On the road again…

Updating from our tent in San Clemente, CA (which officially no longer has hiker/biker sites!). Strange to be on the road again. Strange to have that constant momentum after a month of staying still with friends.

We leave Long Beach a little sad to see our community go. We are social creatures after all. Thank you dear friends for everything. We will miss you.

At the same time we are excited at what the road will bring, what strange and wondrous experiences we have in store for us.

We hope you follow along.

Gear: Stuff we are sending back..

Over the last few weeks in Long Beach we’ve been paring down our gear and we put it all in this big duffle and left it in our friend’s garage. Today, we picked up that duffle to box up and ship out. Holy cow was it heavy! The final ship weight was 32 pounds! 32 pounds of gear that we have carried up and over climbs for the last four months.

Honestly, feeling the bag and our currently loaded bikes, it was hard for me to believe that we’ve traveled so far with so much weight. I suppose ignorance is bliss. Anyway, for the curious, here is what we’ve discarded and a short explanation of why.

I’m sending back my tripod, umbrella, SB-800, Pocket Wizard and lightstand. In the four months of traveling, I have hardly used any of it. I will still carry one Nikon flash, Pocket Wizard, reflector and a softbox. Laura will help with holding the light if I need it. It’s the absolute minimal gear I would need for a shoot that requires some light.

From left to right: bundle of redundant wires, tire lever, heavy air gauge, sharpening stone, 100ft of cordage, book, emergency space blanket, belt (got two pairs of Riv MUSA pants that don’t require a belt), heavy bottom bracket tool, crank remover, heavy allen wrenches, spoke tool, and 3-way wrench. I decided to let go of the bottom bracket tool and crank remover, since my bottom bracket isn’t serviceable anyway (cartridge) – and if I needed to get a bottom bracket from a shop they would most likely have the tool. The spoke wrench is nice but overkill – I won’t be building wheels on the trip. We are leaving bear country so I’m sending back the big spool of cordage.

Books and maps we’re not using. Also my journal. I’m more of journal 2.0 kind of person, so I’m sending that back.

Sending back the storm cooker for our Trangia, now that we have a Clickstand. Sending back Laura’s mug, now that we have Insulated Klean Kanteens. Sending back our cable for a thinner gauge one. The tin and the bags have some tools and jewelry stuff that Laura isn’t using.

Sending back my Ti mug that is replaced by an Insulated Klean Kanteen. Sending back our Sigg food box, speakers, tin of more jewelry stuff and Laura’s spare pants.

I feel that we’ve done a really great job at paring down. There’s still a few more things that I’d like to do, but don’t have the means to at the moment. Our computer is a MacBook and with the charger and neoprene pad it weighs in at about 7-8lbs. It’s a big weight penalty but I would argue essential for this whole project of ours. I’ve looked into netbooks but they all seem a bit underpowered to run Lightroom and OSX. I keep lusting after a Macbook Air (3lbs) but can’t afford to pull the trigger on it. I’m also trying to replace our external hard drive for one that is lighter and BUS powered (runs off the laptop and not an outlet), but that is also proving difficult. I picked up a Western Digital Passport external drive and it was DOA. I plugged it into 3 different computers and it wouldn’t work. Needless to say I don’t recommend them at all. I’m returning it tomorrow and will try to track down another drive.

That’s it for now. Our last day in Long Beach is this Tuesday. From there we head South and turn left at Oceanside until we hit Florida.

Getting ready to leave…again…

Just a short post to let everyone know what we’ve been up to. We’ve been rotating between home stays with our great friends. Laura has been busy with Bike Mustaches and I’ve been doing some family shoots and work for old clients.

We stayed with some blog readers who recently did a trip to Slab City. They helped us do a little route planning and gave us a great wrinkled old map of the “city.” We’re planning to spend our Christmas there, surrounded by the strange tribe that has settled on the surreal banks of the Salton Sea.

We stayed with our friend Chris one last time who helped me lighten our load a little by shortening some power cords.

We also poured over some maps of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to figure out a rough path and figure out what small towns we want to check out. He also gave us some last minute advice and then we parted ways.

We’ll be pushing off soon. Our Long Beach interlude was pleasant, but we’re both getting that itch to strike out for the open road. Also, we don’t want to be that strange guy who got laid off at the office but still comes and visits, hanging out the water cooler, making everyone uncomfortable. You get the picture.

So hang on Dear Readers, we’ll be on the road again soon enough!

More Gear Changes

Yes, we’re at it again… making changes (big and small) to the stuff that we’re carrying along with us. It’s not that we’re fickle, just that we’re learning how to fine-tune all the details. After four months of living out of panniers, we’re discovering that we don’t really need as many options as we brought along, that the amount of weight we’re carrying really does hold us back, and that a little creativity can go a long way.

