Introduction
Hello and welcome to what is sure to be quite the grand adventure! My name is Jeremy Nolan, and I'll be your source for vicarious insight and entertainment as I make my way from Canada to Mexico along the famed Pacific Coast Bike Route.
This trip may be a little bit different than your standard Pacific Coast bike tour. You see, I'll be on a bit of a time crunch. Classes wrap up here in Bellingham on August 3, and I will have to be back in town on September 1. With that time frame in mind, I intend on making it to Mexico no later than August 26. This will leave me with 23 days to cycle approximately 1,800 miles, along with several days at the end to spend with family in my hometown. Do the math, and you'll find that I will have to average roughly 83 miles/day to meet this deadline. That average will obviously have to go up if — or rather, when — I take any rest days. While completing this route at such a fast pace is not necessarily ideal, I would rather do it this way than miss out on the opportunity to do it at all.
I will also have the added challenge of being on a grad student's budget. My journey holds for me not the bourgeois accommodations that dot the rugged coastal shorelines, nor the delicatessen eateries that will tempt me with their sensuous smells. No, I will find humble repose in hiker-biker campsites, and will be fueled by plebeian, calorie-dense pasta dinners and generic pop-tarts. Ah, to be young.
In preparation for such a tour, I have tried to be proactive about staying fit. I will be completing an olympic triathlon in July, and my training has set me up quite nicely for my tour. I have also refined my touring setup and pared back quite a bit on unnecessary weight that I carried with me on previous tours. Lastly, weather patterns generally ensure that the wind will be at my back as I make my way south. These factors should all but guarantee me a smooth, speedy ride down the coastline.
Plus, in choosing to travel north to south, it'll all be downhill. Right?
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