Helen and I just got back from our self-supported bike tour around Sonoma Valley, CA. Since I needed the recumbent position training benefit from the trip, I fastened a rear rack onto the M5 and clipped my panniers on and hauled all of our clothes and gear. It worked out great – no problems at all aside from being a bit invisible to traffic as I usually am.

We had tons of fun, ate plenty and drank a some really great wine. The hills on the first day were the steepest inclines I have ever ridden and had to walk the steepest parts. The rear panniers with our stuff probably weighed 50 lbs and I don’t have hill climbing gears on the M5. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The training effect of powering up those climbs should be good.

It was four days of awesome riding and a long run on the beach thrown in for good measure. See below for some additional photos of our Sonoma trip.

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24 hour record progress

It’s kind of coming down to the crunch right now. I would like to attempt the record during the last week of July which leaves me just a couple weeks to get organized. I spent most of the day today doing some research on possible lakes for the record attempt

The photo above is Emerald Lake in Yoho national part which is about 3 hours west of Calgary. The lake is in the wind sheltered region west of the great divide, and is about the perfect size for a 1 km diameter loop. Any lake larger than Emerald tends to create larger waves and ripples with wind. I need to keep the lake as small as possible to minimize the wave size, and as large as possible to keep my circumference route as large as possible. Emerald seems like it is suitable.

But, Emerald lake is in the National Park and I need a permit. I spoke with Rachael at Parks Canada today and she is going to seek permission on my behalf. She told me the only problem she can foresee would be the recent cougar warning for the area. This might make stationing an observer on the far side of the lake in the middle of the night a bit risky. I think that we could station shifts of observers on row boats, canoes or kayaks rather than on shore to deal with the cougar and bear risk.

If Rachael gives me the OK, I need to scout the lake to make sure that it would work for the 24 hour distance record. Then my next issue is finding enough official observers who would be ready at a moments notice to travel out to Emerald and sit in a row boat for 12 hours.

If you would be able to act as an official for any day during the last week in July, or know of anyone who might be able to help, please contact me. greg@justgreg.com or 403-651-2748

If you have not already, please take a couple of minutes to register your distance prediction for me during my attempt. Trimble has donated a Nomad rugged hand held computer for whoever comes the closest to predicting my final finishing distance. It’s free to enter. The entry form is here: http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/PredictContest.html

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Following my progress during the 24 hour record attempt:

You can follow my progress during the 24 hour record attempt at the blog:

http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPB/HPBmain.html

Or you can subscribe to my Twitter feed and get quick updates via email, web or your cell phone during the 24 hour attempt: https://twitter.com/pedaltheocean

I will NOT be using email to post updates, so if you have entered the contest and want to follow my progress, please subscribe to the RSS feed at the blog, watch the blog, or subscribe to the Twitter feed.

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Photos from Sonoma: