NW Cyclist

I've decided I'm finally going to ride coast to coast before I get too old I have 90 days to complete the ride and drive back. I plan to ride 60-65 miles a day with one day a week rest. I'd like to take a couple weeks to get back so when you calculate it out I can go about 3800-3900 miles. I'd like to start in Oregon/Washington coast. My biggest issue now is the route. I've spent a lot of time on the adventure cycling site and have a few options, but I thought it would best to ask experienced touring cyclists I'm going to be spoiled as my wife is going to be my SWAG wagon in an RV and friends will join me along the way. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Chris

10 Wheels

Try for 75 a day. You may not need a rest day.

jamawani 

NWC -
Glad to hear you are going to ride X-USA, but you don't give us much to go on.
I doubt you are 19, but are you 45? 65? 85? It makes a difference.
Also, how much riding/touring experience do you have? The two are different, btw.
(But if you have a sag wagon, you probably won't carry more than a granola bar.)
When are you thinking bout doing this? Starting in May or August could mean different routes.

Although it's not a designated ACA route, one route with the most gradual climbing
starts in Westport, WA via Raymond, Chehalis, Packwood and White Pass.
Don't be fooled by the Columbia River - lots of climbing and fairly busy roads.
The TransAm also has a chunk of climbing getting over the Cascades.
If you don't overdo it the first week, you will settle in fine.

Best - J

NW Cyclist

Thank you for the reply. I am 57 years old. I want to leave in early June. I've done many 100+ rides and Seattle to Portland (STP) in a day 5 times so I enjoy long rides. My longest tour was to San Francisco (1100 miles). I remember exactly what you said about settling in when I went to SF. After a few days I got stronger as the ride continued but that was a few years ago

jamawani 

Well, NWC -
You is still young.

If you are leaving early-ish - early to mid May -
You might consider driving east and starting from the Atlantic coast.
That way you might miss some late bad weather in the Pac NW
and miss the late summer heat in the East. (Which is brutal, btw.)

A later start makes sense west-to-east.
I am a big believer in water's edge to water's edge.
Preferably with ocean waves and sand.
Harder on the east coast than the west, but doable.

The sag wagon will come in handy many times.
But it precludes you from hiker/biker options in national parks.
Many park campgrounds are already booked solid for this summer.
It may require a more fixed itinerary than usually comfortable.

<<<>>>

One idea -

Since you have the sag wagon, cross at I-90 at Vantage.
Then shuttle to the boat landing at the bottom of the Old Vantage Highway.
Riding up thru the columnar cliffs is supreme.
(And I would think it qualifies a s"legit" X-USA.)

Fuji1986

Best wishes to you. I would double-check on services along the route since businesses have taken a beating in the past year, and plenty have gone under. Keep in touch with your progress; a cross-country ride is something special!

indyfabz

+1. And as noted, finding open spots at campgrounds could be tough in places. There are Walmart parking lots if necessary.

Tony Marley

Where do you want to start, and where do you want to finish up? Obviously makes a difference in the route and distance. I did it twice: first time from the mouth of the Columbia River to Portland, Maine (by way of Ottawa, Canada), and the second time from Seattle to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. First time with another guy; second time with my then 10-year old daughter on a tandem. Each vastly different.

mev

Agreed. I think you can make a variety of different routes work pretty well, and depends a bit on where you want to travel.

I've gone across three times and once across Canada:
-- 1992: "Portland to Portland", though I started at the coast near Astoria. I went up the Columbia River Gorge, across to Lolo Pass and then across to the Twin Cities. I stayed in the US by going by way of the UP and then south of the Great Lakes and across New England to Portland.
-- 2001: San Jose to Jacksonville. Mostly on Adventure Cycling Southern Tier
-- 2002-2004: Sequence of eight one week trips: San Jose to Reno, Reno to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to Fort Collins, Fort Collins to Wichita, Wichita to Memphis, Memphis to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Pittsburgh

A few general thoughts related to this:
1. Going in the summer doesn't make sense to do a Southern Tier, so more across the middle or northern US. I went West to East, but you'll want to work constraints on snowpack in western passes and potential hot/humid if you go too far south in later summer. Depending on timing/route an east to west might make more sense.
2. The Adventure Cycling route is nice for meeting others along the way, as well as knowing services. Because you have SAG support, both might become not as big of an issue.
3. I approached things a bit different between Western US and Eastern US:
- In the West, I tended to follow major US highway routes. There weren't as many choices and I could make most any of them work.
- In the East, there are more choices and I found myself working a bit more to find smaller roads but still going direct. This was also where Adventure Cycling or similar routes were sometimes helpful
4. The biggest factor affecting my routes were really some of the places I wanted to go along the way, as well as some artificial constraints like staying in the US, etc.

pdlamb

More random observations:
ACA Northern Tier, Washington 20: I'm glad I had two months' riding in my legs before I tackled four passes in four days.

