Trip Preparations

The Cross Country Trip

The trip across the U.S. would primarily focus around climbing areas. We brainstormed five main areas.  These included Jackson Hole, Bend Oregon, Yosemite, red rocks, Joshua tree and Seneca rocks.  These places would be the places we spent extended time at. In between destinations we would search for mountain bike places and visit friends and family. Other planned stops included: Niagra falls, Washburn Wisconsin, CR Johnson Healing Center in Trukee California and Washington, DC. Gayle mapped out distances and time to get from place to place to get a rough idea of approximately when we would be in different places so Brad could begin to line up climbing partners
The initial planned looked like this:

Map of Trip


The next big decision was the vehicle. We thought about borrowing an RV, renting some sort of vehicle, using our Subaru Outback and buying a trailer (for cool gear trailers see Space trailers ), selling one of our cars and buying a used SUV or truck.  From these choices we pretty much narrowed it down to using our outback with a gear trailer or buying some sort of larger vehicle. Seeing our outback was only 4 cylinders and already struggled with four bikes on it, we decided adding a trailer might kill the car on the mountain passes. So the search began for a SUV or truck. We kept our eyes peeled for all the different possibilities on the road when we were out and about. We went back and forth about which SUV would be big enough. In the end, we decided that if we were going the route of an SUV, we might as well get the biggest one. We had camping gear, bikes and climbing gear along with the fact that we were planning to live out of it for over two months. So the search began... after days of car shopping this is what we ended up with:

Ecuador

Once we nailed down the the vehicle decision, our energy shifted to Ecuador. We needed to gather all the gear for a self contained bike tour. Needless to say, it was getting a bit overwhelming preparing for two totally different trips, but we just kept taking big breathes.... in the end things always work out, right?

Gayle had tentatively planned out a route (with no rhyme or reason- just a loop on what looked like passable roads from google maps) and had begun to gather some information from reading journals of cyclists on Crazy guy on a bike  to see if anyone else had taken the route sketched out. The thinking was we had a route that was doable in two months, but could definitely be reworked if recommendations were made. Now it was time to gather gear. To start off, we had one bike (which needed some work), a set of front and back racks for the one bike, one set of back panniers and a Bob trailer. We were about 1/4 of the way to gearing up four riders! With the help of friends, family, Craig's List, and various bike stores we accumulated two bikes and all the packs and racks we needed. The biggest missing link was we still needed two bikes. Since time had virtually run out, we resorted to adding an extra bike rack to the Sequoia leaving  us with two extra spots for bikes that we hope to find along the way.

At last, we were less then a week away from departure.... when....