Looking to Bike From Vegas to DC

[Christine2c]

Hi -

My main question is: Is it possible to make it from Vegas to DC in 58 days? I do not know of any route from vegas to Cedar City, Utah and the Western Express. I have the panniers, tent, etc.  I'm worried of the cost of eating out for all that time.  I am not sure how well the maps are at pointing me in the direction of campgrounds.

I believe I could ride 40 to 50 miles per day with one day off a week. I will be leaving Vegas on I plan on camping and traveling alone. It is a trip to raise awareness about school bullying.

Any advice you could share would be welcome.

Thank you,
Christine

[staehpj1]

With a very direct route it would work out to about 41 miles per day with no rest days.  You will probably wind up with a less direct route though.  Given your parameters of 40-50 mile days and a day off per week it would take almost exactly that long.  If your route winds up being substantially longer, you might take a bit longer.

[John Nelson]

The "regular" Google maps route says 2458 miles. The "Avoid Highways" route, which often produces an acceptable bicycling route, and is useful for planning bicycling distances, says 2620 miles. At 240 miles a week, that's 76 days. At 300 miles a week, that's 61 days. So it's just a bit outside your parameters, but still probably doable. Note that there won't be good stopping points every 40 or 50 miles, so your mileage may vary, sometimes considerably. Also note that some people (e.g., me) find that they neither want nor need rest days.

If you want to use ACA routes, the mileage will probably be higher yet.

Eating out will cost about half as much if you buy your food in grocery stores rather than restaurants, even if you don't cook. If you do cook, you can save even more.

I'm curious as to what your plan is to "raise awareness". Are you planning to set up speaking appearances? Or newspaper interviews? Or???

[Christine2c]

Hello,
I came up with roughly the same calculations - but I did it the long way adding all of the milage up from the ACA maps and then dividing it by the number of days I had.  It left me no days off or time to explore.

Thank you very kindly for your responses.  I am re-thinking the trip for a number of reasons.  There isn't enough support for the cause and if I were doing a bike trip for purely pleasure, I would be traveling to Europe. Soooo, I'm thinking of doing a bike trip for pleasure.

This summer will be time for me! Have a fantastic day!

Christine