Bildo5183

Hello fellow bicyclists and Happy New Year! My name is Bill and I currently live in Boston, MA. I joined this forum because I am doing a cross-country US tour (Boston to LA) starting next May, and would like to connect with fellow riders who are embarking on a similar journey around that time who'd possibly like to bike sections of it together.

I have been a city rider for years now, but I am new to the world of bicycle touring. I purchased a Masi Giramondo over the summer-- have put it to the test over a few rides-- and am really looking forward to riding on it across the US next year.

Does anyone have cross-country touring advice that they could share with me? Some stories they would like to share? Anyone making a similar trip next Spring and would like to ride a few days together? Hit me up!

Cheers,
Bill

hokiefyd 

Hi, Bill. Do you have an idea of your general route and your style of tour? Camping out? Air BnBs? Etc.

Bildo5183

Hi! I am debating between staying mostly on the Northern Tier route (link below) or riding south through major cities (NY, Philly, DC) and then heading west on TransAmerica trail. I am planning on stopping in St. Louis and Idaho so friends can join me for sections of the tour, but other than that I am keeping it pretty loose so I can stop and site-see and hike.

In regards to accommodations, I am planning on camping 80-90% of the time, and the rest of the time finding a couch to crash on via couchsurfing or warmshowers websites.

Do you have a tour planned in the future?

Bill

Bildo5183

I can't post URL's yet, but I am mapping based on Adventure Cycling Association site.

debade

Just in case you are not familiar, check out crazyguyonabike. Lots of good and not so good blogs but spend some time there and you will find some good tips.

my experience is big cities are frustrating. Hard to find your way around and easy to get lost. If you plan to spend some time, it is worthwhile. If is just to ride through, I would suggest stay more rural.

Bulette

If you're headed to St. Louis, check out the Katy Trail --- I have heard of at least one cyclist who ventured that way as an alternate to the steep and rolling Ozarks in southern Missouri.

Depending on your definition of "Spring", the TransAm might be more comfortable (depending on your preferred temperatures). If mid-to-late May, either North or TransAm would probably be more comparable.

I'd be interested to hear your goals for westward from Colorado too --- if time was not an issue, you might follow the Trans Am/Northern Tier to the Pacific, then down the coast. However, a more direct route would either be the Western Express and/or Grand Canyon Connectors with Route 66 -- these routes might get hot by the time you arrive though!

hokiefyd 

Like you, I'm new to the world of bike touring, at least in the multi-day touring sense. If you were going to come through by way of the northern VA/western MD section, I'd try to hook up with you and ride a section with you. I'll keep an eye on this thread to see which route you decide on.

Tourist in MSN

It is unlikely that I would be touring anywhere near you, so just commenting on a few thoughts for long distance touring.

A long tour like that, if you do not have an end point with a critical date for an end point, that makes scheduling much easier. Then if you want to take a day off for a day with strong headwinds or an all day heavy rain, you could do so without having to worry about your itinerary. That said, I am assuming you would not be making reservations far in advance for lodging or transportation.

For example, I like traveling on Amtrak when finishing a bike tour. I usually can find a seat on a train to get home and make the reservation only a few days in advance for a non-exorbitant price. Airlines, not so. I get my ticket months in advance and then I have to keep my progress to the end point as a consideration. Last summer when i was on a tour, I ended up staying at one campground for four nights when i was a bit ahead of schedule near the end. Fortunately, I planned well and was at a great Provincial Park campground with things to see and do so having a flight schedule like that was not a problem. Also on that tour, I met a gal from Germany who was starting out on a three and a half month long tour, her schedule contingency plan was to rent a car and drive to the end point to get back on schedule for her flight if she was too slow on the bike.

Last summer I was bike touring in Canadian Maritimes, not making campsite reservations. But after a few people warned me that the campgrounds would be full on Canada Day Holiday weekend, thus I better start planning where I wanted to be and try to make reservations. After checking the forecast and seeing a forecast for five consecutive days of rain, I decided to make a reservation for three nights at a hostel in Charlottetown PEI to sit out most of the rain. I got pretty wet two days before I got there and got rained on the day I left the hostel, but it was more enjoyable than five consecutive days of rain.

Also on my Maritimes tour, there were a few days where the wind was so strong, could not travel. One of those days I went to a bakery to use their wifi a could km away, most of the way back to my campsite I had to walk my bike instead of ride it because it was into the wind.

My Iceland tour, there were two days that I could not make my destination due to headwinds. And there were two days when I had such powerful tailwinds that I made my destination early, so I decided to keep going to take advantage of the headwind.

My point is to make your schedule as flexible as you can. If you lay out an itinerary where you have to hold to it every day, you can be traveling in some bad weather.

Chinghis

I'm at the terminal end, so I also won't be joining you ... but in California at least and maybe other states, we have something called Hike and Bike sites at the State Park campgrounds.The rule is that if you get there under you own power, they can't turn you away because of space. The Hike and Bike sites I think are generally not used that much anyway.

This also used to hold true for Yosemite (and other National Parks?). I rode into Yosemite on a July evening and asked for the Hike and Bike site. Luckily one person knew what I was talking about and directed me there. I was surrounded by climbers who had kind of mixed feeling about me. I encountered this attitude a couple of times. Anyway, keep the hike-bike thing in mind if you're having trouble finding sites.

Edit: Forgot to say that I'm jealous! I hope you have a fantastic time!

Tourist in MSN

When I rode from Astoria OR to San Francisco CA in 2014, I put the state parks on a map on my tablet that had hiker biker sites based on a state park website, that way we could plan our destination each day for such a site. But, at that time not all California State Parks with campgrounds had hiker biker sites. Has that changed?

