By the numbers & superlatives - Rollin' ocean to ocean - CycleBlaze

By the numbers & superlatives

Here is my ride by the numbers

  • I rode 4,114 miles. This website shows I rode 4,009 but it rounds off all daily mileage to the nearest mile while my Garmin is accurate two one decimal place. The official mileage of the Transamaerica is 4,223, what accounts for this discrepancy? In Kentucky I started Day 16 a bit west of where my accident was and missed some miles. I diverted from the route on Day 24 to visit friends in St. Louis and added nearly 180 miles to my journey. On Day 82 I took a bus from Prairie City to Redmond to avoid smoke due to wildfires and missed nearly 150 miles. Of course going slightly off route for grocery stores, restaurants, and certain sites adds a bit to mileage
  • I was on the road for 91 days - 82 biking days and 9 zero days
  • The 4,114 miles were across 82 biking days averaging 50 miles per day
  • I averaged 9.6 miles per hour. Several days I averaged 11-13 mph but that was tempered by climbing days when my average dropped to 7-8.5 mph
  • I climbed roughly 219,000 feet which is 42 miles of climbing
  • Day 41 was my longest day at 77 miles. Day 36 at 7 miles was my shortest
  • My max speed was 42 mph. I usually never went this fast and even on big downhills tried keep my speed to no more than 30 mph
  • Day 58 was my longest day. I was on the road for 12.4 hours and pedaling for 10 hours of that

Here were my goals

  • Ride the Transamerica route from coast to coast. It took me 2 biking seasons to finish this due to my accident, but I finished
  • Never push my bike up a hill, ride up all hills. I had some tough hills that I had to stop on to catch my breath and give my legs a break but I never pushed my bike
  • I was hoping to average 50 miles each day. Across the 82 biking days I averaged almost exactly 50 miles per day

Dollar stores - final count is 82. I thought I would go over 100 but never got there

Superlatives

  • Best bike shop - lots of great shops who worked on my bike but one stands out, Cycles and Cream in Clinton, MO. The combination of the great work done on my bike while I was eating a dish of Tillamook ice cream is hard to beat
  • Best desserts - this was a tough one and a three way tie. Peach Cobbler on Day 1, Tillamook ice cream on Day 28, Key Lime pie on Day 48
  • Best breakfast sandwich - I ate a lot of breakfast sandwiches this summer. In a lot of locations that was the only choice for breakfast. The one I had at Faye's in Murphysboro, Illinois was the best by far
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Ann ManganAnd you even put in the links!!!!

Congratulations also to Beth and all your kids, who worried silently (or not so silently) the entire time you were out there!!!!!!
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