by Matt Schiff
The bike49ers are now on the road and the years of planning are over. It’s beginning to kick in that we’re finally on this amazing one year long trip. We’ll experience so much in the next year, and as other bike tourists have mentioned, we may look back years from now and remember this as the best time of our lives.
We left from the Arcata plaza on Sunday, May 16th, where we met friends and media for our big kickoff. The atmosphere was great. People were just as exited for our trip as we were, and we were amazed by all the support. For each friend that showed up you wanted to talk with them and thank them, but after about a half an hour of pictures, interviews, and hanging with friends, we decided, “what the hell, it’s time to start this thing”.
Currently we’re not far from Coos Bay, OR. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Miles – we biked about 210 miles in 5 days and had no flats!
Bike weight – people always ask how much our bikes weigh? We decided to weigh them at a truckstop scale – 450 lbs in all for 5 bikes not filled with food or water! That’s why keeping our 13 mph average isn’t that easy.
We make sure we don't weight too much.
Food – from all our biking we eat a lot. The biggest meal so far consisted of: 3 packages of Amys Mac & Cheese (2000 calories), 2 packages of cheese ravioli (3000 calories), 2 cans of baked beans (1600 calories), butter and oil (500 calories), a bowl of vegetables, stewed tomatoes, and tomato paste (maybe 1000 calories, maybe more?), for a grand total of about 8000 calories for 5 people. We then went right into desert with a package of Newman’s fig cookies.