A Retrospective: Southern Tier Coast-to-Coast Bike Trip

While the trip is still fresh in my mind, I wanted to put together ideas about what worked, what didn’t, and what I would do differently in the future—if I ever do something like this again...

First of all, even though I knew better, I think I went into this trip as if I were preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail.  Given that I would be biking on well-used roads for the most part and typically no more than 20-30 miles away from food, gas, bike supplies, etc., it was silly to think that I would be completely cut off from civilization for long stretches of time.

Some of the bigger dilemmas I had at the beginning also turned out to be non-issues. 

POWER

With regards to power, since I ended up staying mostly in motels along the way, charging my phone and lights was never an issue.  I ended up leaving my solar charger (along with a garbage bag full of other camping items I no longer found necessary) at my nephew Joe's in Florida.  I was not using the solar charger, and it was a pain to pull it out.  

I kept the battery pack that came with the solar charger as I could charge it on a regular outlet and use it to charge my phone in a pinch.  As it turns out, I only needed the supplemental charger two times the entire trip.  Once when I stayed at a campsite in Hillsboro, NM, that didn't have outlets, and the second time when I rolled into San Diego and discovered that finding a hotel was taking longer than I anticipated.  

While I did not camp often, most of the places I did camp had power somewhere, usually in the bathrooms, so it was typically no problem to charge the phone while I took a shower and cleaned up.  Keeping the lights charged would have been more difficult as they took longer to recharge, but I think a once-a-week motel stay would have been sufficient to keep them powered since I only used them an hour or two at most in the morning.  

If I did this again, I would probably just bring a spare battery for the phone as it would have been a smaller and lighter item to carry as compared to the battery pack.

BIKE

My repurposed 20-year-old mountain bike worked out great!  I had no mechanical issues and the components I had on my mountain bike were much better quality than the stock components on the standard touring bikes.  It would have been nice to have the drop handlebars for the different hand positions, but after the first two weeks, I had grown accustomed to riding and found the routine necessary to keep from feeling that I needed a new back.  

My hands did get sore from the constant riding, but I'm not sure drop handlebars would have made much of a difference.  When you do the same thing, day in and day out for almost 40 days, it is hard to keep certain body parts from feeling the fatigue.  Julie and I had the same problem with our feet when we walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain for 33 days.  

Before I started the trip, I had the bottom bracket, chain, and rear cassette replaced on the mountain bike.  I also bought new road tires (Schwalbe Marathon Plus) and a rearview mirror, and replaced the handgrips.  It was a heavy rig, but it held up well to the rigors of the road and was better able to handle the rough sections than the road bikes with skinnier tires (although I was jealous of the riders on the light road bikes that were not carrying any gear!).  Basically, if you have a decent bike with good components which can be outfitted to carry gear, you can use that for a cross-country ride.  

One thing I didn't do (and which came back to haunt me on the ride) was not starting off with new tubes.  I'm not sure there is a standard shelf life for bicycle tubes, but I think I'm going to assume from now on that 2 years is a good benchmark.  Having the tube in the rear wheel and all 3 spare tubes fail in the span of 24 hours was an experience I do not wish to repeat (and the old front tube also failed about 3 weeks into the ride).

FOOD

At the beginning of the trip I found I wasn't eating enough. On the whole, I lost 7 pounds on this ride. Biking across the country truly qualifies as an "Eat whatever you want and still lose weight diet"!  

If I didn't eat a proper breakfast I would find myself an hour into the ride needing to start snacking, especially if I didn't have a good dinner the night before.  In order to properly fuel myself, I would typically eat two packets of instant oatmeal, some sort of savory frozen breakfast item (breakfast bowls from Jimmy Dean, breakfast pot pie, sausage biscuits), a banana, yogurt, and a pastry item.  Probably a good 1000 calories plus to start the day.  

I could then ride 20-30 miles before needing to fuel up again.  For lunch, I would either stop for a burger and fries, a Subway, or make myself a lunch using a wheat wrap.  In the wheat wrap I would either have peanut butter, jam or honey, and a banana, or the foil packets of flavored tuna fish that are now widely available.  

