I've been doing a bit of research lately into planning a route for the 48/10 ride. I've looked at a few rides from people who posted their routes here on the forum, and a few more from Google searches. I think I've found a route that hits all 48 states in 7 days averaging 15 hours and 958 miles a day. In mid-June, that's basically riding all day and sleeping a full night every night. And you'd have 3 days for R&R at the end. Naturally, one of those days is going to be used for whatever weird, unexpected thing comes up, or just a day of R&R in the middle of the ride, or two half days, etc. Or, what is more likely, is two long days at the start to knock out 2,000 to 2,500 miles, then 700 to 800 mile days for the remainder of the and a really easy final day, or just a day of R&R depending on the specifics.
There is a big downside to this route. It starts and ends on different sides of the country. For me, that's just another opportunity to take my time on the way back and collect some National Park stamps, or Pressed Pennies, or do a Sunrise to Sunset ride, or make another push and reverse the route for a back to back 48/10. Yea, I know, back to back 48/10 is a difficult ride to say the least, but this route is 1500 miles shorter than most circular routes. 1500 miles amounts to an extra day or two per leg, which can be up to a 4 day break in the middle of the run. That's a lot of extra R&R that can be spread out throughout the ride specifically to avoid burnout. Ride 3 days, rest one, rinse, repeat.
Clearly, this ride isn't going to happen until well after everything opens up, but I'd still like to get some feedback. This is the first part of the route, and this is the second part. Google Maps didn't have enough waypoints for me to easily fit it on 1 map, so I made two. I also just picked a random gas station or food joint in the cities I used as waypoints, so those are just route markers to make sure I hit every state. Okay, critique my plan! I'm quite certain I've managed to forget something, or overlooked an obvious issue that will be clear to those that have done this before. What did I forget? Am I planning to go through a city that I'd be better off going around for safety reasons? Did I somehow miss a state? Help fix my plan.
Edit: For some strange reason, the links are showing up as email links. I don't know why, but if you right click them and then click "Copy email address" and paste that into the address bar, they work. Not sure what I messed up there. Links are usually easy.
Edit again: Tried to close my email and fix the links. Hopefully it works this time.
There is a big downside to this route. It starts and ends on different sides of the country. For me, that's just another opportunity to take my time on the way back and collect some National Park stamps, or Pressed Pennies, or do a Sunrise to Sunset ride, or make another push and reverse the route for a back to back 48/10. Yea, I know, back to back 48/10 is a difficult ride to say the least, but this route is 1500 miles shorter than most circular routes. 1500 miles amounts to an extra day or two per leg, which can be up to a 4 day break in the middle of the run. That's a lot of extra R&R that can be spread out throughout the ride specifically to avoid burnout. Ride 3 days, rest one, rinse, repeat.
Clearly, this ride isn't going to happen until well after everything opens up, but I'd still like to get some feedback. This is the first part of the route, and this is the second part. Google Maps didn't have enough waypoints for me to easily fit it on 1 map, so I made two. I also just picked a random gas station or food joint in the cities I used as waypoints, so those are just route markers to make sure I hit every state. Okay, critique my plan! I'm quite certain I've managed to forget something, or overlooked an obvious issue that will be clear to those that have done this before. What did I forget? Am I planning to go through a city that I'd be better off going around for safety reasons? Did I somehow miss a state? Help fix my plan.
Edit: For some strange reason, the links are showing up as email links. I don't know why, but if you right click them and then click "Copy email address" and paste that into the address bar, they work. Not sure what I messed up there. Links are usually easy.
Edit again: Tried to close my email and fix the links. Hopefully it works this time.
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