Getting Ready For the Last Leg of TAVRTO

Winter continues to lag on and on here in the midwest. One nice deal for this bike rider has been my ability to ride streets and maintained trails in the Iowa City-Coralville area (Eastern Iowa Corridor).  Contrary to last winter, there have been enough thaws that I have been able to ride and freeze off my tail feathers with each outing.  That's better than than riding a stationary trainer in the garage like last year.  

My smart phone, I call it "Smarty Pants", has a "S-Health" application  that records mileage, average speed, elevation change etc., as well as produces a map for each ride.  The last four months I have ridden forty times, burning up, on average, 600 Kcal on each ride. Burning up calories and pedaling  on average ten miles per ride has been a winter time highlight. The health insurance company Cigna developed this app that is one of a dozen apps I actually use. Good grief these smart phones are smart. There is so much stuff you can do with them it is incredible.  Cigna got it right, in that,  this application motivates me to get out and ride, even when the temperatures are only in the twenty's.  

Even though there was plenty of snow for the birds to 

frequent the feeders, we had enough thaws and good 

street and trail plowing to allow four hundred miles of

bike riding. 

One nice thing about being pent-up in the house is,  there was plenty of time to plan the last three hundred miles or so of TAVRTO. Pre-ride details were not in the blog because I figured it would be more pressure trying to meet meet schedules. The only trouble spots I had with my schedule was getting caught in the dark on the Gandy Dancer trail near St. Crouix Falls, Wisconsin. See previous post for Seg #32. It does put pressure on me to meet a pre-ride schedule but there are too many people that need to know who, where and when.  The fact, that I am driving to Long Beach myself and crossing a number of states and riding trails in New Mexico and Arizona, the following schedule may help others to know the plans.  

1. Sunday 4/26 Dep C'ville to Anthony, KS
2. Monday 4/27 Anthony to Albuquerque, NM 
3. Tuesday 4/28 Ride Linear Park Trail then drive to Phoenix (ETA 8 pm)
4. Wednesday 4/29 ride the Sun Circle Trail early am. Stay in Phoenix that day & night
5. Thursday 4/30 dep in a.m. for Long Beach staying at Geoff's
6. Friday 5/1-Sunday 5/3 Geoff and I pedal 6-7 California trails in or near Victorville, Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, Ojai, Point Hueneme, Santa Maria and Ventura.
7. Monday 5/4 -Wednesday 5/6 I will ride 5 trails south of LA toward San Diego 
8. Chris and Connie fly in Thursday 5/7 
9. Friday 5/8 catch up/rest day
10. Saturday 5/9 ride the Bayshore/Silver Strand Bikeway and streets to Friendship Park (US Mexico Border) FRIENDSHIP PARK  OPEN ONLY WEEKENDs 10-2 
11. Sunday 5/10-5/12 at Geoff's
12. Tuesday 5/12 Chris Flies back to Iowa and Connie and I drive to CO to visit the Reents 5/14 & 5/15