Hudson, Mass. - For the edification of anyone who particularly cares, here are the lovingly complied statistics from the trip. They get a bit complicated and obtuse at times, so bear with me. Since I effectively took two trips with very different tones - Anacortes to Bar Harbor, then the less focused jaunt around Nova Scotia and down to Massachusetts I've mostly divided the numbers into the "cross-country" portion and the "after" portion, with a few numbers reflecting both. The ones in bold are the ones I'm most proud of.
Total miles traveled (both trips): 6,138
Total miles traveled (cross-country): 5,030ish
Total miles traveled (after): 1,100ish
Those numbers reflect every single mile I went on the bike, including tooling around on my days off. Based on those numbers, I averaged 88 miles a day on the first trip and just 51 on the second trip.
However, if you don't count my days off, I averaged 103 miles a day on the cross-country trip and 97 afterwards. I consider those much more accurate numbers.
Length of trip: 57 days cross-country(incl. 10 days off); 19 days afterward (incl. 9 days off)
Longest day: 149 miles (from outside Cleveland to outside Buffalo)
Fastest speed: 43.9 mph, down a steep hill(obviously) in New Hampshire. I probably went faster than this at other times, but at speeds like that I'm usually too busy hanging on for dear life to check the speedometer.
States passed through: 16 (WA,ID,MT,ND,MN,WI,IA,IL,IN,OH,PA,NY,VT,NH,ME,MA)
Provinces passed through: 4 (AB,ON,NB,NS)
Time zones passed through: 5
Cheapest campsites: $0(several occasions)
Most expensive campsite: $35(!), Searsport, Maine (fortunately, I was sharing it with another cyclist. So I never spent more than $19 for a night.)
Fast food meals: 2 (Dairy Queen, Malta, Montana; Taco John's, Kankakee, Illinois)
Hotels: 3 (Sandpoint, Idaho; Malta, Montana; Raquette Lake, New York)
Hostels: 6
Nights 'free camping': 2 (outside the Mason's Hall in Lubec, Maine; 100 feet down a nature trail in Exeter, New Hampshire)
Broken spokes: 6
Broken spokes fixed at Christian teen centers: 1 (no, really)
Front wheels/tires run through: 1
Rear wheels run through: 3
Rear tires run through: 6
Boat and ferry trips: 10
Numbers of rides hitched due to bike problems: 3(Outside Cardston, Alberta; outside Stillwater, Minnesota; outside Saint John, New Brunswick. For the record, I went back after the first two rides and completed the sections of the route I had skipped in the car, thus making this a true coast-to-coast bike trip; I didn't do that in New Brunswick, but that was after the coast-to-coast bit anyway.)
Close calls with motor vehicles: 3 (Idiot almost-sideswiping truckers in Iowa and Maine; idiot almost-sideswiping pickup driver in Maine)
Close calls with other bikers: 1 (The only time I was forced off the pavement the entire trip was by a dumb 12-year-old coming my way on a bike path as wide as a two-lane road who managed to swerve about 15 feet into my path for no apparent reason. Sigh.)
Other cross-country bikers encountered: I'd guess about 30, total. Most of them were in groups, and most were heading east like me.
Number of peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-a-tortilla sandwiches eaten: Lost count after about 150
Total miles traveled (both trips): 6,138
Total miles traveled (cross-country): 5,030ish
Total miles traveled (after): 1,100ish
Those numbers reflect every single mile I went on the bike, including tooling around on my days off. Based on those numbers, I averaged 88 miles a day on the first trip and just 51 on the second trip.
However, if you don't count my days off, I averaged 103 miles a day on the cross-country trip and 97 afterwards. I consider those much more accurate numbers.
Length of trip: 57 days cross-country(incl. 10 days off); 19 days afterward (incl. 9 days off)
Longest day: 149 miles (from outside Cleveland to outside Buffalo)
Fastest speed: 43.9 mph, down a steep hill(obviously) in New Hampshire. I probably went faster than this at other times, but at speeds like that I'm usually too busy hanging on for dear life to check the speedometer.
States passed through: 16 (WA,ID,MT,ND,MN,WI,IA,IL,IN,OH,PA,NY,VT,NH,ME,MA)
Provinces passed through: 4 (AB,ON,NB,NS)
Time zones passed through: 5
Cheapest campsites: $0(several occasions)
Most expensive campsite: $35(!), Searsport, Maine (fortunately, I was sharing it with another cyclist. So I never spent more than $19 for a night.)
Fast food meals: 2 (Dairy Queen, Malta, Montana; Taco John's, Kankakee, Illinois)
Hotels: 3 (Sandpoint, Idaho; Malta, Montana; Raquette Lake, New York)
Hostels: 6
Nights 'free camping': 2 (outside the Mason's Hall in Lubec, Maine; 100 feet down a nature trail in Exeter, New Hampshire)
Broken spokes: 6
Broken spokes fixed at Christian teen centers: 1 (no, really)
Front wheels/tires run through: 1
Rear wheels run through: 3
Rear tires run through: 6
Boat and ferry trips: 10
Numbers of rides hitched due to bike problems: 3(Outside Cardston, Alberta; outside Stillwater, Minnesota; outside Saint John, New Brunswick. For the record, I went back after the first two rides and completed the sections of the route I had skipped in the car, thus making this a true coast-to-coast bike trip; I didn't do that in New Brunswick, but that was after the coast-to-coast bit anyway.)
Close calls with motor vehicles: 3 (Idiot almost-sideswiping truckers in Iowa and Maine; idiot almost-sideswiping pickup driver in Maine)
Close calls with other bikers: 1 (The only time I was forced off the pavement the entire trip was by a dumb 12-year-old coming my way on a bike path as wide as a two-lane road who managed to swerve about 15 feet into my path for no apparent reason. Sigh.)
Other cross-country bikers encountered: I'd guess about 30, total. Most of them were in groups, and most were heading east like me.
Number of peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-a-tortilla sandwiches eaten: Lost count after about 150
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About me
I'm Tom Moran, a bicyclist from Fairbanks, Alaska. I'm spending the summer of 2006 riding from Anacortes, Wash., to Bar Harbor, Maine.
Oh, Tom, I'm so proud of you. Congratulations, and stuff. The important thing from all this, of course, is that I now get to tell people that one of my college buddies biked across the whole damn United States. Wow. That's just so cool for me.