After meeting Jeff of Carousel Design Works, the seed was planted in our brains that we needed to drop some of the weight that was strapped to the bikes. We always knew that our loads were heavy and that we were slow because of it, but it wasn’t until we met Jeff and rode a bit with him that it started to sink in how much was out of reach for us because of all the stuff we were packing.

Looking back at why we decided to carry so much stuff, I think it had to do with giving ourselves options. It’s not an easy thing to leave everything behind and travel with just a few meager items on your bike. So we (subconsciously) packed in a way that gave us choices, and kept some continuity in our lives. Now that we’re well into this journey, we’re realizing that we firmly want to choose this lifestyle of traveling on bike, and it’s worth it to us to leave all the other options behind (for now, at least).

What this means is that we have thought long and hard about every bit of gear, while we’ve had this downtime in Long Beach. We made a trek out to REI to swap some items. We’ve been modifying bits here and there. And we have a growing pile of items that will be boxed up and left behind when we hit the road again.

So, here are the details… (I’ve also updated the Gear page again, including adding a section about items that have been jettisoned)…

For me, the biggest areas to make changes to are 1) my studio and 2) the food-carrying set-up. At first, I wasn’t sure that I could really shave off any weight. I mean, my studio was already extremely pared down, and it’s pretty important to be able to carry food. But, when I started to really examine everything and think outside of the “I don’t know” mentality, I found all sorts of great ideas.

In looking at my studio, I started by re-thinking each item inside my tool roll… Am I really using it? Is there a way that I could make something else do double-duty in order to get rid of something? I was able to weed out several items that I had packed that I wasn’t really using, like my shears (which are actually quite heavy) and extra needle files. I swapped out my (rather heavy) bracelet mandrel in favor of a piece of copper piping, for forming headbadges and Bike Mustaches. I bought a bottle of nail polish, cleaned it out, and filled it with shellac, so that I wouldn’t have to carry a heavy can of the stuff (which I use for my jewelry). And I realized that I could turn two hammers into one by re-forming one end of my riveting hammer to mimic the ball peen end of another hammer.

Next came the food… Back when we were in the Bay Area, when we last made big changes to all our gear, I bought a duffel bag to carry the food across the back rack of my bike, instead of in one single pannier. This is actually a great way to carry food, and I’m going to stick with it… albeit, with a different bag. The duffel I bought turned out to be WAY too big. And since we all know that nature abhors a vacuum, I ended up filling it up. Again, it’s nice to have choices, but it’s too easy to go overboard. There were days, riding through Gold Country, when that duffel full of food easily weighed in at 20 pounds or more. A smaller duffel, in theory, will limit the quantity (and, thus, weight) of food that I carry.

We’re also waiting on receipt of a new stove stand/wind screen that will replace the one that we have. Not that the one we have weighs a lot, but it’s quite bulky. The new stand is smaller and will allow my to carry more in the kitchen pannier, thus taking some bulk out of the food pannier. We’ll show you the new stand when it arrives.

As for Russ, he has also been busy picking through his belongings with a fine-tooth comb. We made the decision to return the LED lantern that we had. While it was nice to have something with us that puts out some ambient lighting, this lantern never really performed the way we had hoped, plus it was quite big and bulky (and, oh yeah, we already have headlamps). Russ also swapped out our water filter, moving from a pump version to a gravity-feed version (the MSR AutoFlow Gravity Filter)… partly because pumping water is a pain in the butt, and partly because we both became so enamored of the idea of letting gravity do the work for us. It also turns out that the gravity-feed system weighs less!

And, like I did with my studio, Russ has been paring down his photo equipment. He carried almost a full kit down the west coast (2500 miles) for a whopping two shoots. Not really a good return on the investment of carrying it all. So, all the heavy equipment that he’s using only once in a while, he’s putting together in a well-packed box, to be put in the hands of someone very trust-worthy, and to be shipped to him as he needs it down the road. (Which means, if you’re interested in a well-lit studio-type shoot, such as food, make sure you give him a bit of notice, so that all the gear can arrive in plenty of time.)

Other items that have been plucked out… Russ is swapping out his very large knife (that he picked up two months ago, after his Mora knife chipped) for a smaller, more useful one. He’s also swapping out the hard drive that he’s carrying, for a smaller, BUS-powered one (meaning that it will pull power from the computer and doesn’t need its own electrical outlet). Russ has also pulled out a few non-essential tools. I’ve pulled out excess paperwork that I’ve been carrying, as well as a few random odds and ends (that don’t weigh much on their own, but contribute to the total of the gear being too heavy.

And, amusingly, I’m swapping out my pants again. After buying the Lole pants, I discovered that they stretch out very quickly. Which is fine for camping, but not so flattering in-town. When we rolled into Long Beach, I went to the thrift store to pick up a cheap pair of pants to wear while we were in town. For $6, I found a great pair of black chinos, that fit better and don’t stretch out as quickly. So, I’ll be bringing these instead. And learning a good lesson about not always needing to buy the fancy gear that is oh-so-enticing at REI.

