard. “Electric bikes are kind of like childbirth,” she started the conversation and noted my perplexed, unresponsive expression. “Okay, okay, hear me out,” she said, sensing that I wasn’t about to contribute much useful feedback. “Well, women who give birth to a child want to do it the natural way, but sometimes it gets too hard or painful and they opt for painkillers…you know, to make their lives a little easier. Electric bikes are kind of the same. Sometimes biking gets too hard and tiring, and you want to give yourself a break and make the whole thing easier.”
I would have never made this connection if it wasn’t for Janet, and I suppose to some extent she’s right. Sometimes, even for the most hard-core bikers, biking gets tough – and what better way to make your cycling commitments more manageable than with an electric bicycle? During my intermission from cycling, I got a first-hand peek into Janet’s make-your-life easier analogy. Continue reading
Reunions, Beer, One-Speeds, And Electric Trailers
posted by Anna
We’ve been riding in Wyoming for almost a week now, but have been so busy getting tossed around by the wind, like two flapjacks, that we haven’t had the time to reflect on our Colorado experiences. But we finally had the opportunity to slow down a bit and think back to what made that week such a special one.
Colorado was a great stopover to us for many reasons. For one thing, Boris and I finally reunited after three weeks of him traveling solo and me recovering from an injury. It felt good to finally get back on the saddle and for Boris to have company on the road. Not that Nebraska’s corn fields were not good company. But sometimes it’s good to have a physical companion, because there’s only so much talking you can do with wind turbines and four-legged ruminants. Continue reading
The Daily Grind
posted by Anna
Before we departed on the tour, we put together an Excel spreadsheet of daily activities and allocated a timeframe for each one. This is thanks to our spreadsheet guru, Boris, who even had the foresight to allocate several hours for “mingling with our hosts,” which falls into the “evening routine” category below.
In the first couple of weeks, almost everything about the timetable was skewed. We were riding for 10 hours instead of 7 and sleeping 5 hours instead of 7.5. Let me tell you, when you ride for more than 80 miles per day, those 3 hours of “Boris/Anna Work” don’t look as enticing as they do on an Excel sheet. But, once we figured out how to fit in more sleep and less cycling, with just the right amount of brain power left for work into our schedule, the daily numbers began to resemble our initial projected figures (to our great surprise). Continue reading
Why Are People So Nice to Bicyclists?
posted by Anna
Boris and I have had our fare share of travel experiences. For us, one of the beautiful things about extended travel is connecting with people – people who are kind, interesting and willing to give you a hand if you find yourself in a bind. Boris experienced this on his many car breakdowns while traversing Africa, and I have seen it too when living with local families in Peru and Ecuador. But I think both of us can safely say that we hadn’t experienced true generosity in our home country, the great US of A, until this tour.
Everywhere we turn, we find that people willing to lend more than a hand. They offer us food, lodging, and best of all, friendship.
We’ve had almost 30 nights of stays with either Airbnb or Couchsurfing hosts. Almost every host goes out of their way to be welcoming and accommodating. Some have waited outside their homes to see us ride in safely in the dark, cold rain. Others have brought milk and cookies to our room. Some have even given up their own beds for us! Continue reading