Some of the hiker biker sites we saw appeared to be partially populated by homeless, thus it could be an area where you need to watch your gear pretty closely, lock things up, etc. There were two of us, so one could stay in the campsite most of time to watch our belongings. But if you are traveling alone, that is harder to do. Situational awareness is the key.

Bildo5183

Thank you for the blog recommendation and the advice! I am hesitant to bike through some bigger cities like NYC and DC, because although it does sound enticing and fun, it also seems like a hassle.

Bildo5183

Hey there, thanks for the message! I will check out the Katy Trail-- thanks for the rec. I actually lived in St. Louis for a couple of years, years ago, and the trail sounds familiar.

I will be leaving early to mid-May, and figure if I take the Northern Tier I will have some brisk nights to start, but should be good by June.

Thinking about going westward of Colorado is exciting, but also driving me a little nuts because there is so much to see out there in the form of state and national parks, and I want to seem them all, which isn't very practical on a bike. My only real destination right now is McCall, Idaho, because I have a good friend out there that I am going to visit. I am hoping to hit the Tetons and Yellowstone on the way, which would require me to get on the TransAm at some point after St. Louis, which looks doable. Have you been on the TransAm through Colorado? Looks like a lot to see on that route.

Cheers,
Bill

Bildo5183

Ok great, I will keep in touch about this as well! If am either going to start going south to connect to Trans Am, or going north to Northern Tier, and if I end up going South then I would love to connect!

p.s. not bike related, but is posting a "quick reply" the best way to answer on this thread or just a reply to the thread?

Bill

hokiefyd 

Bill, a "Quick Reply" just tags your reply to the end of the thread, and it's sometimes not apparent which post you may be addressing. I used the "Quote" button here, and it puts your entire message in quotes. One can (and it's often polite to...) manually edit down the original quoted message to only the part to which you're replying. I included the entire, unedited, quote here just so you can see how it works and looks.

hokiefyd 

In this message, I selected the "Multi Quote" check boxes on two posts beforeclicking on the "Quote" button. Now both your post and my post are quoted in this message.

I edited down your quote in this post to just what I was addressing.

I didn't need to quote myself, but it's often efficient to use the "Multi Quote" option if you're addressing multiple people or comments in one reply.

Tandem Tom

Riding through DC is really quite easy and enjoyable!

Bulette

Looks like the TransAm takes you closest to McCall -- of course, the Northern Tier and TransAm both intersect at Missoula, MT so still open ended from Missouri to Montana.

I have been on the TransAm, and thoroughly enjoyed the route through Colorado -- it was less climbing than I had anticipated, actually! Though I've been to Rocky Mountain National Park before by car, I somewhat regret not taking the Great Parks detour to ride through the park (and over Trail Ridge Road -- weather dependent, but could be clear by mid to late June).

I did spend some extra time in Yellowstone, and I highly recommend going off route to take in at least Canyon Village and the Norris Geyser Basin/Norris Canyon Road (if you really have time, go north to Tower and Mammoth too!). The campgrounds always seem to have space for hiker and bicyclist camping in all of the main campgrounds, making an easy place to go slow, rest up, and take it all in. Bicycling in Yellowstone is the best way to get to all of the boardwalk sights with none of the parking hassles.

Teton is 'off-route' a bit too, but Jenny Lake Campground was well worth the extra miles.

alan s 

I do it almost every day, but not on the streets. Plenty of nice trails along the river. The streets have some of the worst traffic you could imagine.

indyfabz

Nope. After leaving Glacier the NT goes through Columbia Falls to Whitefish then north to Eureka. You have to head south on the Great Parks North route from the C-Falls/Whitefish area through Bigfork and Seeley Lake to get to Missoula. Just rode that stretch again last June. I one stays on the west side of Logan Pass in the park it's three days of riding. Glacier to Bigfork, where the state park (Wayfarers) has cool hiker/biker sites with amenities like electricity. Bigfork to Seeley Lake. Camping in and near town. Seeley Lake to Missoula.

PedalingWalrus

In my daydreams I see myself taking the train to DC and then riding the C&O trail, connect to the GAP trail and then ride to connect to the Katy Trail ... and then just ride ;-)

indyfabz

ACA's Atlantic Coast route doesn't go through NYC or Philadelphia. Just rode it from N. Canaan, CT, to outside of Philly back 2018. A few easily correctable nits I have with it aside, it's a pretty good route. May seem counterintuitive, but the mileage in NJ is quite nice. It includes the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Worthington State Forest (saw a bear cub there in 2018) and about 20 miles of well maintained rail-trail. From New Hope, PA to the outskirts of Philly isn't bad either considering the population density. It uses a tried and true route between those points that ACA adopted after I proposed it to them many years ago. (It's previous routing was rendered unpleasant in places due to expanded suburban development.)

indyfabz

Amtrak's Vermonter FTW! Taken my bike on it twice.

Bulette

Thanks for the clarification -- though Glacier is definitely worth seeing, it seems difficult to include it in a route alongside Yellowstone, Tetons and the Rockies, unless you have an extra week or so, of course!

The next time I get eastward, the C&O and GAP are high priorities. I didn't realize Adventure Cycling publishes a route-map that includes all of the GAP (and a section of C&O) -- the Chicago to New York Philadelphia alternative...

PedalingWalrus

I did the GAP and C&O from Pittsburgh to DC and liked it so much I would definitely want to include it if I planned a cross country tour ... one day :-)

Bildo5183

Ok thank you for this helpful information!