Decisions Decisions

When it comes to go on the Run or not, the first decision I come to is whether I can go to the west coast and ride all the way back with the group or join the Run somewhere along the way. The easy decision is absolutely yes, go all the way! To do that the simple solution is that I just need to get things sorted out at home and work. Home is easy (great support here) but work is a bit trickier working around the schedules of my clients and customers. Right now my goal is to go "all the way" and I'm planning my schedule around that.

This is what it looks like heading west.

The next decision is whether to take a scenic trip west to the starting point in the suburbs of L.A. or haul ass west bound getting to the start point in three or four days. It's just under 2800 miles from my house to L.A. so I could do that in four easy days or three days of really hard riding. Generally I would like to take the shortest route and fastest time possible to get to the starting point but this year may be different for me. I'll explain that in more detail later.

In 2010 my brother and I decided to join the Run in Western Kansas because that year we didn't want to take too much time off of work - only about 7 days each. I left Virginia on Wednesday afternoon late and met my brother in West Virginia that night. We took off the following morning,  had two days to get to Kansas and once there had a down day to wash the bikes, get an oil change and rest a bit.

Last year while I was recuperating from my hip surgery, my brother rode from WV to California in four days and a half days. He also took time along the route for a short day for an oil change. Another good example of a quick trip run to get to the Run.

This year, because of my decision to go "all the way," I may have to leave the east coast a couple of weeks early to get to the west coast on time. (Darn!) I'll start early to make it an easy trip west so I can still check in at work daily, pound out emails for a few hours along the way and not let too many things fall through the crack. As of now, I plan to be in CA on the Saturday or Sunday before the Run begins.

Look at all the friends you have heading east

The other decision is to determine which route you want to take coming back - the Central or Southern routes. I'm pretty sure I'll come back the Central Route but I'll go over that in another post.