<< Two on a Tandem: state by state

THE BIKE
A dark green steel touring tandem we bought used in 1995 from a couple in Eugene who'd "outgrown it," whatever that means. Drop handlebars, 24 gears, heavy-duty wheels, fenders, racks front and back, and a drum brake on the rear hub for long mountain descents. It weighs about 45 pounds empty. Loaded, with a day's water, call it 115. We don't discuss what the riders weigh.

THE GEAR LIST

Clothes, each: two jerseys, two pairs of cycling shorts, one pair of long pants, one T-shirt for town, a fleece, a rain jacket, a windbreaker, cycling gloves, wool socks, cycling shoes, sandals, a helmet. That's all. We did laundry at every laundromat in America and wore the same two outfits in every picture.

Tools and spares: four spare tubes (more from every bike shop we passed), a patch kit, a folding spare tire, a frame pump, tire levers, a spoke wrench and spare spokes, a chain tool, spare brake and shift cables, a small set of wrenches and Allen keys, a roll of tape, and zip ties, which fixed more things than all the rest put together.

The rest: the route maps in strips, one section at a time, with the next ones mailed ahead to post offices; the 35mm camera, which prints the date in the corner, and 14 rolls of film; a phone card for calling Jessica on Sunday nights; a journal each; a credit card for when it rained sideways.

WHAT WE ATE
Everything. All day. Two people pedaling a loaded tandem 67 miles a day burn more than either of us knew was possible, and Laurence still came home 14 pounds lighter. Janis lost 9 and would like it noted that she ate just as much pie.

• Breakfast: at a cafe whenever there was one: eggs, hash browns, pancakes, the works. When there wasn't, oatmeal on the stove with raisins and brown sugar.
• Second breakfast: about 10. Whatever the next gas station had. Chocolate milk, a banana, a honey bun.
• Lunch: peanut butter and jelly rolled up in flour tortillas, which don't squash in a bag like bread does. We ate hundreds.
• Pie: in every town with a cafe. Janis kept count: 61 slices between the two of us in 71 days. Best pie: a sour cherry in Kansas. Worst pie: we don't talk about Wyoming.
• Supper: pasta on the stove with whatever came in a can, or a real dinner out when we'd earned it, which was every day.
• Regional specialties: huckleberry anything in Idaho and Montana; a whole large pizza each on our day off in Missoula; Mary Sousa's fried chicken in Kansas; soup beans and cornbread in Kentucky; ham biscuits in Virginia.

THE FLAT-TIRE TALLY
Eleven flats. The back wheel carries most of the weight on a tandem, both riders' and most of the gear, so it gets most of the flats.

The rear tire we started with lasted 4,100 miles before the cords showed through, two days from the end. We carried that folding spare for 68 days and used it on the 69th.