Hi All,

I wanted to share the picture of the nice homecoming that my family gave to me. They all met me at the Chicago/Madison bus stop with balloons and welcome home banners. Yes, I cried.

Also many of you have asked for a list of stuff that I took on my journey. See below.

• bike – My old Trek Madone 5.9 Carbon – not a touring bike, but Elanor Rosevelt once said, “do what you can with where you are at with what you have” I put a compacted gear set up front, and a Thule Pack n Pedal Touring Rack to hang my panniers. I also purchased Arkel panniers for the rear, and a Arkel rear bag that sat on top of the rack (for daily food and storage), and an Arkel handle bar bag. I did not have front paniers.

• warm cycling jacket with zip off sleeve
• 2- polyester shirts – to wear when off the bike
• 3 – pairs of cycling socks
• 2 – jersy bottoms (bibbs)
• Cell phone and charger
• MP3 Player
• light weight bike lock (borrowed from Brad)
• 3- jersy tops, high visibility yellow/green like road construction guys color.
• 1 – High visibility vest – to go over my rain gear or just keep me warm on cool morning.
• 1 – pair of pants – polyester light weight with zip off legs
• 1 – stocking cap (the same one I use to go under my snowboarding helmet.
• 1 – sweat band – did a good job of keeping the sweat and sun screen out of my eyes
• 1 – set of arm and leg warmers (made by Gore) I used the arm warmers almost every morning in the cool mountain air.
• thin gloves to go under my cycling gloves
• Neoprene Booties to go over my cycling shoes. Life saver when I was wet and cold.
• Adventure Cycling Maps – don’t leave home without them.
• Toiletries (camp soap, deoderant, tooth past, bug repellent, razor, nail clippers)
• Sunscreen ( I doped up two to three times per day in the hot sunny west)
• Lip balm ( sunscreen for you lips)
• Shoes – ultra light weight running shoes

All my Camping equipment all fit into one Pannier – list below

• Foil blanket (foil type from Walmart)
• Rain Poncho
• Ground Tarp (to go under tent)
• Camp towel
• Cloth line
• Chamois Butt’r
• Sleeping Bag (Marmot 30°F down bag via REI)
• Sleeping Bag Liner – silk. A must for comfort (REI)
• One Man Tent (Hubba via REI)
• Air Matress (Exped – very nice and comfy and packs small via REI)
• Air Pillow (Exped – like living a the Hilton via REI)
• Rain Jacket & Pants, and shower cap to go over my helmet.
• First Aid Kit
• H2O pills – to purify water – I never had to use them

In my rear bag, the one on top of the rear rack I carried:

• 1 foldable spare tire (never used – only one flat on the trip)
• 2 spare tubes
• 1 air pump – (Road Morph) an awesome light weight pump. mounted on my bike frame.
• 1 patch kit (never used)
• 1 multi tool (folding type pliers, screw driver, knife ect) used every day.
• 1 Allen wrench set
• Tire changing tools
• wire ties
• chain oil and rag

Inside my rear center bag is where I kept most of my road food, which was a jar of Jiff peanut butter, honey, flat bread (sooner or later it will be flat any way), often a ham sandwich purchased at a deli or convinience store, and sometime yogurt and nuts. I ate most of the time while riding out of my front handle bar bag. This was mostly fresh fruit like blue berries, nuts, grapes or apples. I also carried Cliff bars and ate about a couple dozen on the trip. Eating healthy and large quanities is very important because I burned about 4-5000 calories per day. Most meals were purchased in resturants along the way. I did not have any cooking stove or prepped meal. If the map indicated a long distance between stops, I would load up my food bag accordingly. Once I got to Fargo, civilization began again and towns were closer together, but I still had the habbit of hoarding food. Also attached to my rear bag were blinkies, my life savers. They were high powered lights visible for 2 miles in good weather. My most important gear was my safety gear which included the blinky lights, my helmet mounted mirror, and my high visibility jersey tops. I had a few close calls, but I enough time to react. I kepted track of every car in my mirror to see if they were moving respectfully and giving me room. 99% of them were good to me. I had serveral car people tell me that they could see me from a long ways away. One even commented that all bikes should be more visible like mine – I took it as a compliment.

Take care,
Freebird