What’s in a day?

Day 8. Rest day in Austin

In the daily stats column “AIS” (ass in seat) refers to actual time riding the bike. Doesn’t include snack stops, photo stops, lunch, etc. Elevation climb is overall amount of climbing in the total ride.

Typically we are waking up about 6:30am. There’s packing up inside the tent and getting dressed. A trip to the bathroom that hopefully isn’t too far. Breaking down the tent. Start loading panniers. We have a Jetboil for heating up water. Breakfast is often Starbucks Via instant coffee (the best instant), package of oatmeal (Quaker Oats) and an orange (if we’re able). Then cleaning up dishes, packing and loading the panniers. I have almost nothing memorized so I have to refer to my “cheat sheet” diagram posted earlier.

Then, lube up…sunscreen face, legs, maybe arms if not wearing spf 50 shirt, lube up chamois butter. Turn on the headlight and taillight and we’re on the road. Takes about 2 hrs from wake-up to takeoff.

Then it’s ride, drink, fuel, over and over until we get to our destination. Upon arrival, we unload the bikes, set up the tent and sleeping gear. Take a trip to the showers, maybe hand wash some bike clothes while showering. Set up the clothesline to dry clothes. By then we’re hungry and ready to find a dinner place. Hopefully within a short walk or short bike ride. After dinner it’s already 7-8pm. Head yo the tent to read, blog and asleep as soon as the sunsets. Repeat everyday. It’s s routine.

Rest day is not really rest but not a riding day. It’s a day to resupply breakfast, lunch and maybe dinner supplies. Look at the week ahead for campsites or hotels needed. There’s also laundry and bicycle lubing and chain cleaning. Anytime remaining is too see the city/town. Mostly we see it as we are resupplying. We saw quite a bit of Austin coming all the way downtown. Our cute house is very close to downtown and the bike lanes through the center of downtown are very simple. We found REI (sleeping pad, freeze dried dinner), Whole Foods, Office Depot (new multi-charger) all very near our house in metro Austin.