It’s been over a week since we been home and not going anywhere by bike didn’t seem strange for the first few days home. But now, I am antsy to get on the bike and go somewhere. The problem is that I don’t really have a bike anymore. We decided that it wasn’t practical to let the expensive (at least for us) bikes just sit for months and wait to be ridden again. Our old bikes are perfectly good for the touring that we plan on doing. We have absolutely no plans for an extended tour like the one we just did.
For one, who can take off so much time? And who can afford it? Obviously, there are some people who can do this, but we see that some do this by begging. It’s seems logical that before one plans on such a tour, that they have the means to afford it, because it isn’t cheap. Yes, we have a donation button on our site and had some generous contributors and greatly appreciated their donations to the cause, but that button is also for those who enjoy reading the site and wish to contribute what they would spend for buying a magazine or other publication. We certainly never expected anybody to finance our trip as I see that some people with supposed causes are doing. That isn’t to say that there aren’t legitimate causes that use bicycle touring as a vehicle( no pun intended, really) to make the public aware of their message. But, then there are others who have thinly veiled their escape from the real world as a supposed cause. One particular case is one that I will avoid mentioning and avoid visiting because most of their posts spend inordinate amounts of time begging. I am evil, but don’t want to add to their hits as much as I would like to see how they have progressed, since their ride amounted to very few miles in very many days.

Back to those bikes for sale. My bike has no seat, but sure looks forlorn sitting in its corner with motionless wheels and unladen frame. My old Specialized will suffice for doing short tours and rides to our other house. I would never just take the Trek 520 for a short ride to the grocery store. If you know anybody looking for two nice touring bikes, we are in possession of them. Send a comment to us and we will get in touch.

Not hopping on the bike everyday didn’t phase me at all. I think that I was ready to be finished with the tour, but now I am getting antsy and am thinking of doing a short tour. Riding around Lake Champlain still appeals to me as does just doing a short overnight ride. We found an excellent route out of here to the east. As long as we don’t go beyond North Adams and up the hairpin hell, we are good.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 1:47 pm and is filed under General, equipment, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.