PortlandCruz begins

Every story must have a beginning, and every blog must have a first post.  PortlandCruz is our story of biking five thousand miles across the northern U.S from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine.

Our journey begins on June 20th, 2012, when we will depart from Santa Cruz en route to Portland, Oregon.  From there the Portland-to-Portland leg of our trip begins.  However, Portland-to-Portland overlooks the fact that simply getting from Santa Cruz, CA to Portland, OR will involved nearly a thousand miles of riding through spectacular mountainous terrain.  For example we are planning to spend a day camping at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon on our way up to Portland.

Crater Lake, Oregon. Picture taken while touring in the summer of 2011

Five guys biking five thousand miles is the basic story of this blog.  But how the story unfolds is something we will find out as it happens.  We have already found one new and exciting opportunity that we did not originally plan for.  Velo Cruz is helping to sponsor our trip and we hope to connect with people in the communities we travel through and talk about the mission of Velo Cruz.  We also hope to connect with people online through this blog and other social media tools to share our thoughts and experiences with biking across America.  Currently we are in the final planning stages for the trip and we will be posting stories related to bike touring and our plans for our own trip as we make our final preparations for departure.  Then on June 20th our journey begins, and we will post as much as we can about our ride during July and August.  So as we tell our story, we invite you to, vicariously, come along for the ride.