On June 9th I graduate from my masters program in Chicago. On June 18th, Lisa and I celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. To celebrate these two milestones we are flying to Vancouver, Canada with our bikes, and then we bike to Mexico.
We've done a bit of bike camping, though not that much. I wouldn't say we are total novices, but we are certainly greenhorns. Our route down the coast runs us nearly 1900 miles. We plan on completing the route in seven weeks, with rough daily average of 45 miles per day.
We've spent the winter gearing up for the trip and taking long training rides. Last week I completed my longest ride to date. I rode to the Wisconsin border from Chicago. Round trip was 85 miles. One of our main concerns is that we have not had to contend with hills, let alone mountains.
At the Wisconsin border.
Pancake midwest.
Illinois is extremely flat. Over 85 miles I had 837 feet of elevation gain. On the tour, especially in California, we will do that in an hour or two. To anticipate this we've spent the winter taking lots of spin classes. Hopefully tailwinds will make our climbs easier.