I dunno. It seems that most of the folks think that going north out of Cumberland will be beyond me to do. Yes, I am a big guy, and ride a heavy trike (42lbs stock, without any gear), and plan to pull a 22lb trailer with my gear in it. But, a trike does not have balance issues, and I have a lower than mountain-bike low gear. So the big question is if I can do Cumberland to the first available camp ground in one day or not? There is no real time limit to deal with, so it simply comes down to whether or not I can pedal the grade at *all*, not so much how fast. I can now do 5% pulls with rest breaks, and I believe the run out of Cumberland is less than 5% the entire way?
Plus, I am planning to ride as much as weather permits between now and then.
The gear I have is neither "ultra-light" or even what I would call 'light'. Due to not having the money to spend, I will be using what I have, and I expect to overpack since that seems to be the way I always ride. I see these *lists* of gear, that do not even include a 'flashlight', much less any type of camp light. There is more to touring in my mind than just riding and sleeping. Besides the needed items like tent, sleeping bag, pad, clothing, etc, there is stuff like my Kindle, camera, iPod, and so on that I believe are needed for my enjoyment.
I am hoping to do a shorter out-and-back overnighter around the end of April to see how my gear works for me, and at that time will have a better idea if the whole round-trip idea is just plain silly or not. While just doing the one-way ride on the GAP is a nice goal, I really am drawn to the idea of the round-trip. I have done 3 days in a row day-trips longer than 25 miles, granted, not pulling any gear, so this will be a challenge to be sure. It just bugs me that it seems like everyone wants me to either not do the round-trip, or else have a bail-out option just in case.