Portland, Oregon to Corning, California

 We’re making progress getting to Visalia, but plans had to change.

Paula wasn’t happy with the Bafang motor characteristics on Sunday’s ride, so we went into Recumbent PDX yesterday to see what they had. Paul was an excellent tour guide. After test riding the Catrike 559 and Catrike Trail, Paula decided on the Trail. To the base model she added short cranks (155mm), the E-Cat Bosch e-assist, two high capacity batteries, head and tail light by Light & Motion wired into the e-assist system, rear rack, front fenders, bottle cage, Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires,  and a right mirror mount for her electronic toys.

We figure if we can get the motor replaced on her 2.5 year old HP Velotechnik FS20, the Catrike will be a guest trike and the fallback trike when one of ours fails. (Unfortunately we feel like involuntary beta testers in the e-assist market, and one of us tends to have a motor failure right before or during a big adventure. NO FUN!)

So, this morning we packed up our stuff and drove off from Portland. Thank you, Paul & Bev!! We made it down to Corning, and then figured we should call it quits for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll finish the drive to Jo Ann’s in Visalia, and get started organizing and provisioning our trailer for our cross-country adventure.