Saturday, February 16, 2019

Packing and Traveling to the start

Getting Blaze ready to Ship to San Diego. I used a VeloVault2 bike case.

There's still snow in Dexter


 Friday Feb 15th the Fed Ex lady came to the house and picked up Blaze in the case.

Now is time to start organize my duffels for the trip.
Lynn and I will be flying to San Diego on Wednesday the 27th. Lynn will stay until March 2 when the ride starts and then return to Dexter and the dogs and the cat.

Friday February 22, 2019:
Seriously putting my clothes and gear together. Then cull things down to the basic essentials. I'm familiar with packing for wilderness camping, but those trips are for a week to two weeks tops, not for two months.

Tuesday February 26, 2019:
I've packed my Kit into two rolling duffles which once in San Diego I will move to 3 carry duffles
Lynn and I leave for San Diego tomorrow morning
As I write this it is 15 degrees in Dexter with a prediction of 1-3 inches of snow in the next 24 hours; it's 52 in San Diego.


Wednesday Feb 27,2019
Got up at 5 am EDT to find it was 17 degrees and snowing.  Lynn and I hit the road ~6 am for DTW.
The drive was terrible; could barely do 40 mph and often could not see the lanes on the freeway, but we did make to DTW and got to the gate with time to spare.
~5 hour flight to San Diego, the plane did have live CNN so we got to watch much of Michael Cohen congressional testimony.
Arriving in SD it was ~65 degrees and sunny (we'll not in Michigan anymore).
Made it to the motel (Ocean Villa Inn in the Ocean Beach area).
Some of Bubba's staff (Taco and Robbie) helped get our bags to the room and we started to unpack and organizing.
One of Bubba's staff (Coach) gave us a ride to Bernie's Bike Shop; this has to be the funkest bike shop I've ever been too.


We then walked the bike back to the motel along the beach area; which is still stuck in time of the 60's.
We  later walked back to the Ocean Beach "restaurant district" and had dinner at a burger joint (https://hodadies.com/).  The smells of the beach area reminded me of the smells of the hallway of my freshman dorm at U Iowa :-)

We are dead tired due to the 3 hour time shift and having gotten up at 5; so we just went to bed and hope to sleep into SD time.

Thursday Feb 28, 2019
We seemed to have adjusted to SD time. We found a nice breakfast place a few blocks from the motel. In the afternoon I took a 22.7 mile shake down ride on Blaze and it seem to go well.

Preparation for C2C ride

Rick's Blog Leading up to and through Bubba's C2C 2019 ride.

2018
training for C2C:
As of 12/31/18
Rode miles: 3067.32
Indoor spinning hours: 48:23 Zwift miles 97.4
Swimming yards / miles: 258750 / 150.1

2019
As of 02/22/19
Rode miles: 79.8
Indoor spinning hours: 19:47; Zwift miles 185.6
Swimming yards / miles: 55,800 / 31.70

Follow me on Strava

In the spring of 2018 purchased a new bike (retirement gift to self) : Trek SLR Project One Domane; Black with radioactive orange highlights, Di2 Shifting,  Ultregra 2X11(50/34; 11-32) group set, Aeolus Pro 3 carbon wheels, Disc brakes. (Bike name: Blaze)
Blaze
















November 2018 purchased a Trek Checkpoint SL 5, color Cobra Blood; for winter riding and "gravel". (Bike name: Blood)
Blood

Ricks C2C 2018


The beginning:

I will be riding on Bubba's Pampered Pedalers Coast 2 Coast tour.  I've been riding since the mid 1980's through the 1990's. Lynn (my wife) and I rode all or parts of RAGBRAI several times then and rode several day trips around the Iowa City area. Then in 2002 Lynn and moved to Michigan and my riding took a back seat to other matters. Lynn was recruited to be  Director (Professor) of Dental Informatics and I became a clinical researcher in urology.

In 2006 RAGBRAI was going to go through Iowa City. So I thought I would do a little training and ride the last day and meet up with my old college friends.  I encountered a small problem; while on a training ride I was struck by a F 150 going ~60 mph driven by a 86 yo man (the second time I have been hit by a truck, but that's another story).  After 2 months being bed ridden, I gave up riding for ~6 years. Lynn convinced me to get back on the bike, so I bought a new Trek Modone started riding around the Dexter, Michigan area.

A few years ago we took our nephew on SAGBRAW for his high school graduation present. Where the 60 somethings were more ready to go than the 18 yo's :-)
A highlight in this time period was our week long ride in Normandy visiting the "Beaches of the Normandy".



