Sea to (Almost) Sea For Water

This is my first post about why I'm riding and why donating to Water Life Hope will make  Schrödinger's cat purr with delight. Our house this morning, accompanied by Ed Trip preparation is starting to subsume larger chunks of days.  I'm wandering around Decatur doing errands and starting to have lots of lasts: last time I turn in a book at the library, last time I get my hair cut, last time I get a Sydney Salad Burrito.  No, it's not on the menu at Raging Burrito any longer but they indulge the locals.  Some of the wait staff know that's my order when I walk in. Decatur is a tiny, shiny place.  Our friends and neighbors are in and out of our house every day.  Walking home from the train , all of a mile, is often a 45-minute project because you see all kinds of people you know on the way home.  Decatur hosts the offices of Giggling Otter Enterprises , a very Decatur name for a corporation.  Our Halloween parade features the Wasted Poten...

Here's my first post explaining why I'm riding and why donating to Water Life Hope  builds strong bodies 12 ways. Ed the bus offers limited space for bike storage.  Keeping the bikes inside solves both weather and security issues that can derail a tour.  So everyone has to pick one bike.  This may not sound like a great difficulty if you are someone who owns a single bicycle. Carol's ebike on tour Owning a single bicycle, however, is uncommon amongst habitual bicycle touring people, at least those who aren't full-timers.  There is a well-known mathematical formula for the number of bikes appropriate for any given person.  Each person needs to have N + 1 bicycles, where N equals the number of bicycles currently owned. Different bikes do different things.  I, for example, have two touring bikes one of which morphed into a gravel bike for the Middle Georgia Epic and may stay that way.  After that there is a road bike, a  folding ...

Here's my first post about why I'm riding and why donating to Water Life Hope will inspire parades in your honor. Matt on the single sleeping platform The Yurman clan spent the night in the company of Ed the bus on Friday, the night before the Middle Georgia Epic .  Our friend Nicole rode the 200K race.  Very impressive.  Steve and I did the 25 mile fun ride with a really nice guy named Bennie.  Much less impressive.  Matt had a hurt finger (sounds like a minor complaint until you try shifting a bicycle with it) and was pretty worn out from working on Ed, so he sacked out.  Not necessarily impressive, but definitely a good idea. The race was a loop that started and ended at the Blue Goose Bike Hostel in Irwinton.  The Goose is a friendly place, with bicycles scattered about and cyclists arriving, leaving, fixing bikes and nearly always eating.  I was changing tires, with dubious effect, when a man named Donald just sat down and got i...

Carol with biking buddy Ken Here's my first post about why I'm riding, and how donating to Water Life Hope will make the bluebird of happiness nest in your front yard.   There are some questions that have answers too long for the FAQ.   For example -- How did this happen?  How did you decide to go across country together? Steve and me on tour Steve and I and got here one way, Carol another.  Let's start with Carol because it's the most remarkable story.  Carol lived an adventurous life, joining the Coast Guard and then working on merchant ships in Asia.  She's even been to North Korea.   After retirement the weight piled on and she was diagnosed with diabetes.  Carol, however, is a determined individual.  She decided to change her destiny.  The Silver Comet Trail is close to her house, so she started riding bikes.  The weight melted off, and the diagnosis reversed.  Let's say that again:...

Matt, Sara, Steve and friend in Cuba, with our tandem loaded for touring Here's my first post about why I'm riding, and why giving to Water Life Hope will make you both smarter and better looking. People often ask me questions that all boil down to the same thing -- how do you plan a trip like this?  Some people talk about how they love heading out on their bikes in the morning not knowing where they will sleep that night.  Not me.  I want to know where I'm going, and that I'm going to have food and a place to sleep at the end of the day.  A shower too.   And since this trip is longer, planning has more dimensions.  Matt needs to know where we'll be when in order to plan a sojourn with us.  We have to be able to get email.  If we don't have all our tax documents in order before we go, something will have to give. So every day I hunch over Adventure Cycling Association maps, crunching mileage numbers and looking for places to stay...

Donating to Water Life Hope  will give extra stars on your crown in heaven.  Here's my first post , explaining why I'm riding and how it's connected to Water Life Hope . Phil, the neighborhood cat at large So Steve, Matt and I spent the better part of the afternoon yesterday in the after portion of Ed the bus, aided by Phil the neighborhood's cat at large.   How would the bikes would get in and out, where would people sit and how many could do that, where we would all sleep in case we all wanted to sleep in the bus at once?   And the toilet, and where would it live?  Would it be stationary or migratory?  And where would we put all our stuff?  All of us involved in the ride are used to planning for and living in confined spaces.  Carol was in the Coast Guard, and worked on merchant ships for years.  All the Yurmans had been part of my late father's rotating crew on his sailboat, especially Matt and me.  And Steve...

This is Ed. Hey -- it'll make both your day and mine if you donate to Water Life Hope .  This is Ed, formerly a school bus.  After going through the complete outfitting process for a loaded bike tour -- a bicycle trip where you carry everything on your bike -- it became clear that Ed would be part of the trip.  So we have how embarked on an outfitting process for Ed.  We have 30 days.  Tick tock.   Ed aspires to be a fairly comfy rolling metal tent for the trip, with a few accoutrements.  Having Ed should facilitate dispersed camping ,  and other varieties of free camping .  The ability to keep the bikes inside the bus solves all kinds of weather and security issues.  While a support vehicle wasn't part of the original plan, there really are some advantages. We are trying to have most of it done by the time Steve, Matt and I go to the Middle Georgia Epic  on February 16, planned as a dry run for Ed.  Don't be i...