Your first long distance tour...

[cappie]

I'm Running away

 After years of raising a family/owning business's - At the age of 54 - I finally got to run away from home on my bike

 These childhood thoughts came at the very beginning of the tour for as I was raised in a dysfunctional turbulent family. My Schwinn Panther was my only escape from the turmoil -   I often dreamed of running away on that bike.

In 2000 I rode to the Oregon Coast from Portland to spend the week touring with nine friends. We rode the whole Oregon line from WA to CA self-supported.

Every morning when rolling out of camp - I recalled my childhood dream of running away and the freedom to just keep riding. Little did I know I would do a "TransAmerica" in 2005.  This time - I was on the run all away across America - - Boy did I run away

Thoughts after coming home was - what an adventure. Now I'm retired and thinking of going on the run again - what a feeling of freedom - life is so simple - eat to ride - ride to sleep - sleep to ride. Nomadic life at it's best.

[johnsondasw]

Yup, I retire in June this year, and plan to do a cross-country tour in the summer of 2011.  It may be tricky, though, because although we've raised our kids and they are independent, I as starting to do quite a bit of taking care of parents!  I do have siblings, so we should be able to figure out a schedule that will work.

[velo]

What was going through your mind upon commencing your very first long distance tour?
What was going through your mind as you finished, or were about to finish your first long distance tour?

1) The house is packed, the stuff is in the shipping container and I'm moving on two wheels - awesome. I should have found time to train. We did the Northern Tier from Seattle to Minnesota.
2) Why are we stopping?!? When can we start again.

[Stockton]

My first 'long' tour was Land's End to John O' Groats, the SW of England to the NE of Scotland, about 1,000 miles.  After a long day on the train, my riding buddy and I arrived at the youth hostel in Penzance, about 20 miles from the start and where we were staying the night.  Rather than use half a day getting to Land's End and back, we decided to knock this first section off after dinner.  No biggie, we were young and in good shape so 40 miles unladen wouldn't take us all that long.

Except we took a wrong turning on the way, which meant it was much later than we intended by the time we arrived at Land's End and it was already dark when we set off back to the youth hostel.  And we had no lights.  And we had both chosen to wear black t-shirts that day.  Oh, we were young.

20 miles of narrow, winding English country road with no shoulder and lots of cars.  I'm sure we scared the heck out of a whole bunch of motorists that night.  I know we certainly scared the heck out of ourselves, but more by luck than anything else, we made it back unscathed.

So...my thoughts at the start of the tour were "Ooobloodyhell, I wish we didn't have to do this."

At the end though, my thoughts were "Aw, I wish I didn't have to be back at work on Monday.  There's so much more to see."

Happy days.