One of the most important things when planning a cross-country bike trip is determining the route.  We knew that we wanted to do the trip on our own rather than as part of a planned and supported tour.  There are several ‘established’ routes available such as the TransAm (the 1976 granddaddy of  cross country bike routes), the Southern Tier, and the Northern Tier along with The Great American Rail Trail, a work in progress to develop a cross country route completely on bike trails and paths.  There are also some routes done by others who are willing to share them.  We didn't have a lot of specific locations we wanted to include that might require a unique route.  Unless you really want to plan out routes for 70-80 days or more, these existing routes offer a tested and proven route that consider the  availability of services like food, water, camping or lodging, safety, and prior testing with much less effort. 

Considering my initial reluctance to take on a cross-country ride, you won’t be surprised to find out my first choice was the Southern Tier because, at the time we first started researching routes, it was the shortest route and had the least elevation of the ‘big three” routes.  Janice, on the other hand, wanted to do the Northern Tier route.  After some time, I acquiesced and thought I we had a plan.  And I assumed we’d travel west to east but, you know what they say about you and me and assume …  Janice wanted to start in Cape Cod and head west from there!

We kept reading journals on Crazy Guy On A Bike, CycleBlaze & Facebook groups on bike camping and bike touring.  We thought (well, maybe it was just me) that we’d found our route with the Great American Rail Trail.  And then, Janice stumbled onto the Great American Wheel Route.  The Great American Wheel Route is a 3600-mile route that starts at the Space Needle in Seattle, WA and ends in Washington, DC at the Washington Monument, but we’re going to do it in reverse.  The route consists of gravel paths, paved paths, gravel and paved roadways, with a goal to be separated from vehicle traffic as much as possible and to minimize elevation gain.  The Great American Wheel Route has about 113,000 feet of elevation gain and over 45% of the route is on off-road trails.  Less traffic and less climbing sounded good to me! 

Here’s a link to the 2025 route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/45419755?lang=en.   I really tried to copy an image of the route but I’m still working on some of those technical skills.

We are modifying the route between Pittsburg, PA and Dayton, OH to go through Hocking Hills in Ohio and to visit with friends near Cincinnati.  We may modify the route so we get to see the Tetons and Yellowstone and go by our daughter’s house in Montana.  These changes may add a few miles and some climbing but the trade off is well worth it to us.  We also plan to push on past Seattle, WA to La Push, WA on the Pacific coast on the Olympic peninsula.  This will increase our total mileage from DC to 3900 – 4000 miles.  While we aren’t riding to Virginia Beach or some other option to get all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, we want to ride the Olympic Discovery Trail and we want to make it all the way to the Pacific Ocean at La Push, WA.  It will add a couple hundred miles each way from Seattle to La Push and back but I’m confident we’ll complete this final leg of the biking portion of the trip.  On the other hand, when I suggested we repeat the San Juan Island ferry and biking trip that was our first bike tour, I was met with a quick ‘no’, we’ll have been gone long enough by then!  

Our family and friends who don’t ride bikes thinks that it’s bonkers to ride 4000 miles across the country by bicycle.  In our mind, almost every day is a good day for a bike ride and those days, like today when it’s pouring rain with a little hail outside as I write this, we’ll hope to take a rest day in a hotel and just wait out the storms.  So it’s not like we’re gonna ride 4000 miles non-stop.  It’s more like taking a 50-mile ride.  We’re just gonna do it 80 days in a row!

We’re adding another element of adventure by taking Amtrak from Dallas, TX to DC via Chicago and then we plan to take Amtrak back to Dallas via Los Angeles where we’ll take a stopover to visit friends in southern California.  We  took Amtrak across MO when we did the Katy Trail last year but 5 hours versus 52 hours for the Dallas to DC portion is a whole ‘nother thing!!

Twenty days till we get on Amtrak!

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