Trans American Electric Bike Tour Experiences

Jun
06
Trailer in distress

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

Jun
05
Dylan at Bellingham Community Bike Shop

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

Jun
02
Boris at the helm

Day #56
Miles Covered Since Lyman, WY: 119
Hours on The Road: Lots and lots!
Miles Traveled Since Beginning: 2,872
Where We Are: Salt Lake City, UT

Day Overview: As we were happily making our daily progress on I80 the day before, a thought entered Anna’s mind – “it’s surprising how few flats and breakdowns we’ve had so far, considering we’ve been on the road for almost 3,000 miles.”

Naturally, Murphy’s Law would not allow for this. So, without much ceremony, by about mid-day on June 1st, Anna rang her bell to alert me that I had a flat on the trailer. A little disappointed by the interrupted momentum, I climbed off the bike to check it out, secretly hoping that she was mistaken. But there was no mistake – the tire was flat. Moreover, a few seconds later, I noticed that the rear tire of the bicycle was also punctured – the first flat tire on the actual bicycle. Continue reading

May
31
Steve Buoey Introducing Boris at Denver Beer Co

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

May
30

Day #54
Miles Covered Since Medicine Bow, WY: 257
Hours on The Road: Too many!
Miles Traveled Since Beginning: 2,753
Where We Are: Medicine Bow, WY

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 4 days since the last Road Brief!

We should be back on our daily posting schedule from now on, but first – allow us to take a quick step back and share how the last few days have turned out and why the writing has been so sparse. Continue reading