Ten days in the saddle

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Well, that’s the first 10 days of cycling done and almost 500 miles under the wheels. We had planned on an average of 40 miles per day and are managing a little over 47, although the daily total varies due to the need stop somewhere we can bed down for the night, either camping, a hotel or a Warmshower host.

The duration of each day in the saddle is a little longer than we would have wished, but at least a couple of hours of this each day is down to talking to people, as cycling a fully-loaded expedition bike is most certainly a great conversation initiator.

From a health perspective, we are doing reasonably well considering the complete lack of training due to sailing all summer. With the best will in the world, it’s a challenge to go cycling on a 42ft yacht, so our fitness is having to sort itself on the route.

Neither of us has any aches to speak of yet and our gel seats are doing their jobs well. Sure, our sofa would be more comfortable, but for a bike seat small than an outstretched hand, we can’t complain too much.

My feet have a few sores from my sandals that didn’t get broken in before the off, but they are healing and will hopefully be pain-free in a few more days. The sores are from walking in the sandals, not cycling in them.

The most irritating health issue just now, if you can call it that, is mosquito bites from our camp at Granite City. We are both covered in them and are itchy as an itchy thing to the degree of impacting our sleep. Again, we hope this will pass within a few days and we don’t have any more bother from the little sods!

Food… Food is not well sorted yet as we haven’t taken the time out to stock up on the basics we would need to eat healthily. Instead, we are eating what is around at mealtimes, which more often than not is not good fuel for the body and not particularly tasty for us. We are drinking plenty water, downing sports drinks at every buying opportunity to replenish the body minerals lost through sweating, and supplemented by the occasional, okay frequent, brain freezing ice drink full of sugar and tongue dying colourant.

From an accommodation perspective, all of our Warmshower experiences have been amazing. With the exception of Kamper Kompanian, on the outskirts of Litchfield, the campgrounds we have used have been poor quality and costly.

The hotels have so far been what we have paid for, ie. staying at the cheapest hotels results in less than perfect hotel surroundings, but so far the bed has always been clean and comfortable, so we can’t complain. That said, the free (on points) JW Marriott Chicago was quite spectacular.

The bikes and gear are holding up well, with only a single puncture on my bike after cycling a couple of hundred miles on this trip, but in over 2,000 miles since buying the bike, we can’t complain.

While we were warned about US drivers before the trip our experience to date has been, almost without exception, very courteous drivers that give us a full lane when overtaking. In general a much better experience than anything we have experienced in the UK.

Overall the trip is so far exceeding our expectations on all fronts, if we had any expectations in the first place!

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