indyfabz

Doesn't always work that way, especially on holiday weekends here in the U.S. Hell. The campground at the state park closest to my house if often booked solid on the weekends during spring through early fall. And it's big. More that 170 sites.

A few years ago I decided to take a last-minute long weekend trip there. I looked on line and was lucky enough to book the one remaining site available.

Doug64

That is especially true this year because of the increased interest in camping. We have 2 large campgrounds close to us, and they are already booked up for the summer.

I've learned from experience to get reservations for hotels and campgrounds at least the morning of the day you need them, and this does not always work. During the holiday season, around August, European campgrounds and hotels fill up fast, and reservations are usually required. Being on a bike does help, but it is not a given.

indyfabz

I just poked around on the website for Cape Henlopen State Park, which is an extremely popular place in DE which is a two-day ride for me. Out of over 170 sites, only 42 are available for Easter weekend, which is in early April this year and thus could be chilly and wet. Picked some random, non-holiday weekends in June and July. Either completely booked or almost so. Some weekdays are the same. Even the weekend after Labor Day is almost completely booked. It's not even mid-February.

skookum

At this point you can't enter Canada as a tourist, if you can gain entry in some other category, you will have to test and quarantine at your expense, obviously. The US/Canada land border is closed to non essential travel and will likely remain closed for most of the year. You can fly from Canada to the US, for some reason. You might be able to fly from UK to US and start your tour there, I'm not sure.
Of course any of this could change at a moment's notice.

skookum

Last summer in the National Parks, some campgrounds were closed and others opened late and closed early, all because of covid. And there were more campers than usual, so you can imagine the situation. I expect the same this year. The places outside the parks that allow random camping were over run with people.

Carbonfiberboy 

I'm not doing anything with anybody until 2 weeks after my second shot. Then I can do anything, though I'll still wear a mask indoors with the unvaccinated. Youngers have a good chance of getting it by July. We'll see. I'll be all set in mid-March. We're at 44 million with 1 shot, as of the date of this post..

UniChris

At this point, it probably makes sense to wait for the vaccine and travel rules adjusting to account for that.

My guess is that most in their 60s and 50s who really want to get it will be able to before early summer (and hopefully also us slightly younger folks) - the raw numbers might seem to make that less than certain, but vaccine hesitancy is unfortunately a thing, so those who want it may find ourselves in a shorter line than overall population numbers would predict. At some point after the age thresholds go away entirely there's going to be a shift and the issue will no longer be about people clamoring to get the vaccine before its their turn, but about trying to persuade the haven't gotten around to its and then the true holdouts to roll up their sleeves.

Plenty of nice riding weather in early fall, too - not the 14 hour days of peak summer, but also not the extremes of heat and sun, either.

indyfabz

Yeah. Living on the east coast, I don’t do anything long in the area during the height of summer. Instead, I wait for the weekend after Labor Day to start a week long trip. Mid-June I’ve been going out west for two weeks. In between I may do a long weekend trip or two if the heat and humidity isn’t bad. Can’t stand high heat and humidity.

D@vid

When I planned it on Komoot it came out at 4000 miles going Quebec, Montreal, Great Lakes, Chicago, across Kansas, Denver, Independence Pass, Monument Valley, San Diego.

Yeah, I agree that it's very likely that I won't do it this year but that's cool. It's an enjoyable adventure not an urgent mission and there are much more important things going on in the world than my bike ride.

D@vid

The thread's about credit card touring so concerns about campsites are not really relevant. I appreciate that different people have different tolerances for spontaneity versus structure though but in my experience (riding the East Coast from West Quoddy to Key West and London to Istanbul) it's easy nowadays to credit card tour spontaneously booking accomodation on the fly as you go or even as you arrive, there are so many platforms which make it easy to do. I won't be doing it until the pandemic dies down though, which may well be next year.

fishboat

Hopefully..though it sounds like the 40's, 50's, 60's (<65) (healthy, non-essential) folks are in the same bucket..dead (no pun intended) last. Essential workers including teachers hopefully, 20's-30's, drug addicts, prisoners, homeless, kids, nearly anyone with a pulse, regardless of their health/work status,..all come before the 40's, 50-60 cohort. No judgement here..it is what it is. So far it seems to be a (lack of) supply-driven timeline. With any luck, supply will flood the market and those of us on the tail-end will see something in the next few months.

The NYT has an estimator..it should be somewhat accurate..
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-timeline.html

djb

interesting to see your touring experience, shows that you will know what you're up against when you can do this.

It certainly will be a fascinating route just from the changing landscapes aspect of it over the weeks. I'm familiar with the Qc thru Mtl thru to Toronto etc following the St Lawrence river route. Havent ridden all of it but parts and its generally a nice biking route. I suspect the whole mid USA working over to Chicago and down and across will have busy and or sameness / blah aspects, (have driven a car across the States once, thru Chicago area coming from Vancouver Canada) and then you'll be hitting the whole lower western states with heat and all that (of which I have no experience) but as you know, its easy to find good info on routes etc.
No matter, like I said, would be an interesting experience in any case.
The west coast of the States is a pretty neat area to bike in also, Ive done only Oregon and California, which was and is a pretty cool trip.

as you say, you'll do it when you do it, and will have lots of time figuring out all the diff aspects of it and going with suggestions of better routes. I suspect that some parts of the States are probably better to avoid, but on such a long route, there will always be compromises and balancing out pluses and minuses.
cheers

UniChris

That assumes that there do not continue to be age tier prioritizations, eg, in the NYT link a healthy 55 year old has 285 million people in front of them and only 60 or so million behind them, which is just plain mistaken.

