Inuvik, of course, was our starting place:

Here are readings for Rock River, which was about 200 miles into the journey.

(Take a look at the new Weather page for a hint about what the weather is going to be like.)

Here are answers (or attempts) to answer some of the questions you ask us:

Who are you anyway? What were you doing before?

Randy and Nancy were 52 at the end of the trip... Our previous life was in suburban Denver, Colorado, USA. Randy had a little business as a computer consultant, and Nancy was doing graphic arts for CH2M Hill. We have 3 kids between us, all adults. We spent years getting ready and practicing for this trip, and we actually did it!

What in the world are you doing? And why?

We rode 14,000 miles (22,000 kilometers) from the top of North America (Inuvik, in western Canada) to northern Argentina in South America. It took about 2.5 years total - We wrapped up in January, 2009. So what are you up to?

How many miles do you travel each day?

We usually aim at 30-50 miles (50-80 kilometers) per day. In most of Central America it has been on the low side. It's terribly important to remember that bike touring isn't about getting somewhere, it's about enjoying where you are and meeting the people you see and seeing the things you see. You can see the actual average on the front page.

Why do you call yourselves "hobobikers"?

When we were doing our first long tour we were up in the Canadian Rockies and had some rough weather. We had all our clothes stretched drying all over Randy's BOB trailer, a repaired tube strapped on, and even a friend's old tennis shoes dangling from the back.

We finally got our gear page set up, so you can see our equipment and trust and worries about it. You can see our stove, tent, water bladders, bikes, and panniers. There's even a video of a bear testing the bear bags. Check out the gear page.

We usually carry 3-4 of these Playpus 2-liter bladders. Most of the time they're empty (and light! and compact!). But they when you need them they're there to haul water. We can camp the night, fix dinner and breakfast, and start riding the next morning with about 6 liters of water, although that's pretty tight. When we know we're going to have a "dry camp" at night, we load up with water so we can do it.

We've also ordered a new item from Ortlieb: A 10-liter water bag (with shower fitting!). We'll use it for unfiltered water. It can be used to haul water before it's filtered with our Pur.
(Katadin) Hiker water filter.

Here's our old faithful (mostly) MSR Whisperlite stove. It will run on nearly any kind of fuel. White gas (coleman fuel) burns the best, but it's really quite hard to get an appropriate amount of white gas when you are bike touring, and it's really easy to get regular unleaded gasoline. So we just pull up at the pump and buy 50 cents worth of gas every 3-4 days. (It used to be 30 cents before the big gas price run-up!)

We use denatured ethyl alcohol to prime it - and never have to clean it any more. It's so much more reliable. See the article here.

Nancy did an enormous amount of research on bear issues for this trip, and of course she's still concerned about it. She found that these Ursack bags were the best combination of weight and value. The only problem we'll have in the treeless north part of the trip is figuring out how to secure them.

Here's Nancy inviting you into our Sierra Designs Lightning tent. No, it's not very big. But it works. You need to be very friendly with your partner to use this one.

Our criteria for choosing this tent: We wanted something light , warm enough on the cold nights, but not a terrible condensation machine. It's really light. Maybe not warm enough on the cold nights (although we've been out below freezing on two recent nights) and maybe not good enough on the condensation angle. We've had a couple of nights where the condensation was quite surprising. I think you probably can't have everything!