Bike-fit

In less than 48 hours, I’ll be meeting Jon in Albuquerque—a little farther along than where we left off in April of 2024—to resume our way on Route 66. Yeah, I’ve had a bit of a hiatus from this blog, and from long-distance bike-riding as well. Rather than bog down the blog with backstory of how I spent the past 22 months, I’ll let those details trickle into the blog as we make our way to Flagstaff over the next week.

Suffice for now to report that—after I returned from my roll-yer-own trip to Hannibal, Quincy, and Perry in early July, 2024—I rode only 10 more times the rest of that year for only 418 miles. And 2025 was so abysmal, I’m embarrassed to report it at all: just 3 rides and only 72 miles. WTF, Dan.

That said, there were plenty of non-cycling events that happened during those months, and several of them contributed mightily to my continued “rideworthiness,” but I’ll get to those later….

Tonight’s story begins in February of this year, when—during the course of one of our fairly regular text exchanges—I said something to Jon on the order of, “Are we gonna finish this thing?” He replied that we needed to, but we’d have a pretty narrow window of time if we wanted to tackle the next leg this spring. Welcome to that narrow window of time.

To make it fit our respective schedules (and put us within striking distance of completing Route 66 in this, its centennial year), we decided to leapfrog the distance from Amarillo to Albuquerque, just like we leapfrogged between Tulsa and OKC. We each fly into ABQ on Wednesday morning, unbox and reassamble our wheels, then strike out on city streets to get to the Route 66 Casino Motel on the western outskirts. We ain’t gambling, but we need to shave off 25 miles or so on Wednesday so that we only have a 60-mile ride to Grants on Thursday. “Downs-and-distance” is one of the five* challenges of this ride. [Yes, I will get to the other four.] There simply aren’t enough towns with accommodations along the way to give us any flexibility whatsoever about how far we bike each day. So we’ve got two 60-miles days, followed by three 45-mile days, capped off with a final 60 miler. (And there’s usually only one place in the approximate middle of those 60-mile days where we can stop for lunch.)

The other four challenges? (1) elevation: at both ends of the ride, we are at >6500ft… mostly terra incognita for yours truly. I’ve spent plenty of time in Colorado over the past several years, but have never biked at elevation before. (b) wind: the prevailing wind at this time of year is generally out of the west, i.e., in our faces, and you know from both of our prior posts just how much we hate wind. But we’ve been checking the weather, and—knocking VERY loudly on wood right now—it should be manageable, if the forecast holds. The trick will be to get in as many miles before noon as possible, which shouldn’t be too hard on those 45-mi days. Once the afternoon sun starts heating things up, the gusts pretty much double in intensity. (iii) I-40: approximately half of this route will be on the (wide) shoulder of I-40. (Yes, it’s legal there.) The good news is that the ascents on interstate highways tend to have a nice, long grade; the bad news is that it’s a nice, long grade on an interstate highway. (IV) boredom: this one’s from Jon, who’s driven along the route. There ain’t a whole lot of variation to the scenery, and if we’re riding on the shoulder of I-40, we’ll be in single-file, so there ain’t gonna be a whole lot of conversation to pass the time, either.

But if there weren’t going to be challenges, why bother doing it? I’m thrilled to get back on the road again. A couple of months ago, I took Lorelei (aka, my bike) to Big Shark Bicycle Company for my (our) first-ever bike fitting. I got a shorter stem for my handlebars (which I also had re-taped), had the seat moved just a tad forward, and bought a new set of Schwalbe tires, and I couldn’t believe the (positive) difference. Getting back on the bike again and cranking out my tune-up rides over the last four weeks has been a tonic. It’s reminded me of how much I enjoy doing this… of how bike-fit I still feel.

Let’s roll. See you Wednesday.