Truckin' on up to Omaha

This is a snapshot of my new touring bike, a Novara Randonee. Unlike my Schwinn lightweight "racing" bike (yeah, like I'm fast enough to race) this is geared much lower for long rides, hills, and heavy hauling.

As I started to get a feel for my new set of wheels, I couldn't help but think of it as a truck. Sure, it can go fast. It just takes a while to get up to speed. And you'd better be in the right gear if you want to get it moving. But it's a smooooooth ride.

A few years back, a friend nicknamed my old Schwinn mountain bike the "Silver Streak." My black Schwinn "race" bike never got a nickname. Maybe I felt it was too cool for a nickname. But the new Randonee, while not cool, has 'personality.'

It reminds me of the good ol' Griswold Family Truckster.

Yeah, that fits. This bike is the Truckster. As Uncle Eddy would say, "Real nice, Clark. Real nice."

Why would I pick up a new bike? Well, for a new kind of bike ride. As I hinted in an earlier post, I was considering a solo bike ride on some rail trail, gravel, and highway from Saint Louis to Omaha. I've decided to go for it, beginning tomorrow.

If you want to see more closely what route I am following, check out this amazing little web-based Google Maps thing I wasted an hour playing with today. You can see where I'll be riding, plotted on a Google Map, along with map pins indicating services that are along my route. Check it out!