Shakedown Cruise!

This past weekend we did our final shakedown ride, to see how the bike handles fully loaded, and if we can even pedal it down the road for a significant distance!

Our friends J-P & Suzanne packed up their tandem and joined us too!

Our route was up to Camano Island and back, via mostly back roads and some trail.  The route profile was pretty brutal for a fully loaded bike at 62 miles and 3,100 feet of elevation gain!

Fortunately, we had the added incentive of getting to try out our friend's new pub on Camano: Naked City Camano Island!  Great beers, and a really nice venue!

The sun is out!  And we're nearly to the beer!

Overall the bike performed pretty well, though we are going to see if we can remove a bit of weight, and may add our smaller panniers back to the front rack, to balance out the weight on the bike better (we had difficulty standing, because of the racking of the frame we could feel from the weight of the rear panniers - about 15# each).  Also, we need to see if we can lighten up our spares and tools bag, which is a bit over 10# currently.

More hills, please!

All the camping stuff worked well, and we even weathered a night of rain showers without incident. The camp stove works well, the gear all fits in the tent, and our new REI sleeping pads work GREAT!

The next day the weather was more threatening (complete with occasional moisturizing mist), and we had a wind on our nose, so we took an alternate (and flatter) route home.  

Overall we did 123 miles total, with 5,200' of climbing - a pretty decent shakedown ride!  We have some tweaking of things to do, but I think we are getting this cross country cruiser dialed in...

And of course, just before we got home, we had to stop in at our friendly neighborhood Co-op for a beer, and some bragging. :-)

Hard working Bikes at Rest.