Too true!!

John - a fellow Okie - I'll definitely be following along now! Buddy (from Tulsa)

Hey guy! I’m in and watching every move! Behave

I had to drag my bike box to a door for oversized bags. The guy who opened it asked, “What’s in the box?” even though it says BikeFlights in foot tall letters on both sides. Should I be worried? 🧐🤔😬🙏

Beering….biking….just a spell check difference.

Let the adventure begin! Beering across America! I mean biking…. Or do I?

We are also flying American. Their allowed size seems very generous. I did note that they also allow plastic wrapped bikes, according to their info page. We are leaving from Eagle, CO, which has a small airport. My husband was in town for work, so stopped by the American counter. You've got to love it when you can just walk up and ask a question without waiting in line! We were slightly interested in the plastic wrap option. We have heard positive things about sending bikes that way. It seems to be more accepted in Europe than stateside. The counter person he spoke with said that bikes needed to be in boxes. Jacinto didn't push the wrapped idea, but it was nice to hear an answer.

Enjoy. May the force be with you!

I had a heck of a time getting a working PedalCell. The first one I received, the dynamo crapped out almost immediately (literally within minutes). PedalCell sent a replacement dynamo. Then the USB power hub failed. The president of the company helped me diagnose the problem online using software he had me download. PedalCell then sent a whole new kit; dynamo, power hub, cables, the works, but it took several weeks because of COVID supply chain issues. This time everything worked perfectly.

I must say the company was extremely helpful with sorting out my issues. The president was always very quick to answer my email and text queries, even when I sent them at night or on a weekend.

I used it last year on my northern Lake Michigan tour. I tested it out just recently to make sure it was still good to go for this year's big ride. It charged my iPhone from 30% to 95% in a bit over an hour riding at about 13 mph. I see on PedalCell's website that their published power curve doesn't go below 6 mph, so I can see why you would have had a problem.

At the start I'll be carrying close to 55 pounds of gear on my bike on this trip. Need to see your gear list when you take to the AT next year. I'd like to know what you plan to have on your back. A year or two ago I visited the Mountain Crossings store at Neel's Gap in northern Georgia near the southern terminus of the AT. It's where a lot of hikers send home the stuff they decided they didn't need after all. Everyone who works in the store has thru-hiked the AT, some multiple times. I asked one of them how much his pack would weigh if he started the trail tomorrow. 10 pounds he said. The gauntlet is down.

The traditional Transamerica Trail starts and ends at Yorktown, Virginia. Much closer to the open ocean than D.C., I admit, but still on the York River just shy of where it enters Chesapeake Bay. Tidally-influenced brackish-water estuary. It's a matter of degrees. Even if you don't buy "coast to coast" you'll have to give me "transcontinental". Definitely two sides of the same continent. I continue to maintain my delusion. 😉🤪😵‍💫

Hi Ben, the brother Ed here. We are taking a MSR pocket rocket that we have used in past tours, and taking 2 Isobutane canisters. We will replace them as they empty.
I did buy a MSR Wisperlite last year but may have had a pump issue as I could never get it to work. Additionally I’ve got lousy vision having both bifocals and prisms in my lenses and it was hard the see the little amount of gas collecting to prime it.

Appreciate seeing the full gear list!!! Some of us "gear heads" really geek out on the selection. What stove is your brother carrying? Will you use white gas, isopropyl, etc??

Ah, coast to coast? NOPE. The Columbia River has tides 15 miles inland. The EAST coast is NJ, NY, MD or Virginia. Not DC. If you are going to do coast to coast, do it right. 😂

I have a PedalCell generator on my bike (an SWB "Grasshopper" recumbent from HPVelotechnik) and last summer I discovered the hard way that I was too slow for it. At least in hilly terrain. Basically, there's a cut-off at about 5 mph where it stops charging. There were a couple days in particular where this happened to me on every climb. Then, once I reached the top of that particular hill and started down, the Pedalcell has a delay of about a minute to charge and stabilize its internal capacitor, so by the time it started feeding power on its output ports, I'd reached the bottom of the hill and was going slow again!

Now, don't get me wrong. The Pedalcell still provides more power at lower speeds than any of the hub generators. but for an old geezer (66) like myself, this wasn't enough. I'm still keeping it on the bike, mind you. I'll be doing a week in Denmark in July. Their terrain is flatter than Sweden. We'll see if it's flat enough for the Pedalcell to do me any good.