What do you think? It's about 8,000 miles total. From what I've seen there isn't much of a shorter way to hit every state.
At 2,000 miles per month that's about 4 months. Start during the summer in the north and finish in the south before winter really kicks in. I don't think it's ideal for wind patterns, but in general it works out.
I'm looking for something to do this summer. Eventually I want to do the Pan-Am, but I need a smaller goal in the meanwhile.
by Public_Day_4996
12 Comments
If you really want to its fine. But why? Go to the beautiful places with great riding. Not for some silly made up objective
I would spend more time in the west. Bike tour every national park from NM/CO/WY/MO west or something. I got better things to do with my life than Nebraska and Oklahoma…
Then go for the Panam. It’ll blow your mind.
-OR- actuslly better, just head south now. You’ll figure it out, and it’ll be 1000x more mind blowing and formative than eating shit food at a Flying J or Cracker Barrel.
You will see a lot of flat boring places.
From A to B it looks like you are doing Highway 12, a friend of mind did it with his nephew, it’s quite beautiful along the Upper Clearwater and Lochsa, but once you get into the great planes, it’s really kind of the same.
Are you starting from Irrigon or Umatilla?
There are pretty rides along the Columbia heading east, then into the Wallas.
Just thinking out loud because I know this area pretty well.
That la crosse to chicago route would suuuuuck lol. There is already a designated US bike route that can take you from la crosee to milwaukee mostly on trails. Then straight down to chicago on mostly trails again instead of country interstate riding.
Would be worth glossing over the route and looking for small things like this as there may be certain routes on here where you’re making yourself deal with some crappy conditions when there are better lines to be taken
cool idea to me. though maybe be careful in the southeast, some of those states are absolute hell holes for bikes if you don’t stick to trails
This route is really a primer on how to miss the best parts of WA, OR, WY, CO, UT, and CA. If your goal is truly just to touch each state, I suppose this is efficient and any road offers plenty of fun if you have the right mindset. I mean, I’m still debating if I did a ride in Maine when I did something similar after finishing a tour in Portsmouth, NH—and rode the bridge across the river to touch Maine.
If you’re going to do this I highly suggest tagging on the extra milage at the end to make it to the pacific. Crossing the eastern part of ca sucks in the summer but you’ll be there closer to the winter so I might not be too bad.
Also going east to west in the south can really suck at times with a loaded bike you are going to be battling head winds and slight elevation gain. Makes for a very mentally challenging journey.
Can’t comment on route specifics but go for it. It’s your time and folks in here telling you to do different routes because they wouldn’t like it can’t seem to imagine the sense of accomplishment at the end.
I’ve driven some parts of the route and not everything will be gorgeous, but even with that in mind I’m sure you’ll see some amazing stuff and create some memories – both good (woo amazing ppl!) and bad (wtf was that 5 day headwind??).
Do you ride a lot? 2000 miles / month is a lot and doesn’t really leave much time to see stuff and relax. This is around 70mi / day without any rest days. More power to you if this is what you want to do.
There may be a Guiness World Record you could go for.
It’ll make for a great story, but I don’t think you’d actually enjoy much of it. Even if you never had to climb a single hill or push through any headwinds, it’d still be a brutal workload to maintain every day for four months.
And while your route checks all of the state boxes, it doesn’t allow time for you to see any of the things that actually make many of them interesting. The plan for Florida, Texas, and the whole west coast is almost criminal.
I think your future self would rather see you slow down and get your 48 states one region at a time.
I think you should find a better country for a bike tour
I wonder if you could do Canada to Mexico to Canada. Start in Vancouver in late Spring, take the (gorgeous) [RSVP route](https://cascade.org/rides-events/rsvp-2025) to Seattle, take the (less gorgeous but not bad, and very flat and fast) [STP route](https://cascade.org/rides-events/seattle-portland-2026) to Portland, work your way through forests and mountains to Northern CA, follow Hwy 1 all the way (more or less) to San Diego, cross into TJ, then work your way (probably after bopping back up to the US) to FL, then work up the coast through all the way to Maine and the border. Bonus points if you want to cut back through VT and NH and go to Montreal.