I've got a mule and her name is Sal... Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal...

Hey! I've been trying to think of "that one song about the Erie Canal" for like four days since we started riding along it and FINALLY I'm at a computer that can tell me! :0)  If you want to be nostalgic about your childhood and remember it too, you can go to this link: http://www.eriecanalvillage.net/pages/song.html (beware, it starts to play INSTANTLY... even when you are in a hotel lobby with all kinds of people around you).

Soooo, what have we been up to?  Our first day after we fled to get out of Irene's way, we still had a pretty windy day, but all was made up for when we passed a fruit stand with probably the most delicious peaches and homemade pies EVER.  We rode a lot of the bike trail that goes along the Erie Canal - some of it amazing and paved and some of it sandy and slooooow... well, at least us pedaling are slow.  The one thing that stood out above anything else in upstate New York were the ridiculously huge and perfectly manicured lawns.  Seriously, you would think there's some kind of law that forbids you to have grass over 2" tall - even the ditches and grass in the most remote parts along the canal were perfectly manicured.  I think it actually made everything prettier :0). 

Anyways, the next day we passed our first of many "Horse and Buggy ahead" type signs, and actually saw a guy pulling one into a barn.  Since then we've passed a few and they are always nice and smile and wave to me :0).  We've gone through some pretty rural towns and a lot of countryside with orchards, vineyards, and a few Dairy Farms (p-u!).  One day Jeff slowed down and commented how creepy and quiet the road we were on was -- funny I was thinking how much it reminded me of home! 

We've officially camped on Lake Ontario once and Lake Erie a few times now - a couple days ago we got to check out Canada from across the bay near Buffalo, NY (someone forgot her passport, so we just got to see it out from a distance.)  Trying to ge

t in/out of Buffalo, we came around a corner and a lady frantically ran up to us asking for help - FRANTICALLY.  Guess she ran out of gas in the middle of the intersection, so Jeff jumped into action and pushed her across into a parking lot -- I'm sure the biking wasn't enough of a workout for him -- he probably needed it to help him out with his leg muscles... lol. 

We are currently in Erie, PA and should be in Ohio by tomorrow!!! 

Other random things of note - I can't get my head together for this blog!:

- Jeff got chased by a miniature pincher... haha... better than than a doberman one! 

- Some little kid yelled at me to catch up to Jeff and a few others just yelled in general.  Whats up with people honking at us?  Is that a cyclist thing because they always wave?  A construction worker yelled at me today "where you headed??" I said "west!" He laughed and said "that works!"  Maybe I'm being a little to vague?  haha...

- Seen 5 different people cycling cross-country (in the other direction of course) - every one of them had the same panniers (rear bags) as us. 

- Michelle keeps bugging me to find a geocache... every time I think about it they are in the other direction.  Hmm... maybe I should plan ahead?

- Only've seen 2 creepy lurkers so far, so that's nice.  We instantly went in another direction.

OK thats it for now! Hope to blog more often so no more brain dumps... but you know how that goes!!!

~Styx & Bones

See pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/113448133157937829305/WhyNotBicycleCTNY

Hasta La Vista, Irene!

Day 1, Connecticut:  We didn't really look at any type of topography going into this ride, so we probably took the worst route ever up the biggest hills we could find to get to where we were camping that night - it was awesome.

Day 2, Connecticut:  Even worse hills than the day before AND an earthquake!?  OK, we didn't feel it.  AND, to clear up my family rumors, it did NOT make me fall off my bike, nor was it caused by me falling off my bike... LMAO. 

Day 3, Crossed into New York State: Much better ride and we had a great lakeside campground all to ourselves.  Jeff suffered a broken spoke, but the bike repair shop guy gave us a free part and Jeff had it fixed and true in about an hour.  The ride was getting easier and things were looking up!

Day 4, New York: Hurricane Irene is comiiiiiiiiiing!  Heavy rains forced us inside after 15 miles of great riding.  More heavy rains, 65-100 MPH expected winds and a big 'ol hurricane is coming!  Yipes! What is mother nature trying to tell us all in the first four days!?!

