Adventurelaus

Day 1: San Diego - Oceanside - San Diego   Distance: 91.7 miles   Total Ascent: 13,412 Bike route 757650 on Bikemap  I got my cycling adventure in but I guess I had to many expectation.  First off all I couldn't get a train ride up to Oceanside and did the route in the north direction.  The scenery was urban all the, and the route was mostly on the busy pacific coast highway, and the roads are rough as hell.  I guess Iowa has really spoiled me with very smooth rural highways with near to no traffic and plenty of rural scenery and fresh air. The plan was to take the 7am Amtrak to Oceanside since the Coaster train doesn't run on Sundays.  But that was nixed by a bomb thread that Amtrak received which resulted in the train to be canceled.  The next train wouldn't have gotten me to Oceanside until 10am.and I really didn't want to start riding that late.  The other option was to ride up to Oceanside and take the train back....

San Diego For work I'll be going to San Diego and I added a couple of personal days to it.  My thought is to sight see, visit aircraft carrier and possibly rent a bike and do a bike ride.  An option is to ride around the San Diego bay which is about 25 miles.  It looks like the east side goes through a lot of industrial areas though.  With Torrey Pines State Park and other interesting places being up north I though of doing the Pacific coastal tour from Oceanside back to San Diego.  It's about 45 miles one way and I could take the Coaster train (weekdays only) or Amtrak up to Oceanside with the bike.  Of course everything is contingent on what kind of bike I can rent. Accross Iowa Having completed the bike ride from Omaha to Ames the next natural step is to extend the ride across Iowa.  I have the following route in mind with overnight stops around Marshalltown (or a bit further west) and northern Iowa City. Family Tours Another thing I woul...

I really need to write a little follow up about the Omaha to Ames bike ride.  Especially in regards to my packing list.  First the pannier weights: Front left:    8 lbs Front right:   7 lbs Rear left:    14 lbs Rear right:   18 lbs -------------------- Total weight: 47 lbs I forgot an important thing, the can opener.  Luckily I threw in a pliers-multi-tool that had a can opener on it.  I also took several packets of oats with Nido whole milk powder but I was to lazy in the mornings to heat up water for a warm breakfast.  Instead the tortillas with Nutella worked out great for breakfast.  Overall I had to much sweet snacks along.  I realized I craved none sweet stuff or maybe some more salty stuff. On this trip I only ate out once.  It was for lunch on the second day in Steward at Subway.  On one side I want to eat our more on future trips but then I really didn't had many chances to do s...

Yes, I did it. I biked with my old mountain bike from Bellevue (Omaha) Nebraska to Ames Iowa. That's 198 miles in two days. The first day I biked 75 miles to Atlantic Iowa where I tented behind a fire station. On the second day a shower, bed, and a full day of relaxation and recuperation was to tempting not to go for it so I rode the full 123 miles. Tail wind of parts of the way helped a little too. Though the thunderstorm cell later that day that traveled with me did not. Day1:   Distance:  76.61 miles (123.29 km)   Max Speed: 31.8 mph (51.2 km/h)   Average Speed:  11.1 mph (17.9 km/h) Day2:   Distance: 123.28 miles (198.40 km)   Max Speed: 36.7 mph (59.1 km/h)   Average Speed: 12.0 mph (19.3 km/h) The Departure Saturday morning was quite chilly even in the fifth-wheeler of my parents-in-law at which we stayed. So I was reluctant to get up and going.  At about quarter to nine I took off after having had a simple breakfa...

Yeah, I'm going hi-tech here and will be twittering on my tour. Of course I must remember doing so, I must want to do it and most of all have phone reception with my pre-paid T-Mobile phone. At Slater I needed to climb playground equipment and hold the phone high to be able to send the message. :( In any case, it's mainly a fun thing to do and somehow I need to use up some of the minutes on that phone. Twitter allows me to send SMS (short text messages) and post it that way. I guess blogger does, too. But this way the short live feed is separate from the nice long trip reports and other musings.

The star constellations look right for the Omaha to Ames bike ride. I redid my route a little and got rid of some hills. However there is no way to avoid the huge ascent (and decent) right at the get-go. For overnights I have picked some camp ground, however this isn't set in stone.  So the days will be about the bike ride I did yesterday minus the trailer and plus four panniers.  So I'm not sure if it will be any easier to ride.  I'm nearly done packing and the packing list right now is: Front Left Pannier: toiletries: sunscreen bug spray toilet paper bike lock toothpaste toothbrush hand sanitizer lib balm comb miscellaneous: extra tent string zip ties pliers lighter band-aids chewing gum outside pocket: photo camera phone (backup) Front Right Pannier: snacks: beef jerky trail mix (two bags) granola bars (22 pieces) butter kekse dyed fruit outside pocket: led front light led rear light (two) led head light batteries (8 AA ...

Heidi's daycare is closed and I thought of doing a small bike ride to get used for the tour. Things got a bit stressed getting Oskar to school since both sets of car seats were in mom's car. So I packed a few things and we rode on our bike to Oskar's school just in time. Heidi and I continued our ride to Ankeny to have some lunch and back. Since R38 is still closed due to construction we took US 69. I quickly remember why I loath to ride there. The traffic is just horrible. So we back tracked though Kelly to R38 and on to Slater where we stopped for ice cream and a playground break. Like last weekend we took the High Trestle trail to Ankeny, had lunch and returned the same way. Of course this time we took the shorter and nicer detour on X Avenue. Surprisingly I feel fine the day after. Distance: 65 miles Max Speed: 27.4 mph Average Speed: 11.8 mph Slater has a nice little grocery that's open 7 days a week with pretty long hours.  Quite nice and of cours...

OK, so I have this idea to do a bike ride from Omaha to Ames. The ride would start at my in-laws and end at home. The convenience would be that I could hitch a ride to there from my wife and kids while they visit the grandparents. It would be 180 miles of Iowa county highways in 3 days. I have already a route in mind but still need to plot it. Of course it will be a self supported tour with the occasional stops at gas station for water and ice cream. This will be a two fold adventure, as I haven't done an overnight solo cycling tour and I haven't been riding my bike much this. Spring and summer was occupied by lots of stuff including building a small shed (12 x 20 foot) in the back yard. The shed is somewhat of a priority since I really want to get a better bike than the GT Outpost mountain bike I have. Before I get the new bike I want to have more room to store all of our crap so that it's easily accessible and I won't break stuff while shuffling things around...