ACA TransAm maps/route was invaluable getting across the Ozarks in Missouri and eastern Kentucky. (You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different...) With some experience touring, you can probably pick out good routes most of the rest of the country.

I wonder how local police would respond to a request to park on the town square or park overnight in an RV. Probably depends on the town. I've heard some Walmarts now turn overnight RVs away, but a personal request to the manager might mitigate that.

Having a support vehicle would make it easier to ride an extra hour in the evening, knowing you can be picked up and taken somewhere else for the night. You could arrange a water resupply every 30 miles in the dry spots, too. But don't forget the local diner where you'll meet half the down for lunch!

There's probably a balance to be found between locating local attractions on your own custom-generated route and tying yourself down to a specific route when you find the road is under construction or there's a bridge out.

NW Cyclist

So many choices! All such great information. Thank you very much. I wish I had more time. A 90 leave is all I could get from work! I agree with the ocean to ocean idea. Being an Oregon native I also was thinking Portland to Portland but that is too many miles for my time frame. I was thinking LA to New York. Thought that would cool. I can follow a variety of ACA routes and do it in ~3800 miles. Leaves me a couple weeks to drive back. I'm amazed some of you have done it MULTIPLE times. Impressive.

mev

For what it is worth, my Portland to Portland ride was 3610 miles. The tail end gives stopping points and distances - Across the USA in '92

That was 1992 and I was a bit more intense than I would ride it now. Six weeks including 37 full days riding, two rest days underway and two days in Boston visiting friends before going up to Portland to finish.

If you are thinking of starting further south, I might suggest San Francisco as a starting point rather than Los Angeles. The deserts you cross after LA are lower in elevation and thus hotter in southern Nevada than crossing the middle of Nevada. You can see it if you compare climate averages between Las Vegas NV and Fallon NV: https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/2...gas-and-Fallon

Tony Marley

Remember to focus on enjoying the ride, not just surviving and completing the ride. So that should factor into your route planning. Pretty and/or interesting, but a little bit longer is better than miserable but shorter. That goes, too, for planning how far to ride each day. Allowing yourself time to stop and read historical markers, or eat at roadside fruit stands, and to enjoy the communities and diners in the evenings can be the best part of a cross-continent ride.

One of my most fun/interesting tours was a 10-day "tailwind ride." A friend and his daughter on their tandem, and my daughter and me on our tandem. Started in Garden City, Kansas. Basically the very center of the Great Plains. Each morning, we checked the weather channel and then rode whichever direction the wind was blowing. No plan other than that, just an interest to see where we'd end up after 10 days of tailwinds. Only repeated one section of the ride, and ultimately ended up in southern Nebraska, east and north of where we started.

Good luck, and hopefully tailwinds coast to coast....

Tourist in MSN

Keep your daily itinerary as flexible as you can. For example, my month long solo Iceland tour, there were two days that I quit early due to strong head winds. But there were two days that I had good tailwinds that I hated to waste, thus pushed on after I had reached my planned destination on those two days.

For example, one of the days that I quit early, I was unable to climb a hill and it was not that steep. But the headwind with gusty sidewinds, maybe I could have climbed that hill if there was a wide shoulder? But when you are pedaling up a hill at about 4 mph into a headwind and a strong sidewind gust tries to put you in the ditch, and there was no shoulder on a road with moderately busy traffic, there were many times on that hill when I came to a halt with both feet on the ground. I only went 10.6 miles that day before I turned around. The next day, hardly noticed the hill.

I assume you will be sleeping most nights in the RV. On my longer tours, I never planned a non-riding day very far in advance, if there was a day in the forecast that would have terrible riding weather, I tried to find a nice place to stop the night before that day in case I wanted to stay put for a day to sit out bad weather.

You have done enough long distance riding, I am sure you have the hardware figured out. But I am curious, how many bikes are you taking? If I was doing a trip like that where I am in an RV every night, I would have a low geared light weight bike for hills. And another bike that I like on flatter ground. One bike would have fenders for rain. One bike would have tires for rougher pavement. Or maybe one bike but with an option for clip on fenders and two wheel sets?

