The Blog begins

I am blogging. I have spent most of my adult life trying to avoid blogs, and now I am one of them. This is my self-conscious disclaimer. But it will be fun. I spend 60% of my time on the road thinking of jokes I want to tell my friends through this blog. I wanted to call it "Lose weight eating 10,000 calories a day! Ask me how!" but that title wouldn't fit. I chose "Ragin Grannie's Gear" based on a conversation I had with my roommate Scott the day I left on this trip. He was looking over my bike and said, "Oh good, you have a granny gear." I, offended, enraged, responded, "I hate that term! It's important to have a low gear when you're on a cross country trip--it's for mountains! I'm going over mountains!" "Yeah, yeah" Scott replied, "that's what I mean. Grannies are always going over mountains, that's why it's called the granny gear. Those grannies are out there, hitting all the mountains." I use my beloved mountain gear all the time, and I have seen some grannies out here too. And they're ragin.

This is my account of one crazy summer I spent biking almost across country. I hope you enjoy the stories I'll be telling. I think they're funny-ish and interesting-ish but mainly it's some simple stuff: meeting nice people, eating deliciously heavy food, not bathing for days on end, illegally camping, staying in seedy motels and watching HBO, and exercising all day but not considering it exercising. This will not be my last long bike trip, I am sure of it, but since it's my first it deserves some special attention.

So blogging means that you (meaning you out there) can respond, right? Please do! I sent out my first email a week ago and got so many wonderful responses from the people I love, it was really a great gift. But act fast because I'm already in Ohio and this trip only lasts until the end of July. I'll try to keep this updated as much as possible.