The first week of the east bound Southern Tier must be the hardest for several reasons, even with sag support. Establishing a routine would probably be the hardest. Making sure that you’ve packed, charged and loaded all those things that you’ll need for the day’s adventure. Because the first week’s route is primarily thru desert and limited re-hydration resources, you’ve got to pay extra attention to food and water. Our capacity for liquids is just over a gallon at 136 oz comprised of a 3 liter hydration bladder and two 20 oz water bottles. We carry Gatorade, for the electrolytes in the water bottles, and plain water in the hydration bladder, which gives a range of about four hours or a little more. If there is a convenience store of any sort we can augment liquids easily.

Food is a bit more problematic in that we’re burning close to 5 000 calories a day and that’s a lot of food to consume. At the one week point we are already tired of forcing down big Mexican or Italian dinners each night. Eastern Arizona, has had some great Mexican restaurants, but a large combo plate after a full day’s exercise is hard to eat even when it’s delicious. I will admit to enjoying several 850 calorie milk shakes mid-day, and they weren’t a problem as they were cold and delicious. We’d settled on taking two Subway sandwiches for the long hauls without a lunch possibility, supplemented with bars and gels along the way. If we know there might be a diner midday we’ll plan on that, but across the desert that hasn’t been a possibility.

Part of the organization hassle is provisioning the night before, when we’re tired and ready to put up our feet up. Because we’re departing by 5 am on the desert stretches, it’s impossible to find anything open that early. Also because we’d been traveling a couple of hours in the dark we have to make sure our headlights and tail lights were charged, not to mention phones, cameras and my iPad. Add in the necessity of washing your riding togs and blogging, then your non-riding time is filled up quickly.

I now understand why my friend and touring partner for the latter half of the Southern Tier Don Ahlert, says that he’s glad he did it, but won’t be doing it again. I’m sure the question most will ask is “Isn’t too hot?”. Actually I found that when your are riding you don’t notice the 100 degree temps. I did feel like my skin was taking a beating even with SP 120 sunscreen. Hydration is the big issue, we consumed over 240 ounces one day and were still thirst unquenched when we went to bed.