Fred & Seth's Great Adventure: Summary

I have finally taken the time to gather all the data from the five stages of our Key West to Seattle bicycle trip. Here they are:

Along the way we rode through 13 states: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkasas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

We figured that the entire trip took about ten weeks. It turned out that we were exactly right: 67 days of riding, plus 3 rest days. We also guesstimated our daily average to be around 65 miles and that turned out to be close as well -- just under 66 miles per day. The total mileage I assumed to be 4,500. We actually rode 4,416 (in my case 4,316 because I did not ride the 100 mile day into Yellowstone thanks to my foot injury on that stage). If we hadn't hitched a ride from Jeffrey City to Lander, WY, the miles would have been 4,476, pretty close to our estimate of 4500 miles for the entire route.

It is interesting to note that the first and last stage were almost exactly the same length, though the first stage was a day longer and the last required almost 9 more hours on the bike. The GGT (Colorado-Wyoming) stage had almost as much climbing as the final stage, but it was 6 days less, so it was definitely the most challenging ride of the five.

Colorado was certainly beautiful, and there is little that is more pleasing to my eyes than the water seen from the bridges between the Florida Keys, but the last stage through Montana, Idaho, and Oregon had the most spectacular scenery by a considerable margin, and the most days of it. Montana is my new favorite state (in the summer), and there is much more there, such as Glacier National Park, that I have yet to see.

I love looking at the track, so here it is, again:

Fred and I are both so very grateful to have had the opportunity to do this trip, and we are especially grateful to our wonderful wives, Pat and Kathy, for their support of this dream.

Is there another big tour in our future? We don't have anything specific planned, but I can't say that we aren't kicking around some ideas. It won't be too many years before Fred turns 70 and the desire to do something manly in celebration might well make another appearance.