Day 1 - Meet and Greet and Tour School

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The Group

There are 29 riders (25 men and 4 women) participating in this year's tour. 25 are riding coast to coast, two will join us in Santa Fe and one will ride with us to Abilene, KS and the other to Champaign, IL.  Two will start with us and drop off at some point along the way. Four or five of the riders have done the tour before. One member of the support staff will make the transit for the 20th time.

States and Countries represented
Arizona -1 
California - 4
Colorado - 1
Connecticut - 1
Florida - 3
Maine -1
Maryland - 1
Massachusetts - 1
New Jersey - 1
New York - 1
North Carolina - 2
Oklahoma -1 
Oregon - 2
Tennessee - 1
Texas - 2

Bermuda - 1
Scotland - 1
Switzerland - 1
United Kingdom - 1
Undeclared - 2

Sneak peak at tomorrow

Tomorrow we finally get started and we'll ride 79 miles to Riverside, CA, a city of 325,000 named for its location along side the Santa Ana River. It is the county seat of Riverside County and is the birthplace of the California citrus industry. Riverside County is some 7200 square miles, a size that boggles the mind of this easterner. As big as Riverside county is, it is only the fourth largest of California's 58 counties. It will take us three days and some 300 miles to pedal across the county and when we leave it we will be entering Arizona.   For some perspective, this trip is roughly the equivalent of driving on I-95 from Philadelphia to the Virginia/North Carolina border. 

The forecast is for cloudy skies, high 50's with winds under 10 mph from ESE at the start warming to the low 70's under mostly sunny skies with 10-15 mph winds out of the WNW in Riverside.

 The waiting is nearly over and judging by the number of riders I saw head out for a quick spin earlier today, we are all anxious to get underway. Combine the anticipation with four rest days, I'm not expecting a great night's sleep. I look forward to the semi-exhaustion tomorrow.


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