Saturday, July 2, 2011

Some things I would do differently next time

Start the trip with brand new tires and tubes.

Bring my hands-free (for talking on the phone in the evenings, not while cycling!)

No kindle -- just navigate with google maps and index cards, the way I ended up doing it.

Carry my droid phone in some sort of protective case (I dropped it a few times and it's getting a little flaky).

Build a holder for my solar charger that mounts onto the handlebars of my bike.

Start with two water bottle holders instead of one, and keep water there instead of strapped to my pack in back (better weight distribution).

Cycling on route 29 between Culpeper and Charlottesville, Virginia

This turned out to be more of a challenge than route 28.

There's no other option for parts of the route between Culpeper and Charlottesville, so I just went for it.

Parts of the way, there's a half-decent shoulder (though it's only about half the size of the big one on Pulaski Highway between Philly and Baltimore). Sometimes it gets really narrow--strong encouragement to pedal like crazy until you get through the narrow spot.

My safety strategy was to watch my mirror carefully, and when two cars are next to each other (no room to get over), make sure there's a lot of shoulder room, or else stop and get off the road. I only had to get off the road a couple of times.