Ladies, thank you very much for your input; you make a lot of sense. I'll be going to a bike shop tomorrow to get fitted and pick up a few things so I can start training.

I spent the past two days reading and mapping out an itinerary. Exciting and stressful. Shootingstar, "super conscientious" is a nice way of putting it, type double-A would be more like it. I'm trying to prepare as much as possible so I could enjoy once I'm on the road.