I will be gone for a little over a month and I am really looking forward to riding my bike with not much else to do in October. When I first moved to LA, I didn't have a car, I rode everyday and I miss those days. I have a train ticket to Chicago and I will be headed back on Route 66 at about 100 miles a day for the Route 66 Bike Race 2485 miles back to Santa Monica.

So much is going through my mind, it is hard to concentrate. I am not great at planning for myself and I certainly didn't train enough. I could write on and on about my fears, I sorta feel like everyone on their first Saturday ride, wondering how they will do. Admittedly, I go through the same thing on all my bikepacking trips including UnPredict Your Wednesday and it turns out I usually survive fine. Stop by on Adventure Night to see the bike, hear about my gear and have fun and see for yourself my lack of preparations.

While our social media rides and UnPredict Your Wednesday looks like we just have fun, we work hard and I know while am gone it means working even harder, when it might not be possible. As I do this trip for a month, I am very aware of the impact my absence will have on others. Eric will be taking on the burden of Rover everyday including his usual Saturday pitch-in to help at the shop and navigating the website. Jeovany will be picking up much of the slack during our normal business days when he isn't at school. I appreciate Jeo's work and extra work, he has been doing the majority of the emails lately and a whole slew of projects in the "Important but not urgent category", the one I keep passing by. Perhaps the largest burden will fall on Jay, who will both tend to the shop on a day to day basis, do his normal hard work, and will be making all the decisions with the myriad of things small business is attacked with on a day to day basis. When someone isn't around to bounce off those decisions, it can be a great pressure. With the said, I super appreciate Jay's unflappable effort and spirit to find solutions during the darkest moments and the brightest ones. I am leaving the place in the most excellent hands. I have always said that my secret is surrounding myself with amazing people and taking off for a month leaving the Outpost in their most capable hands is a luxury few small business owners could possibly enjoy. A giant shout out to them a million times over for encouraging me to do this.