Thanks for replies. I corrected the op with correct links, they got messed up in a copy/paste from the intro section.
I do recognize that I have been off the bike a long time, and will take some adjustment to get back in shape, and I do plan a small trip to a national park near where I will be staying to try things out, is aprox 50 mile trip, figure I can test endurance, get some quirks in gear figured out and such and then do larger from there, but the end goal will either be TX or WA from NC. Came across
http://www.mycycletour.com mentioned in some threads to help plan route, I was just using Google maps before and looks like this site integrates that data. Surprising the amount of camp grounds, I was thinking I'd be sleeping in some random fields, but that might not be the case and as I look at some of the sites, they offer a lot of services that make camping, well not so much camping lol.
I have not looked at all the bikes, I glanced at the Trek one mentioned early on, I want to be conservative on cost of bike, yeah might want to look at used. I'm okay with 500 ish for the bike and then add stuff to bring it up, but to pay over 1000.00 just for the bike and still need to add seems a bit much. Can't say as I'll be doing a big trip like this ever again, viewing it more as a once in lifetime thing. Had someone close to my pass, and we had plans to do a camping trip across country years in the future, this is why it seems there is short notice, I moved up the schedule. The place I work also lost a contract and will be out of work in July, but will be going to NC in June for a family event as nieces are graduating high school, so figured will stay there a few weeks and use that as a kickoff place for trip, well the real kick off is the sky diving i want to do with my sister there. I have some funds saved up as we knew a long time ago that we were getting laid off, so I have saved about 6k. I had read that to allow yourself about 50.00 a day, but that seems high if I am camping, heck at 50.00 a day that is more than I take to live now.
I am determined to make the trip happen and yeah there will be frequent stops for rests, and I have no qualms about getting off and pushing my load up the big hills, honestly I will not be in a hurry once on the road, other than getting to either WA or TX before winter.
Main reason i posted was for gear ideas as I will be shipping stuff to NC and wanted input on what is decent to use. Came across several things small things in the
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ips-and-Tricks thread. Distance wise I think I can reach my goal even at 25 miles a day and from my understanding once I am more capable I should be able to do 40-50 per day easily, so I think I'll be okay starting out slow. Although I'm not on a bike now, getting some muscles worked with a elliptical workout machine I grabbed, so I think that is going to be good.
Oh I also read in forums to not store food in tent at night because of critters, which makes sense, so yeah don't think gear will be in tent other than electronics stuff. I read a good tip was to wrap your lock around bike then through holes in helmet and put helmet in tent and zipper up around the cable, this seems like a great way to protect your stuff but keep it out of the tent. Yeah the tent I linked is more than I need.