staehpj1

Your proposed time frame is about when I went and I found it ideal.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but will say that I found the ST pretty dismal scenery wise. It is a long ways between points of interest and a lot of brown nothing for miles and miles and miles. It does have some redeeming qualities though. The biggest of those are :

1. It is the only coast to coast route that I'd consider doing in the winter.
2. It is the easiest way across wrt to crossing the mountains.
3. It is a relatively short coast to coast route.
4. You will meet an interesting mix of people including a variety of misfits, mostly transplanted from somewhere else.
5. There is an interesting variety of different types of food as you cross the country.
6. The people are very hospitable.

I don't think it lends itself particularly well to moteling with sag support with a car for a couple reasons. I generally don't think moteling with sag support is a great idea but think it is even less so on the ST. Just my opinion though, but I'll say it as food for thought. I saw quite a few sagged riders on other routes like the Trans America or the Pacific Coast (most were camping), but interestingly I don't recall seeing even one on the ST. That may be because there were fewer rider on the ST.

First given the locale a lot of the time it will be exceedingly boring for the sag driver. They will be stuck in tiny towns with pretty much nothing a lot of the time. The distances a bike will go daily will not get you between interesting places for your sag driver quickly at all. Even on the TA a lot of the time the sag drivers, usually wives, seemed to be hating life.

Having sag and staying in motels will insulate you from meeting interesting people to some extent. I found that a lot of the high points of my trip were associated with meeting people who offered hospitality, offering a place to camp, or sometimes feeding me a meal.

You will inevitably need to be shuttled longish distances from where you stop riding for the day to where you stay for the night and back in the morning. That would take away from the experience of riding across the country for me if it happened too often and on the ST I think it would probably be pretty often.

Having a motor vehicle involved in a bike trip changes the trip in some very fundamental ways and usually not for the better IMO.

As far as the AC route goes, it is pretty good, but I did improvise and depart from it a good bit. Personally I preferred to do that more on the fly. I picked up US90 in Van Horn TX for a while and enjoyed riding an empty highway (almost zero traffic all day). US90 goes from Van Horn TX all the way to Jacksonville Beach, Florida I have ridden or driven various sections of it and from what I have seen it looks like a great option for a route maybe the whole way. I think if I were to ride the southern corridor again I'd consider it.

However you go I wish you success. I am presenting the negatives that I have seen so that you can consider them in your choices and maybe forearmed against them. They may or may not apply to you, but I figured they were something that should at least be factored in.