Maine Tour: Countdown

We leave tomorrow evening for Maine, where we will be bicycle touring for two weeks. We fly into Portland, drive up to Bar Harbor, stay there for four days, and then bike back to Portland. I think preparations are going well:

• Fitness: when we were visiting my brother, we took a 3-hour ride and did 40 miles on the flats, so I feel pretty good about that. The third hour was tough on my arms, neck, and back, but my legs were fine. Yesterday we did a 70-minute ride in the hills that took 90 minutes when I first started training, so I am definitely stronger. There should be some hills on our route, but I'm not sure how many or how steep they will be. I think CA hills should prepare me for just about anything, though. Rob's fitness is not a problem. He can blow by me up hills with his bike loaded with gear. I'm the slow link.

• Bike Gear: We have broken down and put the bikes back together (they are Ritchie Breakaway frames), and everything has been fine. We did a one-night camping trip at the beach and our tent worked fine as well. My gears are slipping a little bit, so we need to adjust that. We will get the wheels trued in Portland before we drive to Bar Harbor.

• Weather: I need to buy a couple of warm, thin layers for the cold mornings and we need some rain jackets for showers. We already have rain protectors to go on the outside of our panniers, and Rob is buying a dry bag for our electronics, so we should be able to handle a few showers. What we can't ride in, however, is the HURRICANE that is expected to blow by when we get there! The hurricane looks like it might blow through while we are in Bar Harbor though, so the worst case is that we have to hunker down for a couple of days and read instead of cycling around the island. At least I hope that is the worst scenario- here is the projected path:
  

It should make things a little more unpredictable, so we'll see what happens.

• Electronic Gear: We will have a little netbook so we can check email, download maps, etc. We will also have a camera and a Flip video camera, so I hope to update pictures either during the trip or shortly afterwards. It would be nice if I can blog day by day.