So, last night we spent a few hours trying to figure out how to bike from here to Albany and over towards Buffalo without getting schwacked by the hurricane.  There are a lot of great bike trails up there we were looking forward to checking out, but after considering all of our options we realized we really didn't have many.  There just aren't a lot of places to hunker down between here and there if the weather came in sooner than expected or something went awry.  Basically we looking at potentially 3 consecutive nights in a hotel waiting out the storm. 

The problem with that is... we didn't come out here to sit around in a hotel... we came here to ride!!!  So, with much thought and consideration, we've decided to rent a big 'ol van, and drive ourselves up to Rochester, NY to get out of Hurricane Irene's way and get riding!  Today we will be driving most of the day, but tomorrow we can hit the streets again to sunny skies without worrying about having to duck and cover every time a cloud rolls in.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday!!! 

~Styx & Bones <---- those were our "trail names" when we hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2010 in case anyone reading this is wondering. :0)

I can't ride my bike with no handlebars

"Training or touring?" the guy said he passed me on his bike. 

"Touring" I said. 

He replied "good for you!" And threw in a bonus "the only way to travel!" when he passed Jeff.

I guess I should of said both.  We are definitely touring, but I feel like I'm also in training... maybe like the biggest loser camp, but with less dieting.  Haha. These hills are rough! I'm starting to see why most of the established bike routes are north of where we are!

Now let's take a moment to cover awkward privacy violations, roadkill and breakdowns.

Awkward privacy violations:
Yesterday when we were getting ready to leave Kettletown State Park, Jeff went to the bathroom to change of clothes.  When he left the bathroom he went right back in to throw something away... he noticed there was a lady standing on top of the toilet peeking over the top of the stalls THAT HE WAS JUST IN! LOL. Let us know if you see any videos of him changing on the internet.

Roadkill:
Seriously, there is way more roadkill on the side of the road that you never ever even see when you're driving a car!  There were some stretches in the last couple days where I felt like I was dodging more road kill than anything else.  Despite my dodging, so far some of the things I have run over on my bicycle include: Tons of worms, Glass, Random metal pieces, A Copenhagen can full of water (that was nice), An old ear of corn and a pile of roadkill! Gross!

Breakdowns:
Yes, we've had a few! Jeffs back rack came loose at least four times before he moved a few things around and now it seems to be fine. The only reason that this is of note is because every time he broke down it seemed like we're in even worse part of New Haven - yipes! Both of us have had to do some minor gear adjustments and a break adjustment or two on mine. Nothing major. When we woke up at camp yesterday I remembered to tell Jeff that I "had this feeling like my handlebars were going to fly off when I was going downhills yesterday." Yeah, the headset on my bike was about one bolt thread from just completely detaching my bike from my fork and throwing me onto the pavement. Glad I remembered to check it because... I definitely can't ride my bike with no handlebars.

~Styx and Bones

We have an album started you can see all our pics at here: https://picasaweb.google.com/113448133157937829305/WhyNotBicycleCTNY

Wow and also wow!

Today we officially kicked off the Bicycle Ride of Justice at Branfords Stony Creek beach! Where it will end, we have absolutely no idea. All we know at this point is we have the Butterfield/Roberts (lol) wedding to attend on 9/10/11 in VT, so if our bodies hold up we should be biking until then.

Today we enjoyed a leisurely ass kicking at the hands of CTs rolling hills.  We made it a total of 35.4 miles into Kettletown State Park near Southbury, CT, (which for a couple of out of shape desk jockeys with no experience at all ain't half bad!).

Yes, its true... Not much experience. For those of you who know me well you know I haven't really ridden a bicycle since the early 90s... Lol. Seriously, our plan was to do this bicycle ride sometime next year... take some time planning and get ourselves physically ready.  It was only a few weeks ago when we decided to do it now, and even today sitting in this tent we are not really sure where we'll end up tomorrow. 

It's awesome. 

Anyways, just wanted to check in! I hope everyone is have an awesome week!

~Styx and Bones (ride again?)

"I can see Alaska from my house!"

