Just Thinking About Plans

Well my bike arrived from Virginia the other day. I put it together and started to check it over to see how it stood up to the rigors of the last 7000 miles of riding. The bike is an REI touring bike and held up well considering how much I punished it. After four months of hard riding it needs another chain and rear cassettes (the sprockets on the rear wheel that the chain drives). I also am replacing all the cables and cleaning and lubing all the bearings. Other than those items which are normal wear and tear things, the bike is holding up well. Of course I will start with fresh new Marathon Plus tires and new tubes before I leave again on another long ride. I am happy with my bike now although I do wish it had a slightly longer wheel base because the front wheel is too close to the pedals and my toes tend to hit the wheel when I stand up to ride. Remember I have to pedal with my heels on the pedal due to my disability in my lower leg and this makes my toes stick further forward than most riders that use the ball of their foot on the pedal. I also spent time with my maps. I wanted to study the route I would need to take to complete a circular ride around the entire United States. I thought my 5000 miles already logged going from San Francisco to San Diego to St Augustine Florida to Norfolk Virginia was more than half way around. To my surprise there is still another 6200 miles or so to complete the circle. I am not even halfway yet! I studied the route going north from San Francisco to Seattle Washington then turning right and riding the Adventure Cycling Association's Northern Tier route to Maine then turning right again and riding down to Norfolk Virginia. The length of the route caught me off guard. It is also a very mountainous and hilly route to ride. I am considering riding from Seattle to Maine with the MS group ride which is a supported ride for charity starting in April of 2013. I would need to raise a minimum of $4300 to join this ride. That is a lot of money to raise in only a few months. I am considering going that route but am not sure yet if I want to commit to it. I will need to decide in the near future if I am going to try to raise that kind of cash for MS. My health is not bad right now. I am still a bit stiff from my long ride. I need to get back on my bike as soon as it is ready to ride again. I am addicted to riding now. I have not figured out how to deal with the increased stiffness in my body since I started riding this much. I try to stretch out but just can't seem to loosen up. It has been 10 days since my last century ride and I still feel it. Getting old is no fun. When I was younger I would have healed in a couple of days. My weight started at 210 pounds when I first started my cross country ride and my weight dropped to 175 by the time I arrived in Florida. I have since been trying to gain some weight back. Today I was 182 pounds. That is a small gain but not enough of a cushion to keep me going for another 6200 miles over five mountain ranges and across the great plains and the rolling hills of the northeast. I would end up under 150 pounds at the rate I lost weight on the first leg of the tour. I don't mind losing some weight because I was a bit thick at 210 pounds but 150 would be just too light for my taste. If anyone has experience with maintaining weight while on long tours like this I would like some feedback on the solution that worked for you. I do try to eat a healthy diet high in protein with lots of fruits and veggies and sufficient carbs but I still lose too much weight while on tour. I ride hard, about 85 miles a day, which according to charts is about 5000 calories for the riding plus another 1500 for my daily calorie burn just living means I need to consume around 6500 calories a day to maintain. That is difficult to do. On my just finished ride, I ate yogurt with fresh fruit and granola for breakfast usually with juices also. Then I typically ate a second breakfast a couple hours later of something like a breakfast sandwich consisting of an egg and meat with cheese on a bun or bread along with some bananas or oranges. Then a couple hours later I would eat a big cheeseburger with fries or a large deli sandwich or something. In the mid afternoon I would usually drink milk with something like a muffin or whatever I could find. I then would eat a dinner that varied a lot depending on what I could find or cook. It would be something like liver and onions with sides, meatloaf with sides, spaghetti and meatballs or something else along those lines. At night I frequently would need to eat a granola bar and more fruit like bananas or apples or maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was not enough food or calories to keep me from losing weight. It is hard to eat that much on a daily basis, and expensive as well. I am looking for advice about this issue of maintaining weight so feel free to comment if you know from experience what works. More later...