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Comment by mpaal | Hacker News Reader

In 2019 I went on a solo Biketouring trip spanning across Canada, USA, Peru, NZ and Taiwan lasting 10 months. While obviously the means of transportation was draining both physically and mentally it was amazing to be truly immersed in region I was currently visiting.

In general it was great but if I were to do it again I would go way easier and slower on my bike instead of trying to race it plus I would have shortened the trip to last at most 4 months - after 10th National Park or so I stopped appreciating the location as much because I was comparing it to some other that I saw just a couple of weeks before that and the wow factor was no longer there. Seeing too much on the short span of time is a curse of such a trip imho.

All in all it was great and I’d do it again but slightly differently and definitely not as long.

P.S. (Finding job in covid after the tour was really hard despite my data science/ml engineering profile.)

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I see people nonchalantly saying they've done these cross-country bike touring trips, and I have an ignorant question: how do people feel safe while actually riding on the road?

Riding bikes around neighborhoods I can understand when cars are only going 20-25mph, but to travel between cities you'll certainly have to go on either very fast, very busy, or very fast and very busy roads, right? I'd like to understand this because I imagine long distance biking must feel very freeing and exciting.

How many KM did you manage to bike in that time?

In just the very first 30days I went from LA to Seattle through Sierras and Cascades (>3000km & 35000m of elevation) but in total I think it was ~14000km and ~150000m of elevation gain. that’s including taking a 2 months rest for US and Canadian Thanksgiving. Can’t remember the exact general statistics but I believe that whenever I had an active day on my bike I did like 105km and 1200m on average.

Thanks! That's impressive, although I guess 100km per day is actually quite reasonable. For some reason, Los Angeles to Seattle seems a greater distance than 2,000km.

No worries! Yeah I feel the same way. Honestly I was mostly aiming for time not distance, with 4-5h on the bike, because for me it became really painful to go any longer. But that’s super personal and everyone has their own pace. For me it worked, because I could take a 1-2h lunch break, have a dip in a lake or just a chat with the locals. People are super friendly and open no matter if you are in the middle of nowhere States or Peru. Going solo also helped in that matter - I was craving social interactions as you get bored of just your own thoughts. ;) Having other fellow tourers with you is fun but changes the dynamics of the trip and you become less insightful and conscious of the surroundings and you have less interactions with the locals, which I find to be extremely valuable.

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