Winter Is Here: Time to Blog

This past year's (2014) riding schedule enabled me to complete all but one trail of the central, eastern and southeastern sections of the USA. I have now completed over 85% of the latitude from the Canadian border to the Mexican border---approximately 1,800 miles. The image below shows the progress made. Completed trails are outlined in orange and trails to complete are colored green. So far I have ridden in eighteen states with four states to go (AZ, NM, UT, CA). I will be riding the majority of the remaining miles along California coastline where I must break my own rules again (see post #1 in 2012). It appears the last hundred miles or so will need to be ridden adjacent to the Pacific Coast Highway(PCH). Images on Google Earth suggest that concrete barriers separate the bike path from the highway. I hope so. Unfortunately highway 395 in the
Victorville area will require pure road biking riding on the three foot shoulder. This will be the second time I will ride a stretch of highway in my quest to get across America on trails. In Minnesota I had to ride US 71 about thirty miles since the northern third of the Blue Ox/Voyager trail was under water.

Unfortunately for most of us we have lost a month's worth of decent fall weather in 2014, especially for those living in the snow belt. Temperatures have not been conducive to bicycling. When the temperatures drop down to twenty or less wind chill degrees, I "sissyfy" and hibernate in my home/cabin hoping not to catch a fever. You know, Cabin Fever. Without winter shoe covers and novel glove combinations using hand warmers, I find it far to cold to enjoy a ride.So far the snow covered roads and trails have come and gone three or four times making bicycling a possibility. I have done ten rides since November 15th. But when the darn temperatures hover at Mt. Everest Base Camp-like levels, I sit inside posting to the blog and reading about other trails to ride besides my TAVRTO trails. In addition it's a good time to write on side bar topics and growing up stories.

When J.D. (See Segment #43) told me I needed a business card, I decided he was right on and I would put one together when it got cold. It's cold! So, I figure it is time to do a BBC (Bike Business Card). The first go a it, involved the red bike mock-up below. I thought it came out pretty good so I took my creation to Copyworks to print up a hundred or more cards. 

   

This is a mock-up for a business card I was encouraged to carry. Now when  I meet someone that appears interested  in my cross country adventure, I don't need to locate writing utensils to jot-down my blog or email address. This bicycle looks noticeably like the Trek bicycle I am riding on TAVRTO. 

I should have anticipated my plans would go array when the manager at Copyworks said they could not copy my work. What? Isn't your business copying work? I guess because the   red bicycle wasn't my original art work so they said I needed to work with a design artist to create an original card. When he said it would be $75 just to get started, I said, "no way Jose, I will do something else". Below is edition #2, an online version from Vistaprint. The price was reasonable and Vistaprint had all kinds of add on's using the logo. I ordered hats and tee shirts for Chris, Geoff and myself to don when we get to Friendship Park on the Mexican border. lf all goes well, I will get to the border this spring for a Maze boy groupie. My last TAVRTO picture.

The BBC below isn't as cool as the mock up above, but it will do. Note the # comment on the back of the card---"but it isn't possible". As I said some 75 posts back, I was hoping to cross the country west to east or visa versa. Doing that by trail was impossible as there are way too many longitude gaps to even consider an east-west route. When I researched north south trails, it appeared I could achieve my goal by expanding beyond rail trails by riding streets, community recreation trails, side walks, county roads with speed limits of 45 mph and a few miles of hiking and mountain bike trails. So, I can say at this point, one can mostly cross the country on trails, but it is impossible to make it all the way. Maybe in thirty or so years, it will be possible. Eventually, probably in another hundred years, the American Discovery Trail will connect Washington D.C. to San Francisco uninterrupted. I hope so.