Author Archives: Anna

“You’re leaving in a week? Man, you’ve got a lot to do!” said a trusted bike mechanic at a Brooklyn bike shop, as he replaced our tires, adjusted our disk brakes, installed a chain tensioner and roamed all corners of the shop looking for spare parts. My sentiments exactly. “Ahem, usually people come to me months before going on a trip like this,” he said, eyeing us in good humor, as if to say, “come on guys, really…in a week?” But, a week is still a week, and if we say we haven’t been running around in a daze like the cast of Monty Python, trying to get everything in order, it would be a major understatement. So, here is how we’ve been preparing for a two- and-a-half-month, 4,000-mile bike excursion: Continue reading →