My date with "Big Agnes"...

Just to set things straight before proceeding, "Big Agnes" is a Brand/Model of air mattress that one of my fellow riders suggested that I get for my 10 weeks camping.  The recommendation was to indulge on the mattress for camping gear since being well rested is critical to enjoying the experience.

The ride organizers suggest that you spend a few nights camping in your gear to try things out and get familiar with the new experience before doing the ride. Having done Alaska, and Montreal to Portland Maine (both week-long cycling tours) without seeing the camping equipment before the end of the first day’s riding, I figured the suggestion might be a bit of “overkill”, and imagined thinking, as I set up camp for the 60th day in a row in mid-August “Why on earth did I ever sleep in the tent before the ride???”

That said I decided this afternoon to "pitch camp" after my 46-mile training ride today and at least get familiar with my camping gear - partly from awaking in the middle of the night wondering how I would handle pitching a tent and setting up camp in a driving rainstorm (probably caused by the scene in "The Motorcycle Diaries" where their tent gets picked up and blown away into a raging river while they are trying to set it up in a howling rainstorm...) 

My previous exposure to my tent was setting it up once in the basement, and then once outside in the back yard shortly after purchasing it last October.  This time I set up in the front yard (level terrain), and was amazed at how whenever I tried to put a tent peg into the ground of our yard, I managed to find the rock buried 2" under the grass - I wonder if there is a science to that - probably so.  The answer to that question waking me up at night is "I would get wet while doing so, and deal with it!"

I laid out the ground sheet, put the tent on top, arranged the tent poles (only two which span from corner to corner in an "X" shape), set up and then wrestled with the fly.  Luck being on my side, I managed to align the doors on the fly so that they opened up onto the side of the tent rather than the tent door - D'oh!  As I re-positioned the fly I thought to myself there ought to be a better design so that you don't do what I just did, only then seeing that the corner fasteners on the fly are color coded to match with the corner fasteners on the tent.  With that pearl of wisdom captured, I am well prepared for June 27th when we first set up camp in Mission BC. All in all, the tent looks like it should serve me well this summer.

Next was inflating "Big Agnes" - my last experience with her was on Christmas morning when I managed to hyperventilate and get dizzy taking what seemed like an eternity to blow her up beside the Christmas Tree.  What a difference 5 months and 1,500 miles of cycling make - this time it took me only 2m15s, and I felt great afterwards.   Something to be said about building up lung capacity.

Tomorrow we are riding 55 miles which will be my 3rd day in a row of reasonable length riding - 52 miles Friday,  and 46 today.  The plan going forward is to ride about 150-175 miles per week with at least 3 days in a row.

31 Days to Departure.