I’m making my final preparations for the America by Bicycle America North ride. We start riding on June 24 from Astoria, Oregon to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the starting point for last year’s East Coast ride. This is my second time on this route, the first being 15 years ago, in 2004. I’ve loaded my photos from that ride on my laptop in case the opportunity for some “then and now” comparisons present.
Karen and Judy are returning staff from last year’s East Ride. It appears that we have 38 riders going all the way to New Hampshire, and likely a few riding parts of the route.
My bike has been refreshed nearly completely–see the description in the East Coast Postscript entry from December. I did get the Wahoo Element Bolt as my new bicycle computer. It, and the new bike have been working well.
This year I’m bringing two cameras with me. My Panasonic DMC-LF1, used for last year’s photos, is easily pocketable and takes decent photos in bright light. I recently purchased a Fujifilm X-T20 mirrorless camera and added a pancake lens (41mm equivalent focal length). It has a much larger sensor (APS-C or Nikon DX size), more versatile controls, and blows the Panasonic out of the water when the light gets low. It is too big for a pants pocket and puts a pretty good sag on a cycling jersey. The differences in picture quality for the mostly bright light pictures I’ll be taking are not as evident when posted here. Even so, I’m going to give the Fuji a shot because of its superior controls and handling, better resolution and low-light performance, and new toys just need to be played with. You may see more walk-around shots of the towns we stay in. Once the bike is put away, I can slap on the zoom lens and go hunting for visuals. (Or nap.)