gauvins

Came across this WP article https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/05/31/road-trip-weather-70-degrees/

The idea is to travel along a route where the temperature will always be around 70F. Interesting concept but distances can be a challenge (> 100 miles/day in June) and routing not ideal (typically Interstates)

Anyone here has done something of the kind? And or covering a different geographical area?

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indyfabz

Link doesn’t work for me, but I remember seeing it a while ago. IIRC, I rode through some of the areas during the specified times. I wouldn’t say “always.”

Reminds me of Andalucia. It was supposed to be relatively nice. Reality was that I experienced colder and wetter conditions than normal in many places.

Ron Damon

Yeah...good luck with that. 😉

axolotl

Maybe this link will work, but the article is probably behind a paywall.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weath...er-70-degrees/

I like maps and statistics so I found the article interesting. As for turning this into a bike trip, that sounds like lunacy to me. Nevertheless, I try to go on my bike trips when the weather is most likely to be optimal.

jamawani 

In the West, the average high may 70F,
But on Monday the high may be 90F and by Wednesday it may be 50F.

tcs

Then there's this:





Statisticians are punished in Hell by having one foot in ice and one foot in steaming water: on average, it's not so bad.

jon c. 

I've lived in about half a dozen places along that route throughout the country. In no case would "minimal fluctuation" be applicable.

pdlamb

I think the article referenced a blog site, which I don't have handy. It was good for a headline and probably for clicks, but when I looked at the details I found the devil. "Average temperature" for a date is the way the guy designed the route. I don't know that I've ever cycled anywhere the temperature was "average" when I went through -- it might be 40F that day, or 100F, but I'm really hoping it'll settle on the average 70F. Note, too, that this is the average of hourly readings for the day, so a 50-90F day in the desert may average 70F, and those 10F swings are not much of a deviation from "normal" (in the statistical sense).

The other thing I thought was a bit strange is that you're supposed to loiter for months along the southern coasts, then speed up to cover long distances when the temperature is right. Might work out for bicycle touring if you don't mind towing the CR-V for three months, then put the bike in the car for the next six months or so.

But after all the grumbling, it does sound intriguing. Maybe I'll persuade She Who Must Be Obeyed to get an RV when we retire, and we can travel the country for a year or two.

staehpj1

Counting on seasonal averages would be a fail. I tend to get record heat where ever I go. That said you might stand a better chance of setting the route based on shorter term forecasts "on the fly". Also you could choose areas where the temperature was more stable, but that would limit the route quite a bit.

ThermionicScott 

Love it! Your own work?

mev

Not completely, but when I was dreaming of my current trip of visiting US State Capitols in the lower 48, I created a computer program to help me optimize things. I followed three steps: (1) search for a relatively minimal path through the State Capitols (2) adjust the starting location based on some crude temperature parameters, e.g. points assigned for # degrees the average low temperature is below 32F (0C) or average high temperature is above 85F (25C) - minimize the points by picking the starting and splitting the route to evenly divide one year (3) review the result by hand and be willing to accept slightly longer route to get a few less points.

The net result was the following approximate route:


One could then adjust the starting date/location together, start in Washington DC in April, Indianapolis in July, Seattle in October, etc.

This led me to think starting on my birthday in DC wasn't too bad of a combination even though I was no longer planning a full year on the road.

However, my route+temperature planning program missed one fatal flaw for me... I didn't include anything for terrain or difficulty of getting between city pairs but assumed a mile was a mile...

So when I started riding my route, the first instance this came to play was that the sequence of BostonMA to ConcordNH to AugustaME to BurlingtonVT would cycle more easily as BostonMA to AugustaME to ConcordNH to BurlingtonVT given the topography of northern Maine/New Hampshire/Vermont.

The real big one for me was having the route go from HarrisburgPA to CharlestonWV. I realized I could do it but not have as much fun crossing the Appalachians that way ... So I took advantage of not being on a one-year journey to visit every capitol and instead dropped HarrisburgPA and CharlestonWV from my itinerary.

Not quite a temperature gradient but I used temperature+wind to optimize my circumnavigation of Australia. In this case, I wanted to be north in the Winter, South during the summer and generally anti-clockwise was better than clockwise. Also in my plan, it was eight months to split the time.

A similar optimization came in cycling the Pan-American highway from Alaska to Argentina. In this case, I wanted to avoid winter conditions at either end and skip across wet seasons in the middle. This led to one of two budgets: either a ~9 month trip starting early summer in Prudhoe Bay and ending late summer in Tierra del Fuego or a year and a half going from summer solstice to summer solstice. I picked a solstice to solstice ride...

tcs

Old saying.

Ron Damon

A physicist, an engineer and a statistician are on a hunting trip. They are walking through the woods when they spot a deer in a clearing. The physicist calculates the distance of the target, the velocity and drop of the bullet, adjusts his rifle and fires, missing the deer 5 feet to the left.

The engineer rolls his eyes. 'You forgot to account for wind. Give it here', he snatches the rifle, licks his finger and estimates the speed and direction of the wind and fires, missing the deer 5 feet to the right. Suddenly, the statistician claps his hands and yells "We got him!"