Lake Champ

My wife and I are training for Lake Champ this fall. It is apparently an incredible ride and incredibly beautiful at the same time. Training for us means runs at incredible hours of the morning when neither sensible nor unsensible (in other words, senseless) people are out or about. It also means rushing home from work to my beautiful wife who either already has the bikes out and ready to go, or is nigh thereunto.

We learned a lot from our last trip without SAG,for example,exactly how much (or how little) it is convenient to carry in a trailer that you're pulling behind you for 500 miles. People who do assisted rides across America have no idea what I'm talking about (and they tend to be the ones who talk loudest when you're standing in line at tour local bike shop). They brag about their best distance in a day, and all you have to ask is who cooked their meals at night,and who id the repairs on their bike. Sometimes they semi-justify by telling you they had panniers. Try a 65 pound trailer next time.

Thanks to tha experience, we're trying to shoot for a month that is warm enough that we won't need sleeing bags, but cool enough that we won't die in the sweltering heat. So maybe September. There will be a few longer interim rides, of course, but there's also the matter which I know many of you can appreciate,which is time off work. Weekend rides are one thing, week-long rides a complete 'nuther.