I’ve been keeping my fitness up partly by riding stationary bikes at the gym, first on the recumbent bikes and more recently on the upright ones. But yesterday, Dave and I went out for a bike ride on the urban trails around the area. There are a lot of them, and we ended up being out more than two hours. I wanted to wait until riding wouldn’t hurt, from the pressure of resting my upper-body weight on my arms to the jolt of bumps and turning. It was a total success! I’m now quite sure that by January I’ll at least be able to ride a few hours a day on a loaded touring bike. After all, we’re not talking about the steep and bumpy Great Divide–we’ll be in Southeast Asia where, at least to begin with, it will be flat and hopefully fairly smooth on the pavement. Once we get into the northern parts we’ll tackle some hills and mountainous areas, but by then I’m sure my shoulder will be strong enough.

So, now it’s time to start looking for plane tickets to SE Asia!