T minus 5 days and counting

Well this morning was spent torturing the legs. Did about 70 miles on the road unloaded which I think roughly approximates 35 miles offroad loaded I'll try to cover each day. Of course elevation gain/loss will also greatly determine how much ground I cover.

Spent the afternoon packing up my drop ship boxes.

Dirt Squirt International Tour Lauch Party

Thanks to everyone who attended the launch party last Saturday. The tshirt were great as were the jello shots. Whoever has the pic of me with the the "cycling girls" please forward it on. I wanted to add that one to this post.

$1000 of Dehydrated Food

Finishing up my drop ships of which there will be approximately 15. Each care package will include 3-4 days of food. Specifically items that are hard to come by in the middle of nowhere.

The list included:

168 powerbars
168 balance bars
15 lbs of gorp (nuts, fruit, reeses pieces)
5 lbs of oatmeal
Handiwipes
Mini TP rolls
Lithium batteries
5 lbs beef jerky
56 freeze dried dinners (beef stroganoff, lasagna, chicken with rice, etc)
40 freeze dried breakfasts (eggs mainly)
Suntan lotion in travel size containers
mini toothpaste

Working my way home

Finished my first 14 teener at pikes yesterday. Drove back to Dallas today. Headed to Austin tomorrow to start final prep. Enough friends have voiced their concern over how late I'm starting my ride that I'm going to upgrade my sleeping bag to give me a little more margin for the cold.

2 weeks till departure.

Alive and Well in Denver

Staying with my friends Tiffany and Jamie north of Denver. Planning to do some Yoga around noon and get a ride in this afternoon. They live in Broomfield which has 50 miles of paved riding and running path. Love the infrastructure in this area.

Back from the Hills

Testing is going well. The bike is holding up with the total pack load. I'm a bit suprised by how much water I'm using in a day. Rode up Tuesday with about 200 oz of water, which weighs about 12 lbs. Within 24 hours I drank all of it. Some of it was used for cooking dinner (freeze dried lasagna) and breakfast (oatmeal and coffee). Yesterday morning, I stopped at a stream and filled up my bottle and added a few drops of aqua mira water purification. I guess it worked because I didn't get sick drinking it. It looks like I'm going to need to get good at finding water sources in the woods, since 1 day of water is about all I can reasonably carry given the weight.

Headed to Denver tomorrow to stay with friends and train. Planning to hike pikes peak on Monday morning.

Heading to to the Black Hills National Forest Tomorrow

Tuesday night and Wednesday night, I'll be camping out in the Black Hills National Forest. Some final gear testing before heading to Denver on Friday.

I'll be sure to log some gps tracks.

My current challenge is trying not to get overloaded with tech gadgets on this ride. Already have camera, mp3, gps, cell phone, and SPOT transmitter. So roughly 2 lbs of gadgets, plus another lb of batteries and charging paraphenalia.

I'm hoping to eliminate the GPS and cell phone for my Peru trip in January. I'd like to get my total pack weight under 8 lbs for Peru. So I can trail run with everything on my back. But I digress. One trip at a time.