Howdy from Canada
 

Just a note to say hello and introduce myself. How are you southern riders? We just had a 1 ft dump of snow to give us a white christmas here in Ontario, Canada. So after the driveway is shoveled I'll try out my new studded tires. I ride a Marinoni touring bike with campy gears and avid disks. After riding as a kid, I stopped till picking it up again at 52 and love it. Will be reading the forums for all your wisdom and advice. Hopefully will get to tour in the southern US soon. Just returned from a 900km tour of southern cuba, a lot of hurricane destruction.

take care and thanks for the forum

Howdy and welcome to the forum. It's been cold, then warm, then cold, then warm, then wet, then dry, etc., down here in Dallas- better than it being bad all the time, though!

Hi henwood29, welcome to the BF. I don,t know where you are in Ontario today but in Grafton it is snowing very hard. I will have to get out the snow blower in the morning for sure. This snow will certainly improve the x-country skiing. The bike sounds like a nice setup and touring in Cuba, wow. I have vacationed around Santiago De Cuba and often thought that it would be great to tour in that area. I'm not sure how I would get my Cannondale T2000 and bags to Cuba, the charters always seem so fussy on baggage limits. How did you get your stuff to Cuba? At least all this snow gives me time to clean and repair the bikes for spring. You should probley check out the Touring forum if you haven't already found it. It is full of touring info and you will meet some very friendly people with a lot of experience.
Happy touring!