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Routes / Re: St. AUgustine to San Diego, soon
« on: May 27, 2020, 12:45:39 pm »I have a few problems with that. Doing all that stuff when at home where water is easy to have available and AC is nearby is one thing. Doing it on tour is another. Doing it on tour on a route that has any services extremely widely spaced is still another. I recall some very long stretches on the ST with no chance to resupply water, no chance to pop in to air conditioning, and even no shade. On a mid-Feb thru mid-Mar trip I needed to carry a lot of water at times. If it were to be 110F I can't imagine how much water I'd have gone through or how unpleasant it would have been.Well, I didn't say it was easy, but you can carry ten gallons with you if you try. You certainly don't need to do that every day. One nice thing about the ACA maps is that they warn you when stretches are coming up with sparse services.
These days, I live in Tallahassee where it is summer 9 months of the year so I have put up with a hot summer day or two. I remember a few days in the SW like a few where we were in the Needles where the heat was relentless or one near the aptly named Caliente where I was rationing my water in triple digit heat after finding no water available where I thought it was.I admit that tolerating the heat in the dry West is different than tolerating the heat in the humid East. Because evaporation actually works in the West, heat is more easily mitigated there. In the humid East, water may not be all you need. In Phoenix, I have gone for a hard 10-mile run at noon on a 122-degree day with no ill effects, but I stop frequently for water.
John, I have a lot of respect for your opinions in general. In this case I do wonder about whether this particular one is based on any first hand experience with this route or one with similarly long hot empty stretches in summer. If so my hat is off to your toughness with regard to your ability to survive and thrive in the heat on tour in remote country.I have not ridden the ST, but I have ridden across the Mojave Desert on Bicycle Route 66 in temperatures well above 100. The Mojave has similar long stretches without services, including a stretch of almost two days with no water. It takes four days to get across it. And I have ridden a 107 mile day in 99 degrees in eastern Montana with only one refill point available.
The thing is for me the ST doesn't really offer all that much compared to the other possible options. Doing it in summer you'd be suffering with hauling huge amounts of water between widely spaced resupply point, past monotonous scenery, through brutal heat. In exchange you'd get the shortest XC route with the least climbing and an interesting sampling of people and cuisines. So IMO, much better to just do a more northern route unless you must do choose it for the shorter duration or really want the reduction in the amount of mountains. In that case I'd do it in cooler weather. Brutal heat is something that sometimes you can't avoid in the US in Summer for a coast to coast trip, but when there is a better options I really don't see subjecting myself to the worst one. Then again the ST may be someone else's dream trip for reason's that I just fail to see. Someone else may love the solitude of days and days of empty brown sagebrush.No argument from me on that, but the OP said he wanted to do St. Augustine to San Diego, and he wanted to do it soon. I have no visibility into his motives.