Hanging out with some good friends at the Cougar Pot tonight when I turned and asked Jeff... "What if instead of riding to mom's house from here, we ride to the coast of CA, turn right and go to Alaska?  THEN we can see RUSSIA!" 

After we came home Jeff's sporadically awesome memory came into play and he pulled out his phone to play me this little gem:



Haha - I LOVE IT!
If you're looking for a fun bicycling song, check these out!  I don't know why anyone would be looking for one besides me... so if you KNOW one, post on my FB or here!!!  Playlists starting... noooooowwww!!!

Bicycle Wreck – Tennessee Mafia Jugman
Bicycle Built For Two – Nat King Cole
Bicycle Commuters Anthem – Shera Kelly
Bicycle Song - Susannah Vlachly
My Bicycle - Beebo
Fat Girls on Bicycles - Punk Group

Why Not Bicycle?

I have spent at least the week thinking about what to write for our very first post in this new blog.  There are so many things going through my head and so many things I want to write that I just don’t know how to get it out of my head and onto this screen. 

So, how did “why not bicycle” come to be?  Well, first of all, the blog called “why not bike” was already taken by someone named David who has posted exactly zero times.  Bummer.  I started thinking of alternate blog names and decided to keep it simple and go with “why not bicycle?”  It seemed fitting.

So how did we come up with biking at all?  We both probably have our own versions of that story.  Jeff says he’s always wanted to bike across the US.  He had always wanted to hike the AT, but now that he’s checked that goal off the list he's moving on.  We’re not cyclists by any stretch, but we are practicing to be, and having a lot of fun doing it.  For me, the desire to bike across the US started with a combination of things. 

First and foremost, coming back to work for corporate America after hiking 2,175+ miles in under 6 months is just... awkward.  We didn't feel fulfilled in what we were doing before we went on the hike, and after we finished, we brought ourselves right back around to where we were when we left.  We both understand the concept of "the grass is never greener," but we also want to walk through all kinds of grass while we are still young enough to enjoy how it feels.

Second, Jeff mentioned hiking again.  He found a trail called the "American Discovery Trail" that goes from somewhere near Washington DC all the way across the US to around San Francisco, CA.  For at least a week he would give me unsolicited information about the ADT and details on people who had hiked it.  Though it’s been 6 months since our epic hike ended, I admitted I am just not ready to hike again right now. 

Third, the ‘winter blues’ really caught us hard this year, as we enjoyed record snow and a long winter in Connecticut.  Today it was supposed to snow again, but so far it’s just been some sort of weatherman’s April Fools Day joke.  A new job and the extended winter really put me in a state of mind where I was either ‘blah,’ or asking myself “what’s next?”  At random times the past few months I’ve compulsively applied for jobs in Germany (Michelle is moving there if you missed that memo) and also Colorado.  Why Colorado?  Well, I hear there are 300 days of sun each year, lots of outdoorsy stuff to do, and it allows me to cross “live in every state that starts with a C”  off my list of things to do in life. 

So what happens when you combine hiking the AT, working for Unilever again, discovering the ADT and wanting to move to Germany / Colorado?  Obviously you can connect those dots!  *Sarcasm* Let’s bicycle across America!!!  OK, so when the Colorado thing came up it led me to apply for a job at the company that makes Fat Tire Ale – New Belgium Brewing.  They are super-committed to environmental stewardship, frequenly hold rallies to "trade your car for a bike," and as a part of my cover letter I offered to sell my Jeep and ride my bike from here to there.  Maybe it wasn't the right angle considering I didn't get the job, but it is how the path to bicycling across America developed in my mind.  After receiving the rejection notice from New Belgium I asked myself... "Who wants to stop in Colorado when you can ride all the way to California anyways?"  After I say 'hi' to mom in CA I can head back to CO.  :0)

So that’s how it started.  We have no definite plan on what is going to happen next.  If we were independently wealthy we would have been on the road yesterday, but since we’re not, a little bit more planning is involved.  The goal is to go within the next year or ten, but a lot of things can happen between now and then, so who knows!

Stay tuned if you like – thanks for reading (mom!)

~Aly