It also assumes that people take their slots, which we know in fact to not be the case... even health care workers were only in the range of 60 something percent acceptance.

If we're really lucky, maybe half of people will actually go and get their first shot within the first month where they are able to schedule an appointment for it. In the short term, that means a fairly large opportunity for self-prioritization - the real line likely half the length of the official one; but as the year goes on, that's a huge public health challenge as it means the virus will keep circulating and evolving at a high rate. And variations are the remaining reason to be concerned about travel, since the older varieties are already prevalent everywhere already.

As for touring while vaccination rates remain low, while staying in a hotel room presents some degree of risk to the traveler and staff and so should merit some consideration, it's been pretty common throughout this, and it's allowed by most travel rules for someone in a travel quarantine period to hole up in a hotel room.

The actual limitation would be more that most of the travel rules don't want you going in to stores and restaurants which would complicate logistics a lot.

D@vid

Thanks for the insights! Yeah, I kind of see the 'not so interesting' areas as part of the diversity of the journey, I like a mix of countryside and big cities and rolling into a town which people rarely visit and spending the evening sitting at the bar and chatting to people is one of the things I most enjoy. I'm actually a bit concerned that I've got too many pretty bits and not enough 'real' ordinary middle America!

djb

I'm the same, I really like that interaction we have with people on bike tours, and also very much exactly why I enjoy travelling through non touristy places.

re worrying about too many pretty bits--I wouldnt worry, you'll have a shedload of nothing and another shedload of "real" ordinary America. I've got numerous stories of "real ordinary America" ---of getting noticed and attracting those type of folks who immediately jump into religious topics, something people in Canada never ever do. Or having a big effing pistol pulled out from under the seat of a car and waved around while the driver of the pickup who (very nicely) came me a lift once, told me about scaring off a cougar with it once, and also in passing, that he thought all the "gays" in San Francisco should be shot.....with his little girl watching all this from between us.....

so yup, you'll not want from meeting very generous folk, and probably a lot of interesting folk too. I'd just use common sense and diplomacy during discussions. Your Blimey accent will help a lot though.
cheers

mev

I've long described Kansas or Nebraska as best being seen either in excess of 100mph or at about 10mph.

When you drive across, you get the worst of both worlds. Often one ends up on the interstate highway and seems like some of the scenery is similar much of the day. At 100mph+ one is often flying across and missing most of that.

However, at 10mph one often sees a different scenery as well. You take the side roads, go through the small towns and interact much more with people. One can notice little things like kernels of wheat dropped in cracks in the road during harvest season - or subtle changes in both elevation and precipitation that result in rather different landscapes. On different trips I've cycled W-E across South Dakota (once), Nebraska (twice), Kansas (once) as well as S-N from Mexico to Canada via TX/OK/KS/NE/SD/ND and Canada across AB/SK/MB (once) and really enjoyed my rides across these regions. But then I also like riding through deserts as well...

Kelly I

In 2018 we drove through Monument Valley (amazing) and on to Tuba City - less than amazing. So much so that I told my husband we should cancel our 2019 bike ride through the area as there is a whole lot of nothing but wind out there. End of story is that we did ride through and it was wonderful at 10 mph. So much so that in 2020 we bicycled Mexico to Canada through the Rockies (and Monument Valley again).

A big consideration for us was how hard Navajo Nation has been hit by COVID. It is impossible to bicycle Arizona without riding through Navajo Nation, it's too large. Currently they are having weekend long lockdowns and nightly curfews to discourage travel and spread of COVID. Be aware that camping is allowed only in certain areas and by permit only. It is wide open country. You need to plan water/food/lodging carefully. The area was magical - we rode through two years in a row, once each direction. I would go again.

Your trip route covers an excellent cross section of the USA. In Colorado, after Independence Pass/Aspen, I would suggest: Redstone, Crested Butte, Gunnison, Lake City, Del Norte, and then head west. That would give you an intoxicating about of mountain vistas before you hit the red rock areas.

djb

Mev and Kelly, although I haven't ridden as much through long, open spaces as you two, I do have to say that I have now become hooked on going through this sort of landscape. I find that the calmness that comes from riding through wide open country is something that I like a lot. Maybe one day I can ride through some of these parts of the SW of the States, it certainly sounds intriguing.

indyfabz

Many parts of ND were like that both times I was in the state. But stay away from the oilfield areas.

gif4445

I know everybody has their own set of challenges. Location, age, outlook concerning Covid etc. I happen to live about smack dab in the middle of the US. A lot more open than most. So for most of the middle states, it won't change a plan if I have one. Still holding out hope the Randonneuring and state rides I like to ride on will come through. In the event they do not, I'll do more CC camping. I'm over the Covid deal. As long as those around me are ok with it, then let the cards fall where they may. I plan to enjoy life, relationships and scenery while I can. YMMV