We're back!

Mike & I (Tom) are back together again on another PAC Tour for 2011.  How quickly one forgets the pain and suffering of last year's epic cross-country adventure and then considers doing another long distance cycling Tour.  This time it's PAC Tour's Ridge of the Rockies ride from Kalispell, MT to Albuquerque, NM along the Rocky Mountains in 18 days over 1900 miles.  Not quite the 30 days and 3420 miles that we covered last year but still a challenge.....it's what we do for fun:)

To make things easier and not go through another set-up phase, I chose to continue blogging on last year's "2guyscactus" blog.  There's still the 2 of us and we're still kinda of crossing the U.S., but in a North to South direction.  Just about from Canada to Mexico!   This time we are joined by Don (from my hometown of Edmonds) and Reg (from Seattle) who are PAC Tour veterans as well and cycling buddies from home.  So you might call us "4guys" but Mike & I will be doing the blogging for the most part.

I will not be doing any fund raising on this year's ride.  One can only hit up your "friends" every few years for donations, so we'll take a break from it this year.  But I still encourage your consideration in supporting the UW's Baltic Study Program, especially as State funding is being cut from all directions.

Our (my) intent in continuing this blog on this year's ride is to document our adventure for later recall (as one gets older, I don't remember things as well unless I write them down) and to share our experiences, for good or bad or humourous, with our family and friends.

I'll continue to have a separate posting each day with my downloaded Garmin data, showing the route taken and the metrics of the ride.  We'll also try to post more pictures of our day's ride if I can only remember the tricks of downloading them from the camera.

We hope you enjoy the ride with us.  Also, a little request......I encourage you to leave a comment in the comment section every now and then so that we also have something to look forward to reading....as well as feedback to our writings and riding.  I'd also like to know who's out there reading this stuff:)

We start riding on Tuesday, July 12th.  More then if not before.