Welcome to this shared part of my world. This website will eventually be developed as Sindelar Solar, my small business serving the solar power needs of my off grid residential and water pumping customers. For now, however, this is a blog of my current travel adventures.
I live off grid with my family outside of Madrid, New Mexico. I retired from Positive Energy, the well-known solar company that I founded in 1997, on April Fool’s Day of this year. I’m taking a long bicycle tour now as a celebration of my retirement. My target route is the new Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route. Info on the route can be found at http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/idaho-hot-springs-mountain-bike-route/. Fifty hot springs in 750 miles!!
My bike is a high-quality vintage 1997 full-suspension carbon Trek Y-bike that I bought on Craigslist for $150 a couple of years ago. It’s what I used for last summer’s hut trip (Durango CO to Moab UT) and I’m pretty happy with it. I just installed a decent fork upgrade. I bought a BOB trailer to carry gear, plus an Ortlieb handlebar bag, front panniers and a seat post rack to only carry rain gear and light layers. My plan is to pull the Bob on the roads, but leave it behind and travel lighter on the IHSMBR. More below…
I’ll leave on July 14th to head toward Portland, arriving around the 18th by pedal (riding) and thumb (hitchhiking). I have an old friend there from my days living in Oregon in the late 1970s. This is a great side-story: I taught a community college class in bike touring in 1980; we spent a week on tour in the San Juan Islands of Washington state. Don met his wife on that trip, and they remain together there with their own grown children.
Don has arranged a week of his vacation July 19-27 for the two of us to ride together. He’s a veteran road racer and tourer, not a mountain biker, so our days together will be on mostly paved roads between Albany, Oregon and Boise. We’ll primarily follow the Transamerica Trail, the original coast-to-coast bike route developed by BikeCentennial for the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, when bicycle touring was pretty much in its infancy. I rode 1,100 miles of the same route during my last long (3,700 mile) solo tour that year.
Following that week, and so beginning around July 30th, I’ll be on the IHSMBR.
Bicycle touring represents several things for me:
– my first trade, in my 20s, was as a bicycle mechanic, and I retain a deep love for cycling;
– I took several tours back then, and at 62 and healthy (turning 63 on the route) I want to prove to myself that I can still do it;
– treatment for base-of-tongue cancer two years ago made me more aware of aging and mortality, and my need for activity and adventure as long as I can;
– I have been the responsible father, husband and breadwinner now for 20+ years, and for the first time can afford such a chunk of time without a paycheck and a well planned life.
I’m married with three children. My wife Johanna has no desire for the camping and level of exertion that this trip would entail. She has a set of good older bikes (mountain, road, and road touring) that I have picked up and refurbished for her over the years, but her preference would be a gentler tour with a hot shower and bed at each day’s end, and meals prepared by someone else. She is also quite comfortable with our time apart, as she has her own (very different) interests and activities.
I will ride the Hot Springs route, taking as long as needed and as plans develop. From there I have no specific return plan, other than to make my way back home, via a combination of train, bike, shared travel, or possibly using even my thumb.
I envision this as a fundamentally solo tour, that will likely last between two and three months, with periods of companionship of old friends and new. Adventure Cycling strongly recommends groups of at least three on the singletrack sections in case someone is hurt, as the routes are pretty rugged and remote. So far several cyclists like myself have contacted me from the listing, and we continue to write general messages back and forth, but none have had a schedule that matches mine. I will have a modern GPS with satellite messaging capability with me, and will upload photos and stories when I pass through towns with cellular service.
I have the freedom to travel for what I expect can be up to about three months. I expect to be back home come fall, finding and pursuing employment/teaching/writing/consulting opportunities, in my specialty field of off grid solar electricity, following this trip.
Allan Sindelar
als@sindelarsolar.com (my personal email)
NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional
NABCEP Certified Technical Sales Professional
New Mexico EE98J Journeyman Electrician
Founder (Retired), Positive Energy, Inc.
505 780-2738 cell