As for snacks, I bought up to four pieces of fruit at a time.  Given that it was spring, I usually bought oranges and bananas.  In the fall, I would probably have bought more apples.  Cherry tomatoes were a great way to feel I was getting some vegetables while riding (yes, even if tomatoes are technically fruits).  Since these are usually sold in plastic containers they wouldn't get crushed when I packed them in the panniers, and I found I could finish them in 2-3 days before they spoiled.  I tried baby carrots once, but they spoiled when I still had about 1/3 of the bag left.  

Dried fruit (figs, mangos, prunes), nut mixes, string cheese, and some type of jerky were good snacks.  For power bars, I started with Kind bars and Costco protein bars.  On the trip, I found that I really liked Zone bars and Clif bars.

STRETCHING

It took about two weeks for my body to become accustomed to riding. Initially, I really had problems with stiffness in my back and neck.  I could ride continuously 20-30 miles in the morning since I wasn’t tired yet, but then it helped me to stop every 5-10 miles afterwards and stretch.  

In the morning and evening I would try to do a short yoga routine geared towards bikers to try and loosen up from the day of riding or prepare me for the upcoming day.  At one point, I had such sharp severe pains in my side that I thought I had cracked a rib.  It turned out that my back had become so misaligned from being hunched over the handlebars that an internal ligament was bothering me.  By doing some exercises to try and pull the shoulder blades back, this pain went away.  

I didn't really experience muscle soreness after the first two days, but a hard day of climbing or battling the wind did make me feel fatigued the next day.

PACING

I pushed myself pretty hard on this ride.  Initially I was shooting to finish by the week of 3/20 to correspond with Julie's spring break.  This was pretty unrealistic as it would have meant 100-mile days!  I really should have thought more about some of the logistics beforehand.  

Unfortunately (it being early February in Chicago), I didn't get a chance to test ride a fully-loaded bike until the week before I left.  Once I went through that test ride, I had a much more feasible goal of shooting for about 75 miles per day.  

After I finished the ride, my LA nieces and nephew presented me with a medal that read "Congratulations on your 2777.9 miles," but it looks like they shortchanged me a few miles since I ended up riding a bit under 2850 miles for this trip.   :-)

I cut over 200 miles off the standard Southern Tier by taking short cuts when possible and by meeting up with friends and family and getting picked up and dropped off beyond busy sections of road near their homes.  

In the end I averaged about 74 miles per day. I typically looked to do between 70-80 miles a day, with occasional pushes to 90-100 miles. I got lucky when I really needed to do a 100-mile day that the wind was in my favor. In retrospect, I think a more enjoyable way to do a ride like this would be to shoot for 60 miles per day with occasional pushes to 75 miles.  

With the mileage I was reaching for, I usually found myself finishing between 4-5 pm.  Finishing at this time didn't allow time to relax and explore the area since I usually had only enough time to clean up, (hand) wash the biking clothes I wore that day, eat, talk to Julie, and prepare for the next day.  

Having a SAG (Support And Gear) wagon and not having to carry stuff would be great, but the real key would be able to finish by 2 pm each day.  This would allow time for more camping and a more economical trip.  If I hadn't been putting in so many miles a day, I might have been amenable to riding more than a mile or two off-route to camp at a state park.  (The RV parks that were closer to the route weren't typically set up for tent campers since they didn't have restrooms and showers available.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Now that I have officially crossed off this “bucket list” item of riding across the US, I'm not sure I feel the need to do another cross-country ride. This current thinking may change as I get older and hit future milestones of 60, 70, 80…   :-)  

In any case, I might opt to pick shorter sections in picturesque areas and take the time to explore and enjoy them more thoroughly instead of having the mindset of needing to push on so single-mindedly.  With this trip as long as it was projected (over 3000 miles) and given the limited window of time I chose, I was constantly trying to avoid any “detour” that might possibly delay my completion since I was more preoccupied with reaching my destination than enjoying the journey.  

It was also a bit isolating to ride this on my own.  From having walked the Camino with Julie and from running into other groups of riders on this trip, I discovered how much more fun it is to travel with others, and sharing this experience with others would have been more enjoyable.  

For most non-bikers, this retrospective might be all you need.  However, Julie (who was curating the blog) tells me that there was a spike in particular interest for my “Planning for a Cross-Country Bike Trip” post as I neared the completion of the ride.  (In fact, I was very surprised to hear that there were as many as 84 views of the blog in a single day towards the end!  Thanks!)  Possibly, some people want more information on planning and preparing for a ride like this...?  I will post a packing list and my thoughts on those items next.