OK, so I hadn’t planned on starting all this for a couple more years. But, circumstances have changed and a couple of weeks ago my company announced a sweeping change in our vacation carry-over policy. Basically, they are doing away with it! I had been counting on using a bunch of carry-over so that I could ride across country in 2012.

Scrap that plan. Now the date is 2010. I’ve put down a deposit with America By Bicycle (www.abbike.com) and somehow, I’m going to make it happen! With any luck, I will be able to get an exception and carry over the vacation I need. I’m going to proceed as if that is going to happen. The worst thing that could happen is that I get focused in my training and I get leaner and fitter as a result. And, that’s not a bad thing at all!

I plan to use this blog to chronicle my 10 months of training leading up to the ride, and then the ride itself. By the time I do the ride, I should be pretty good at the mechanics of the Word Press blogging environment. So far, it has been VERY easy to use.

Feel free to come along on my journey – although you may get bored about hearing how many hours/miles I rode and where I rode (unless you are from the Colorado northern front range area) and whether the wind howled out of the north or the west on any particular day. Generally, in this part of the world, you can pretty much count on some flavor of wind — the only variance is direction and ferocity!

I am fortunate to have a fantastic bike – a 50 cm, Trek Madone WSD 6.5, named “Scooter”. Don’t ask me why…. it just is!

Here’s a picture of me and Scooter taken on the Triple Bypass ride this year as we came down into Idaho Springs.

This is the team that will do the cross country ride!