Final Thoughts and Stats

Five Days After

With the trip having been over for five days, today (Monday) was the first time I got on the bike since Yorktown.  A friend from Buffalo drove down to Yorktown and brought me back up to stay with him and his fiancé. The bike stayed in his car until this morning. I felt incredibly lazy going from getting on the bike day after day to having  four days in a row of virtually no physical activity. So it was good to go for a ride this morning in Buffalo, even though it’s a little cold and I just rode up to the cafe, where I’m writing this now.

Looking back on the trip, here are a few thoughts:

• It was well worth it. The pace at which you see things and the variety of scenery and historical spots kept it interesting. Also, the interaction I had with people of all backgrounds along the way made it especially worthwhile, as well as the feeling when reaching the finish line at Victory Monument in Yorktown on the Virginia coast.

• It wasn’t always easy.  I mentioned in the past that there weren’t many “easy” days, but I never felt so worn down that I wasn’t ready to go the next day and never dreaded getting on the bike.  Overall I was very happy with how I held up and that I didn’t have any setbacks or injuries that affected me.

• The US may have its issues, especially with different political views these days, but I can’t say enough about the hospitality and friendliness of the people throughout the trip.

• Being from Florida and used to flat land, the hills never seemed to go away. I won’t forget the slow motion feeling of chugging up the extended ones and the disbelief of how on some days they seemed to be around every corner.  I can’t complain in any way about the weather (I still can’t believe I rode in rain for less than 90 minutes the whole trip), but I was surprised that I only had one day where I felt like I had a true, consistent tailwind from start to finish.

• As nice as it was to do some camping and stay in some unusual places, a motel room was very welcome. And if not a motel room, any place with a roof. I noticed that this was the feeling of many people I met along the way, but there were definitely those who loved to camp.

• A rough estimate is that 10,000 cars and trucks drove past me in either direction during the trip.  Of these I’d say ten did something stupid, such as someone yelling something negative out the window, or honking the horn aggressively for absolutely no reason. But that equates to 0.1%,  or a tenth of one percent.  On the other hand, I’d say that the number of people giving a wave as they went by or honking in a friendly way was easily in the hundreds.

• Even though I was mostly on rural roads, there were times when I had to take roads with more traffic, including logging and coal trucks, with no shoulder to ride on.  There weren’t any extremely close calls, but you had to be careful and aware of what was going on.  While I would recommend this trip to anyone who wants to try it, it’s not without a certain amount of risk.

• Compared with having done a cross country trip in 1985 when there were no cell phones or internet, it’s hard to say which was better.  Keeping the blog this time around was a chore, but now that it’s over it’s good to have.  Technology was also useful in a variety of situations, so maybe it was the best of both worlds; disconnecting to a certain degree, but having it when I needed it.

Final Stats:

Length of trip: 84 days (12 weeks)

Riding days: 74

Rest days: 10

Miles ridden: 4,377 (7,044 kilometers)

Average miles per day for the 74 days of riding: 59.1

Average miles per day for all days, including rest days: 52.1

Longest day: 104.25 miles

Shortest day: 20.34 miles

Top speed: 43.6mph (70.1kph)

Times I fell off the bike: Zero

Times I almost fell off the bike: Zero

Flat tires: Four (one front, three rear)

Other mechanical problems: None