Thankyou

It is Tuesday evening and I have left my trusty bike with the guys at Newport Cycles, who are going to box it up in preparation for my flight home on Friday. I have had 2 lazy days since finishing the TransAmerica Trail on Sunday and ridden a grand total of 50 miles up the Oregon coastline. I would have gone further but the weather has been rotten with more wind and rain and so since I have completed the ride, I seem to lack the motivation to pedal for hours whilst getting drenched, just for the sake of some sightseeing. My dad is flying in tomorrow morning and the current plan is to hit this brewery a mile or two from the hotel, then head to Portland on Thursday to try some of the local micro-breweries so things are looking up!

I wanted to take use this post to thank everyone who in various ways have made this trip possible, easier, and worthwhile.

Firstly thanks to Matt Benkert who put the silly idea of riding across America into my head, and then answered an endless chain of e-mails about what to bring, what training to do, and how to avoid rednecks. I am meeting with two potential TransAmerica Cyclists on my return to England and hopefully I can pass the baton on to them!

Thanks to Amy for letting me abandon her and Scruff for two months without too many complaints and for putting up with the worry when I vanished off the radar for a few days somewhere in the mountains of Colorado!

Thanks to Larry, Julie, Bob, Chris, Carl, and Dave for the great company and companionship whilst riding and for giving me a varied range of targets to catch up with along the way as well as for keeping me cheerful on the tough days.

Thanks to all of the kind people who helped me along the way with food, water, shelter and most of all words of encouragement and support as I passed through their towns and farms. A more organised system of support for touring cyclists is taking shape at www.warmshowers.org so if anyone here is willing to offer a garden to pitch a tent in or a hot meal and a shower then do sign up!

Thanks in particular to everyone who has donated to the NACC over the last two months since we have raised over $5000 (I can't find the pound sign on this US keyboard) which makes the trip a lot more worthwhile than was first intended.

Finally, thanks to everybody who has been reading this blog as it has been encouraging to have an audience for what on some days were just moans about the weather. I was amazed to find that through the trip the blog recorded over 1250 unique visitors with a high of 370 individuals reading it one one day and an average of around 60 people a day.

I am still hoping to do a post-mortem on the trip once I am back in England next week but for now, thanks once again!