Once I retired I increased my riding and became interested in doing a cross country trip.  I bought myself a new Trek Domane (retirement gift to self and thanks for the help at Aberdeen Bike in Chelsea, MI) I increase my training by swimming and bike riding 5-6/wk (my hip from the accident limits my ability to run).

In 2018 RAGBRAI was going through Ames and Iowa City; the cities of my college days and Davenport my birth place. That's when I linked up with Bubba. Bubba provides support for riding RAGBRAI and has a coast to coast trip. So I signed up with Bubba for RAGBRAI (along with my good friend Tracy Payne from Idaho via Iowa City). My test run with Bubba went very well so I signed up for his Coast2Coast ride and that's where I am now.

Itinerary 
DayStart City (Link to Blog)DistanceFeet Climbed
1s3/2/18SAN DIEGO TO ALPINE36.392,927
2s3/3/18ALPINE TO JACUMBA44.54,265
3m3/4/18JACUMBA TO CALEXICO51.35919
4t3/5/18CALEXICO, CA TO YUMA, AZ651,030
5w3/6/18YUMA TO DATELAND70.39860
6t3/7/18DATELAND TO GILA BEND51.81617
7f3/8/18GILA BEND TO CASA GRANDE87.281,286
8s3/9/18CASA GRANDE TO TUSCON55.81,335
9s3/10/18Rest Day462.5213,239
10m3/11/18TUSCON TO EAST TUCSON44.031,335
11t3/12/18EAST TUCSON TO TOMBSTONE73.433,645
12w3/13/18TOMBSTONE TO DOUGLAS, AZ50.262,201
13t3/14/18DOUGLAS, AZ TO RODEO, NM54.91,355
14f3/15/18RODEO TO COLUMBUS, NM92.371,952
15s3/16/18Rest Day314.9910,488
16s3/17/18COLUMBUS, NM TO EL PASO, TX74.96787
17m3/18/18EL PASO TO FORT HANCOCK, TX61.43636
18t3/19/18FT HANCOCK TO VAN HORN, TX72.21,923
19w3/20/18VAN DORN TO MARFA, TX74.741,234
20t3/21/18MARFA TO MARATHON, TX56.821,063
21f3/22/18Rest Day340.155,643
22s3/23/18MARATHON TO SANDERSON, TX55.52531
23s3/24/18SANDERSON TO COMSTOCK, TX81.192,484
24m3/25/18COMSTOCK TO BRACKETVILLE74.353,657
25t3/26/18BRACKETVILLE TO CONCAN, TX73.912,247
26w3/27/18Rest Day284.978,919
27t3/28/18CONCAN TO KERRVILLE, TX72.372,710
28f3/29/18KERRVILE TO BLANCO, TX58.822,753
29s3/30/18BLANCO TO LOCKHART, TX62.711,985
30s3/31/18LOCKHART TO LA GRANGE, TX60.91,969
31m4/1/18LA GRANGE TO RICHARDS88.193,294
32t4/2/18Rest Day342.9912,711
33w4/3/18RICHARDS TO SHEPHERD, TX62.111,988
34t4/4/18SHEPHERD TO SILSBEE, TX60.4663
35f4/5/18SILSBEE, TX TO DE RIDDER, LA72.6719
36s4/6/18DE RIDDER TO OPELOUSAS, LA92.01922
37s4/7/18OPELOUSAS TO ST. FRANCISVILLE67.58866
38m4/8/18Rest Day354.75,158
39t4/9/18FRANCISVILLE TO FRANKLINTON86.822,713
40w4/10/18FRANKLINTONTO POPLARVILLE, MS45.111,403
41t4/11/18POPLARVILLE TO OCEAN SPRINGS73.382,146
42f4/12/18SPRINGS TO DAUPHIN ISLAND, AL77.391,227
43s4/13/18Rest Day282.77,489
44s4/14/18DAUPHIN TO PENSACOLA, FL55.97558
45m4/15/18PENSACOLA TO MILTON, FL31.09892
46t4/16/18MILTON TO DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, FL54.02919
47w4/17/18DEFUNIAK TO MARIANNA, FL68.81,483
48t4/18/18MARIANNA TO TALAHASSEE, FL85.662,799
49f4/19/18 TALAHASSEE TO LIVE OAK, FL77.171,719
50s4/20/18LIVE OAK TO GAINESVILLE, FL80.81,430
51s4/21/18GAINESVILLE TO PALATKA, FL53.6879
52m4/22/18PALATKA TO ST. AUGUSTINE, FL36.41322
543.5211,001
Totals2926.5474,648