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In less than a month I will be starting out on a new bicycle adventure with my friend Mary. We are planning on taking 6 weeks to travel from Abbotsford, BC down the Pacific Coast to the Mexican border. This the first time I have done a fully loaded bicycle tour! I'm using panniers and Mary will be pulling a trailer, neither of us are sure about which mode is best.
I've been training reasonable steadily, mostly by doing my 35 km commute to work on my bike at least 3 times a week. That's 72 km a day, plus usually a longer ride or two on the weekends. Currently I am riding with all 4 panniers, not quite the full load. I've been adding weights to the rear panniers as opposed to carrying all my camping gear to work each day. I'm up to 28 pounds on the bike and this week I'll be adding another 5 pounds per pannier for a total of around 38 pounds. I'm wanting to keeping the actual load under 40 pounds.
Today I'm going to visit the guys at Dream Cycles on Commercial Drive to have a consult about whether or not I should be upgrading my bike to a full touring bike, possibly Surly Long Haul Trucker with disc brakes. The bike I'm using now- Specialized Tri-Cross will likely do the job, but I'm just checking out my options.
In two weeks we are planning on doing the Tour de Whatcom (105 miles) as a pre-trip warm up, although we are not planning on putting in that many miles per day, ever! Just some endurance and confidence building.
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