Uh oh! I let myself get talked into another coast-to-coast ride: San Diego to St. Augustine. It's the same crowd, Michele and Roy, plus a new crew member, Steve. Steve quit his job so he'd have time to make the ride. More about him later (and he previously appeared in this blog two or three years ago in the Pinnacles loop trip). We'll have some part-timers, too: our son-in-law, Andrew to join us from Del Rio, Texas, to Austin. Maybe Brooks (also previously in the blog from the Pinnacles loop). Maybe some others.

The plan is to start March 15 - 78 days from now! We hope to do some training in advance to shape up. My expectation is, not much. Life gets in the way. The date was chosen to try to avoid the extreme heat that the Southwest experienced last year. I'm a little worried that there may still be snow in the mountains just east of San Diego (I don't know if that's a serious concern or not; I'll look into that) or in New Mexico.

There's new equipment to buy - hooray! I'm getting new front sprockets for lower gears. I may get a new rear wheel to further reduce the gears.