Energy Lessons the of Long Road: The Challenge of Elite PAC

          

         The question “Who are you to write about energy?”  flicked through my mind as I stood in a San Diego motel parking lot in May 2015, working hard on Getting UP.  Fifteen other cycling lunatics and I were set to embark on Elite PAC Tour. 

            Humbly promoting itself as “The Toughest Two-Week Bicycle Tour in the World,”  Elite PAC is the brainchild of Lon Haldeman and Susan Notorangelo, two former Race Across America champions and holders of coast-to-coast cycling records.  The pair’s company, PAC Tour, has shepherded more than 80 rides across America over three decades.

            Elite PAC is a 2,700-mile-plus dash from San Diego, California to Savannah, Georgia in just 18 days -- or an average of about 150 miles a day.  Designed for the strongest and most manic distance riders, it is not for the faint of heart.  Short of Race Across America itself, it is the ultimate test of a road bike rider’s cross-country energy and endurance.

            The United States is a big country, full of mountains, deserts, endless farms and un-remitting tar-and-chip-covered rough roads.  It demands UP over and over again.  To ride Elite PAC, I would have to work at Getting UP every time I got side-swiped by a speeding logging truck and in every pelting rain storm.  I had to Get UP to fight blast-furnace headwinds and to nurse my rickety knees over saw-tooth hills.

            To read how I did that, stay tuned.  Or, buy my book, Getting UP! Supercharging Your Energy.