Originally Posted by staehpj1

I somewhat agree, but will raise a few issues with some of this. On the warmshowers part... There are very few warmshowers hosts on much of the rural US they are few and far between on routes like the TransAmerica for example. Use them when you can, but don't expect to find them in rural Wyoming and similar places. It looks like couchsurfing.com has more hosts in the rural US. I did a spot check the other day and on the TA for the towns we went through in Wyoming the count was zero warmshowers hosts and four couchsurfing hosts. I imagine it would be similar in the rest of flyover land, but I did not check.

On the upgrades part... I agree that you are better not to do a ton of upgrades to your existing bike. Either load it very lightly and use it with minimal changes or don't use it. That said if you use a trailer and/or pack very lightly it can work out well with a bit lower gearing.