This isn't your typical tour that's for sure, as there will be one hell of a lot of flying.  I debated whether or not to even bring the Black Mistress on planes and opt for renting bikes at various locations instead.  But in the end I decided to go with the original plan because it retains the bike as the locus of the tour.  Relegating the bike to the sidelines means the trip becomes something else entirely.

Besides that, logistics demand that I bring my own bike the whole trip.  There is a portion where I fly into Armenia, bike to Batumi Georgia, and loop around to Tbisili.  Then it's flying out from there to Bangkok.  Not easy to manage that with rental bikes.

Granted, for sure, many portions of this upcoming trip aren't going to involve the bike directly.  For that matter, I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to post this trip on Cycleblaze.  In the end I decided to write from the perspective of using the bike rides to assimilate and process very complex information.  There will be no shortage of that.

The primary aim of this trip, just like the previous ones, is to made headway on solving a very tricky and difficult midlife crisis.  Part #1 was more about coming to grips with the problem and developing a philosophy and framework for how to approach it.  Part #2 was confirmation that I'm on the right track and that action is needed.  This trip is about how the action begins.  Some critical steps will be taken;  it's like setting up the volleyball for a teammate so that he can go for the kill and smash it into the opposite court.  There's no way to know how this will play out because I don't have any more of an idea of the future than whoever is reading this.  All I know is that something big is going to happen, and we'll all figure this out together.