They Call Her Agent Orange

After flip flopping back and forth, I decided finally, after supposedly deciding officially months ago to go with the Surly Long Haul Trucker, to get the Surly Troll as my beast of burden for the trip.  The reason for my big switch was the fact that even though the LHT is the gold standard for affordable touring rigs, my gut was pulling me to the Troll.  I'm not sure if its because I've always toured on mountain bikes, or because I like the idea that this bike can handle all roads, mountain biking singletrack where I can find it (Bolivia!), and the flexibility to swap out the front fork for a suspension fork if and when I get back to the United States to do the Great Divide route from Mexico to Banff or wherever.  All I knew is that it was still calling to me after talking to dozens of people, bike mechanics, and the like.

And so, after a couple weeks of swapping out handlebars, grips, seatpost, trimming cable housing, changing the shifters, pedals, and everything in between, it is done.  Today, I decided to hide out from the rain and adjust all my panniers, make sure my racks were mounted correctly, and get the setup as finalized as my weary brain would allow.  One month until I can take this baby up to Baltimore to get a frame builder to drill in extra brazeons for a bottom side downtube bottle holder for my fuel bottle.  Two months until my 10 day test tour from DC to Pittsburgh and back again.  About seven months until I can give notice to my job.  About eight months until my last effective day.  About nine months until my last official day.  Time is flying... it seems like just yesterday I was lamenting that it would be over a year until I could leave.

Much like my flip flopping on the bike, I have also struggled with where I want to start.  At first, I thought it would be amazing to start in Colombia and work my way south.  Colombia is familiar territory for me, my favorite country, and seemed like a comfortable place to start.  But much like the Troll, my gut kept telling me that it would be amazing to start at the end of the world and start biking home, and maybe I'd get there, wherever "home" is, be that my folks place in Washington State, or a bike shop in Bolivia, I liked the idea of not needing a return ticket.  Although this changed my timing a bit in order to avoid a harsh winter in Patagonia, I realized that with the amount of vacation I had accumulated, I could bump up my last effective day working while still getting paid and being officially on the books for the purposes of preserving the potential to practice law in other jurisdictions should I some day change my mind and want to practice law again if and when I decide to return to the United States.