The idea of being a "crazy guy on a bike" stems from Neil Gunton's 1998 crossing of America, and his blog about it, titled "Crazyguy on a Bike". In making his crossing, Neil followed the TransAmerica Route. This route was laid out in 1976 for the "Bikecentennial" and has been maintained and vastly extended since by the organization Adventure Cycling.

Though the TransAmerica route starts in the Northwest, at Astoria, Oregon, it swoops down to the centre of the country and heads east in earnest, from Pueblo, Colorado. So the TransAmerica can be thought of as the central route. Since then, Adventure Cycling has developed two dozen additional routes, spanning in total over 60,000 km. Among these, one bumps along the Canadian border and is called the Northern Tier. And one bumps along the Mexican border. It is called the Southern Tier.

The Northern Tier and TransAmerica both exceed 6,000 km in length, while the Southern Tier is a wimpy 5000 km.

Let me hasten to add that unlike the EuroVelo system on the Continent and the Route Verte in Quebec, Adventure Cycling has not gone out to negotiate with cities about connecting or building bikeways to create long distance passages, and they have not gone out and tacked up a single sign to show the way. Rather, they merely advise (through their map sets) on the best way to make it from A to B in cycle unfriendly America. If you are then crazy enough to try it, good luck.

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The Southern Tier route, as described by Adventure Cycling "offers challenging terrain right from the start, with some longer climbs leaving San Diego all the way up to In-ko-pah Pass, about 70 miles east of the Pacific Ocean. There are two mountain passes in New Mexico, the highest being Emory Pass at 8,228 feet, which is also the route's highest point. The route just north of Silver City, New Mexico, which goes to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, offers some steep, challenging, rolling climbs and descents, as does the hill country west of Austin, Texas. East of Austin the route flattens out as it meanders through piney woods, by bayous, along farmlands and woodlots, and past the Gulf Coast all the way to the Atlantic Ocean."

The thing about the Southern Tier that seems attractive to the Grampies right now is the notion of being "southern". Canadians in Winter have a genetic disposition to head either to the ski hills, or South. Grampies don't ski, so that leaves South.

The official title for Canadians heading South in Winter is "Snowbirds". Snowbirds from Quebec have the effect of changing the language of regions of Florida to French. The thing is Snowbirds just fly to a beach and stick there. That locates them either in Florida or California or in the sands (not quite beach) of Arizona. But Grampie snowbirds are always on the go, and that's a problem.

The problem is that in between the beaches are pesky mountains. And mountains in winter have a habit of being covered in snow. Snow! We already established that Grampies hate snow.

So the first planning question for this tour was what to do about snow. Clearly, the mountains are not about to move, but we could hit them earlier or later in the season, depending on which side we would start from.

Somehow the "natural" direction for the crossing is West to East. Just look at how Adventure Cycling made their write up. So we put out a call for advice on just how bad it could be in the western mountains in January. The answer came back - bad. We saw photos of bikes in snow and fingers and toes freezing in their gloves and socks. Hmmm.

So it looks like we will join the Quebec snowbirds and start in Florida.

Perils of the Route

Variable temperatures

Depending where we are on the route, we think it could be fairly warm, down to very chilly. That means, to be prepared, we need if not bathing suits at least mosquito protection, all the way to storm parkas and down sweaters. At least we think we do. So that means making space in the panniers and accepting the extra weight of lots of different layers of clothing. Hopefully as we go along we will be able to mail home certain stuff. However given that we chose to start in the East, we will have to drag those sweaters, closed toe shoes, etc. all across the continent before hopefully using them (or not) in the Western deserts or mountains.

Mosquitoes Some blogs we have read describe cyclists really tormented by mosquitoes in the East. We are not sure where or if this will be an issue for us. Still, we will start off carrying pyrethrin impregnated mesh hoodies. We hope this will be early mail backs.

Empty Stretches Unlike Europe, America is mostly filled with nothing. Nothing can be intriguing, but it is also a challenge if you are looking for "something". "Something" can include water or stove fuel or food. And if you add that a 20" Schwalbe touring tire - no way!

Traffic

The parts of America not filled with nothing are filled with traffic. We expect big cities along the way to be challenging to get through. This is where we hope the Adventure Cycling maps will show the way.

Poverty

Although America is a wealthy country, the wealth is concentrated along the coasts and in the Northeast. Many areas really are poor, meaning that motels, campgrounds, groceries, transportation, etc. are poor. The most daunting of these for us will be poor food. Hundreds of kms with no bakeries. Oh my God!

Note: To be fair, Adventure Cycling is a supporter of the US Bicycle Route System. Their website says this about it: The U.S. Bicycle Route System is a developing national network of bicycle routes, which will link urban, suburban, and rural areas using a variety of appropriate cycling facilities. To date, 5,616 miles of U.S. Bike Routes have been established in 9 states. Presently, more than 40 states are working to create U.S. Bicycle Routes."