NW Cyclist

I just finished my route and I’m going 60% ACA and 40% on my own. It’s 3600 miles and I average 62 miles a day so I have time to adjust and see some fun places and take longer if needed. I will be taking a spare bike. Didn’t think about different tires. Expected good climbs in the Rockies but not so much in the northeast. I will be in great shape by then though. Haha. Thanks for all the terrific input. I can’t wait to get started!

Tourist in MSN

It is my understanding that some parts of the Appalachians can have very steep hills. My only experience in that area is GAP and C&O, those are fairly flat so I have no direct experience with the rest of the Appalachians.

That compares to Pacific Coast and the rockies where I have usually found max slopes in the 6 to 8 percent grade range.

saddlesores

jinkies! why even bother planning? nothing to worry about here. you have a significant other following you in a mobile hotel, carrying all your luggage, gear, spares, tools, food....nothing for you to do but peddle. gosh, you even get a spare bike? you can choose road bike or mountain bike depending on terrain!

route too trafficky, unsafe, or too steep? load it into the rv! heck, you can skip the 200-mile boring sections of same-sameness.

tired and won't make your goal for the day? stop at the nearest rest area, wally world parking lot, or truck stop, sleep in the rv.

you don't need to do route planning like a self-supported tour. you're not limited to roads suitable for bikes. no worries about getting across restricted bridges, or that rough patch heading into detroit.

Radfield

I have a plan on ride with GPS called
Seattle to Boston. EZ

hit me up if you would like to discuss. It is 3559 miles. Once out of Washington, Oregon it follows US HWY 20.

I am leaving 6/5 planning to arrive 90 days later (avg 45 miles a day)

my email is
radfield at att.net.
I would love to chat live if you’re interested

Rad Justice

indyfabz

Sure can. And what I dislike the most is when you encounter sections with a good number of shorter, steeper climbs back to back to back...Had a some sections like that crossing PA last September. I think my ruling grade was 11.8%. I much prefer longer, more moderately graded climbs. It's nice to be able to get into a rhythm.

KPREN

That is an understatement. Here is a typical screen shot of Google Maps centered on eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia. The biggest answer you will get for asking directions will be "You can't get there from here" , If you can understand what they are saying and they are speaking about driving an automobile. These are main roads. What is in between you better have a good fat bike and a guide. There is generally no shoulders and few guard rails. Go there at look at street view and imagine a big coal truck or a logging truck barreling down on you with a bicycle. Bicyclist not on the main bicycle routes are considered by locals as someone whom lost their drivers license to DWI. You get respect accordingly. 15%+ grades are common

Doug64

My wife and I rode Highway 20 from Newport, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts. We were self supported, and it was a great ride. With a chase vehicle, it would also be a good ride. We were still working at the time, and did not have time for some of the inviting looking side trips. We managed to log close to 3700 miles. We still talk about going back and riding through Nebraska again. I also prefer riding through Yellowstone than driving through it. It is a completely different experience.

Cyclist are not a very common on this route, and people seem more friendly than on some of the established routes. In one small town they sent a "reporter" from the local news paper to interview and take some pictures of us at their city park where we were camped. I really think the reporter was really the paper owner's high school age daughter

Good luck on your venture.

a_d_a_m

If you are on 20 east of Cleveland, OH, you will be going right past my house. There are a few stretches that I would recommend bypassing US-20 due to narrow lanes and high traffic/high speeds. (Mostly between Mentor, OH and the PA state line)

Doug64

This was the 4th hill at the start of the day. I just looked at it, and when I stopped the first time going up, I put on my running shoes and walked. This was in New York. Nothing in the west was near as hard as this. We were getting a little concerned about how many more of these we had to get over. Luckily, that was the last major hill for the rest of the trip. I did some major gearing changes when we got home.

It is actually steeper than it looks

Tourist in MSN

When I built up my Rohloff bike I had to decide what chainring size to buy. I decided that I wanted a cadence of 72 at 3.5 mph for my lowest gear. Calculated what chainring I needed based on that. If I could not maintain 3.5mph while keeping my heart rate in a reasonable level, I would walk instead. Been very happy with that decision.

This hill is in Canada, not where the OP is going. But I decided months before I got there that this hill would be walked, not ridden. No way was I going to pedal all the way up a tall hill at 13 percent grade.



That said, the OP will have his heavier stuff in the RV.

Tandem Tom

I laugh at hills!! Then I cry!😂😂😂😂