Biking - Last long ride before packing it up

Today was a rare sunny comfortable day when I'm not expected to be in the "office", a perfect day to get in a longer ride. I discovered last night that my first day's ride from the West Coast on July 4th will be 44 miles and 2,200 feet of climbing. Loaded. Yikes! So today, I got out and rode 43.6 miles with 2,300 feet of climbing. But not loaded. The fact that I left the house at 9 am and was home by 1 pm, including a couple of stops for refreshment, makes me think that spreading that amount of distance and climbing over a full day will make it all possible. I'm probably in better shape than a lot of people whose trip journals I've read starting out. Add to that the "riding into shape" effect once underway, a much earlier daily start, a big greasy breakfast, and the massive calorie intake that I mostly skipped today but will require on the road, and I think I can do this.



If I don't get out this weekend because of questionable weather, this will have been the last ride on this bike before I start disassembling it and boxing it up for shipping on June 22. I want to get an early start on that process, including cleaning it up first, since I have no idea what problems I may or may not encounter, especially with fitting this large bike securely into a box. I'll be riding the old 10-speed for the rest of the month once that process starts.