bicycle from Fairbanks to Fort Lauderdale

I had a big crash in 2005 that broke my jaw and my skull. Bicycling hasn’t had the same draw for me and I haven’t been on either of my ridiculously sweet rides since October 29, 2006.

I doubt that I’ll return to the bicycle anytime soon. I highly doubt I’ll really ever do a bike tour across North America, especially if it involves riding through the Deep South, which is notoriously bad for cyclists.

I live in the Silicon Valley and recently a sheriff’s deputy hit and killed two world-class cyclists (one of whom was an Olympic hopeful) and claimed he “fell asleep at the wheel.” Even here in leftist California, drivers aren’t looking for cyclists and are openly hostile to other road users.

So, I’ll look into another great adventure. Maybe I’ll paddle a kayak around Vancouver Island or something.

Let’s see…

If I turn the freeways down to 5 mph (so that my mapping software has to find alternate routes), my software tells me it’s 4853 miles through Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. Averaging 75 miles a day, that’s about 65 days. At six days a week (factoring on one rest day a week), that’s about eleven weeks. Seems like leaving Alaska some enchanted May would place me in Florida in early August. Perhaps departing Alaska in August instead would avoid the heat of a southern summer and see me arrive at the Atlantic in late October.

Hmm… That’s the dilemma. When can you leave Alaska (when it’s warm enough and late enough in the year that the grizzlies aren’t starving from recent hibernation) yet arrive in Florida when it’s not quite a million degrees in the shade?