The bike and cell, bought

Today was dedicated to banging away at the essentials of the trip, cell phone and bike. The cell phone was a mess, the phone I brought from Mexico can work here with a Cingular chip, but its locked, it doesn't have a digital port (the locals can't crack it), and despite Veronica's best efforts we can't get the code from her distributor friends in Telcel. I went to Cingular's web site and investigate there pay as you GO plan and its phones. I ordered the Motorola C139 (20 bones with mail in rebate) after I checked with Veronica on its capatability in Mexico. The kicker is I can't unlock it for Mexico use until I complete 3 months of service here, this means I'll have to unlock it illegal like in Mexico for 200 pesos, since this is an uncertain process, I'll have to carry the old Mexican cell down there as well. That is my cell phone situation.The Bike. I arrived at 2 at Bicycle Sports Shop, the only place to do any bike stuff in Austin maybe Texas, and left 2 hours later. The sales guy nursing me through this, Justin Jackson, did a kick ass job in making suggestions, giving opinions, tuning my bike, and fitting it to me (poor dude missed the Texas/Iowa Rose Bowl because of me). The bike is beautiful, really, all the people who saw it fell in love with it, its a dull black stallion with ALL the bells and whistles. The most common advice I received about purchasing a bike is not to go cheap, and I didn't, and the bike reflects it. I think I have the best bike and components one can buy today for any kind of tour. I'll provide a page that has all the details of the equipment (link here). I spent the rest of the night reading up on the bike, I'm still not done, everything has an instruction manual, even the shoe insoles. Tomorrow is my first ride, lets hope the monsoon Austin weather has passed (3 days straight of rain).

The training begins

The training begins and so does the blog, god-willing the training goes better than my attempt at writing. I'm in simulation mode, I'm writing this blog on my AlphaSmart 3000 in the dark of Mark's apartment, sitting beside my bedroll and sleeping bag (light provided by my an LED ear light, thanks santa). I would put up my tent but I'm sparing my brother's living room the jackhammer. The rest of the equipment (to be listed later) will be bought within the next 2 days and true simulation will take place after the new year. Physically I started training in Queretaro on December 1st. I tore a muscle where I had my hernia surgery and recovered from it on that date. I went 4 months without exercise, I'm the skinniest I've been since high school and I'm looking to put on some lean muscle. I started with 5 mins of cardio and the rest of the hour weights and I'm slowing changing that to where today I did 40 minutes cardio (20 run, 20 bike) and you guessed it 20 minutes of weights. According to the cardio bike, I did 5 miles, that's about 95 miles under my per day goal, this is going to be interesting.