I think I am in love with this concept. I'm going to blogroll this!

That's cool. I've seen quite a few tadpole trikes out for the local rallies, but I've never seen one with a fairing before.

One of these days, when Sweetie and I are flush with cash, I'd like to see if I can get Greenspeed to build me a tandem trike like the one they used to have in their gallery: handcycle up front for the missus, and pedals for me to stoke, take pictures, and eat peanut butter & jelly sandwiches aft.

As things stand now, we're too mismatched in terms of both speed and endurance to do the rallies together, which is frustrating.

Foo, I suppose I need to counsel you regarding your priorities. That little bauble (which we really don't need to identify here) would have made a nice down-payment on the trike. Now, being the romantic fools that we are, we bought ourselves a recumbent tandem for our 25th wedding anniversary.

Although, now that I think about it, I've been paying for it ever since. So maybe that's a bad example.

Gwynne, I like the idea of a long bike tour, I just don't like his approach of selling or disposing of everything in order to do it. That's fine for some folks, but it just doesn't work for me. (At one point, he was even talking about severing some personal relationships, although I'm not sure he ended up doing that.)

Ian's at least 10 years younger than me, with no offspring to manage, and seems to have pretty decent chops as a software guy as it relates to future considerations, so selling everything and sticking it in the bank is well-timed. It's one thing I admire about it...doing it while you can, if you really believe you need to do it. Better that, than regret not doing it 10 or 15 years later.

I take your point about the bauble, Eric, but the fact is that it probably didn't cost as much as folks seem to think and wouldn't make much of a dent in the price of the recumbent I was talking about, which cost northward of $8K.

...if you really believe you need to do it.

That's the key, isn't it? Motivation is highly personal.

Foo, I'm just giving you a hard time. IMHO, both baubles AND bikes are key ingredients in a good marriage (and "baubles" can take many forms). The former says "you're special to me" and the latter says "let's do things together" and you won't go wrong if those phrases become your mantras. [Spoken from the accumulated wisdom -- and mistakes -- of 33 years of marriage...]

Re: Ian's journey, I didn't realize he was selling and parting with everything he owned to do this, but I've even contemplated doing that (with my husband, of course...our dream is to sell everything and take off on a sailboat rather than bikes, but same concept). Our dream doesn't include severing personal relationships though. At any rate, I admire the adventuresome spirit. Sometimes it's enough to live vicariously through someone else's experience. It takes courage to actually do it. At least that's what I call it. Some will call it stupidity. ;-)

Some will call it stupidity.

Probably, but I'm not one of them. Even though what he's doing -- or, perhaps, the way he's going about it -- doesn't appeal to me, I won't secondguess his decision and commitment to do it. But I think your vision is vastly superior, aside from the not insignificant fact that MLB is horribly susceptible to motion sickness.

Uh...guys? I only sold my house, which was going to happen anyway because my relationship with the woman I owned it with was coming to an en (amicably, I might add).

The rest of my "stuff" is in storage, and I assure you there's quite a big pile of it.

The reason I'm doing this now is because for the first time in my adult life I don't have rent or m*rtgage to worry about (which also means no house- or apartment-sitting arrangements to make).

As far as "severing personal relationships" goes, the single instance of that is a contributing factor to, rather than a consequence of, this journey.

(And in case you're wondering - I'm sitting in an Outback Steakhouse in Mechanicsburg, VA using my EVDO modem to post this).

Ian, thanks for the clarification, and I apologize for misprepresenting your situation.

Regardless of why you're doing it, there are a bunch of us who will be following your adventure with great interest...so I hope you'll be able to post regular updates.

And since I can't post comments at Ian's site, I'll say here, be safe and be strong, Ian!