The Road

A comparison of coast-to-coast cycling routes

Friends for Phinney

Parkinson's Disease fundraiser.

http://friendsforphinney.org/bike-route/

This looks do-able. From a purely athletic perspective it is very ideal. Not too far south where it's deadly hot, not too many mountains or deserts.

It just feels boring though. 42 days going 90 miles per day over the flat terrain of the Midwest. Not really the journey I'm looking for.

Mike Atkins & James O'Beirne

Some people who blogged their bike trip.

http://ahadventure.us/route.html

Those guys took a hard route through Colorado mountains and Nevada, jeez! Silly white people man.

Hike

The guy who walked it, Aaron Huey, did this:

http://www.aaronhuey.com/walk/pages/aaronhuey/walk_index.html

If I follow this route, at least I know I can run it.

Adventure Cycling Association

Sellers of maps. Lots of options here.

https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/interactive-network-map/

I think I'll try the bottom orange route along the Mexican border.

Strap a block of ice on my back to fight the 110F temperature and hope Muricans don't mistake me for an illegal. Trump better not build his wall in my way.

I shall call it:

My YOLO Route

The one I decide to go wherever dafuq I want, as I travel along the boundary of the country.

https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/united_states_wall_2002_us.jpg

Pros:

• I never been to the deep south. After this, I'll have been all over it.
• If Mexicans hopping the border are such a concern, they must have a nearby town to get to. So I'm betting there's enough civilization down there that I can stop in town every day.
• It's a fucking smiley face on the map.
• No mountains to deal with.
• Staying close to water. Literally, biking along the coast from one to the other. As Coast to Coast as you can get.

Cons:

• Texas is fucking huge.
• Scorpions, rattlesnakes, and god knows what else I'm ignorant of. Crocodiles. Swamp mosquito malaria.
• 110F heat stroke.
• Mexicans with towns that I can't read the signs cause it's all Spanish.
• Lynch mobs, KKK, crime, and the Confederacy. Darth Vader. Scar. Rita Repulsa. Carmen San Diego. Voldemort.
• Hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, Crabby Dicks, Bubba Gump Shrimp.