As we’ve been working our way through all of our belongings and figuring out what we’re getting rid of, we’ve been collecting them all in one location (the too-big duffel bag that I’m getting rid of). As of now, we’re at 25 pounds that we’re shedding. We still have a week in town, and we’re determined to get our loads down to a more manageable weight, so we’re continuing to fine-tune and shave off every ounce possible before we head out again.

And, I’m realizing, keeping our gear to a manageable weight is a continual process. Even though we’ve pared our lives down to just a handful of items that we physically carry everywhere we go, we’re not immune to the siren song of collecting stuff that so affects our culture. It’s really easy to think, ‘Oh, this one item doesn’t really weigh very much, I’ll just go ahead and get it,’ and slowly amass a dozen or more new items that, collectively, weigh several pounds. As we keep traveling, we’ll necessarily need to keep revisiting the stuff that we have with us, and culling the non-essentials. I’m considering it a good exercise in remaining aware.

The Great Fear

The Great Fear starts in Prudhoe Bay Alaska, is what we are told. It is found in the Northern Territories of Canada, deep in the woods of Oregon, in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, hiding in the low brush of the plains, in the alleys of Los Angeles, at the border in Mexico and in the jungles of South America. It hunts you from the dim corners of your waking mind and like a vampire bat drains your will and constitution before you are even aware of it.

In the North, the Great Fear takes the form of the grizzly bear. The bike tourists that we met coming down from Alaska were all duly warned that to ride without a shotgun was madness. They would be bear food and nothing would be left of them except for a few Shimano components licked clean.

None of them saw grizzlies. Some of them saw black bears. All of them survived.

As you travel south, the Great Fear changes suits and transforms into snakes that hide for you sharpening their fangs in the bushes or mountain lions waiting anxiously on some rock outcropping over the road. As you reach civilization, the Great Fear becomes man. He’s going to run you off the road. He’s waiting for you in dark alleys. He’s going to poison your dinner. He’s going to abduct you and take you for ransom.

The Great Fear is everywhere and everything and nothing all at once.

Nils and Caroline were a german couple that was touring from Alaska to Argentina, they were very familiar with the Great Fear and its vociferous choir. Their friends would warn them of bears in Alaska, of logging trucks in Oregon. When we met them in Oregon they laughed most of it off as did the other tourists we met. As they approached the US/Mexico border, the chatter changed from bears to drug lords, ransoms and kidnappings. “There is always something to be afraid of,” they said. “Always.”

It’s never as bad as you think it’s going to be – this is a lesson we’ve learned.

One morning at camp, there were six of us huddled around an Adventure Cycling map on the picnic table. There was a very ominous road we were going to be riding called Seven Devils road. People were talking about it the night before, they were going to bed early and going to push off at first light. Seven Devils. Seven Devils. The Great Fear hung in the air. When it finally came to ride it, we all braced for the worst, but in the end Seven Devils was one of the most pleasant roads we’ve ridden. There was a sharp spike in the beginning, but once we got to the ridge line it was a series of gentle climbs in a little traveled road.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Having ridden 2500 miles and lived for four months without a permanent address, we are gaining perspective on the Great Fear.

Yes there are dangers. Yes, terrible and freakish things do happen to people, but that is the exception and not the rule. For us, we’ve been met with more generosity and kindness than hostility. We’ve had maybe two verbal exchanges with drivers throughout the entire west coast. We are not naive. We rely on good sense and instinct.

The Great Fear is what stops people in their tracks. It is what turns dreams into dust.

For me, I have what I will call, for lack of a better term, My Greater Fear. It is that I will live a perfectly unexceptional existence with this exceptional chance I have been given. My Greater Fear is that I will rot beneath a matrix of fluorescent lights staring at the carpeted walls of a cubicle, or that I will wake knowing exactly what I will be doing every minute of every day for the rest of my waking life, or that I will wait until I am old and enfeebled to give myself permission to live.

In the face of My Greater Fear, which I think is far more likely, I choose to jump and embrace the Great Fear.

We are in Long Beach and we are preparing ourselves for the next leg of our journey. It almost feels like we are starting over again. The first four months has been our training, our long shakedown ride for the rest of the trip. The fears are already starting to emerge. Will we freeze on the side of the road? Be swept away by a tornado? Washed away by a hurricane? Will the Natural Lite drinking drivers of the South finally do us in?

There is always something to be afraid of. Always.

PathLessPedaled 2010 Calendar Available Now!

We’ve just put together a LuLu calendar with images from our trip. Some great shots of us riding through the west coast but also portraits of some of the awesome people we’ve met like Martina from Swift Industries and Jeff Boatman from Carousel Design Works, as well as Logan and Tammy from Rowdy Kittens and other great peeps!

You can get your copy here! As always, every sale keeps us on the road and instantly beautifies your wall!