>>1864681Pic was taken the last morning of riding.
>>1864713No budget. Just tried to stay frugal. I tentatively had 5000$ in mind but I was way under that. Even several hotel days and a spa day in Salt Lake City, and lots of eating out. You could do this way cheaper than I did. Rode with some guys who used an old bean can for their cooking pot. They hardly spent a dime on anything but food. Met other guys who stayed in hotels every night.
Tips:
Get clip in pedals. I rode the first 3500 without them, and the last 700 with them, and I'm glad I switched. I'm sure everyone else knows that but I'm not a bike fag so I didn't really know how much "better" they are.
Don't give up. I didn't train and I almost quit my second day in. I almost quit everyday for 2 weeks. It was all mental. I know touring people are way into it but this was my first tour, so it was all new to me.
Talk to everybody. That is the true magic of touring. I had so many interesting things happen.
I would advise anyone to get bigger than 32 cm tires. The offroading was never fun.
Do NOT use downtube shifters. Get really easy to use indexing shifters. It sucked shifting this thing.
Kickstand is not optional. I didn't get one until Kansas, and it made things so much better.
Get the best and lightest backpacking camping gear. I had an un-insulated air mattress and it was too cold to sleep in the snow. I had some hard nights. I also had a cheap 2 person tent, because I'm tall and sleep diagonally, but a smaller tent would have been so nice.
