My wife Rhona and I previously completed multi-day bicycle tours in the United States and Europe. The highlight tour was a cross United States tour, roughly following the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route in 1996. We eagerly awaited retirement to resume our tours and decided this time to ride a history focused tour. The Adventure Cycling Underground Railroad route was based on a facet of American History that we wanted to explore and understand more fully and would take us to portions of the United States (and Canada) that we had not toured on a bicycle. I read several accounts by persons who had completed the route. One of the most helpful was Mike and Joan Weingarten's blog of their 1998 tour. http://mikenjoan24.blogspot.com/ I contacted Mike who was most helpful about logistical issues and a recommendation about long-term parking at Bishop's Bicycle Shop in Milford, Ohio.

Our bicycle is an extensively modified, 1995 Cannondale Off road tandem. We mounted Panaracer Ribmo 26 in. by 1.5 in. tires. Although we considered pulling our B.O.B. trailer, we decided to try to get by with only our front and rear Madden panniers. A new purchase for this tour was a *Garmin Legend etrex GPS. We took a small automatic Sony digital camera. The camera survived the tour, but not the overuse it was subjected to during the birth of our fourth grandchild in September.

We planned to camp and motel which required packing a two person Sierra Clip-light tent (so small that both occupants had to be on very friendly terms with each other), REI Lite-Core 1.5 sleeping pads and 15 year old compact sleeping bags. Although we weren't taking cooking gear, this still proved to be a large amount of gear. A tandem can only pack the same amount of gear as a single bicycle and we learned that compared to our 1996 tour we now required more "stuff". In addition to the need for more clothing, the increase in medications was startling. At home, I divided our gear into the front panniers, a front handlebar bag, a bag hanging from the stoker's handlebar, two rear panniers and a large green drybag secured on top of the rear rack and panniers. Although the weight was high and far to the rear, I thought the bike handling was satisfactory, which subsequently proved to not be the case when encountering rumble strips in the south. With hindsight, I should have instead used our B.O.B. trailer to get the weight lower and off of the back wheel.

* I attempted to load the Adventure Cycling routes onto the Garmin Legend etrex

GPS, but learned that each turn on the route was treated as a waypoint that consequently prevented me from entering any additional waypoints. I ended up deleting the routes from the GPS prior to leaving on the trip, only leaving waypoints related to hotels, camping, food and libraries in the GPS.