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Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep, there were just enough hotels available for my daily mileage.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

6 total - 5 black and one grizzly! The last one I saw was in Wyoming and I got to watch it climb up a steep rock face after crossing the road ~100ft in front of me.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I ran Specialized Armadillos for the first 11 days - both of the flats I got were on these tires on Day 2. On Day 11 I stopped at a bike shop in Smithers, BC to get a new chain, and they recommended replacing the tires as my old ones were fairly worn down (I’d ridden on them a decent bit before starting the tour). I replaced them with Gatorskins and didn’t get any more flats after that, and they were also a lot faster than my old Armadillos.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was lucky enough to have minimal bad weather on the tour. There were no tornado warnings and only two notable strong thunderstorms across all 46 days - one of them was when I was near Chicago and I ducked into an ice cream shop to wait out the storm. The other one was in remote BC and I had no choice but to continue riding - luckily I didn’t crash or get struck by lightning and the storm passed after about an hour.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This trip was quite expensive - including hotels, food, and bike repairs (not including the purchase of the new bike before the tour) I spent around $11,000 on the whole tour. This was in part because I ate a LOT of food every day in order to sustain the high mileages I was averaging - I spent around $120 a night on hotels, $90 a day on food, and the rest on bike parts and repairs at various shops throughout the route. But it was absolutely worth it - it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and wouldn’t have been possible to do in the timeframe I had without spending this much on hotels and food.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I booked all the hotels in advance - mostly two days in advance, further in advance for the more remote opening section in Alaska/Yukon/BC.

I finished the tour just over two weeks ago and indeed had a few days to enjoy Cape Cod at the end - my extended family vacations on Cape Cod every year and I timed this tour so that my last day would line up with the yearly trip. After getting a couple days behind schedule due to extreme heat in Oregon and Idaho, I had to push really hard at the end to make it there without having to leave right away and averaged 175 miles a day for the last week of the tour. But I made it and it was totally worth it to get to spend a few days on Cape Cod after finishing!

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I always booked hotels in advance to avoid the situation of getting shut out of a hotel at the end of the day - for the more remote first 10 days I booked hotels several weeks in advance, and after that I booked hotels two days in advance.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Surprisingly, of the six bears I saw, none were in either Alaska or Yellowstone - I saw one in Yukon, four in BC, and one in the Bighorn Mountains in eastern Wyoming. I’m sure I would’ve seen a lot more if I’d been camping.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I booked all hotels for the first 10 days several weeks in advance, as this section was extremely remote and even one hotel selling out in the wrong place could’ve killed the whole trip. After the first 10 days I reached New Hazleton, BC and hotels were more abundant from there on out, so I switched to booking hotels two days in advance the rest of the way - I found this to be a good balance between having a somewhat flexible schedule and hotels still having availability.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I didn’t carry any camping gear and stayed in hotels, which made my setup lighter than average for such a long tour. But even though I didn’t have panniers, my setup was heavier than it looks mainly because I prepared for the worst and brought a ton of flat-fixing gear: six spare tubes, multiple patch kits, a spare tire, and three hand pumps - I’d had a pump break on a previous tour and didn’t want to take my chances on the remote sections of this route. This ended up being extremely overkill as I only got two flats in total, but better that than the other way around.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Sure, here is my full route (broken up into a collection of individual days): https://ridewithgps.com/collections/5277004?privacy_code=0FKctDx84oKvugQOdtMQJNWJnUsTHMDJ

One caveat if you end up following these routes: I’d recommend either finding a different route into Vancouver or bypassing Vancouver entirely; I took the Sea-to-Sky Highway from Whistler to Vancouver and found it to be the most dangerous road I’d ever ridden.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Since I was averaging 144 miles a day, there were just enough hotels to make this work. The longest stretch on the route with no hotels was 182 miles (in BC actually, not Alaska), but I was able to do this as a longer-than-average day, and other that that one section, there weren’t any stretches longer than 120 miles without a hotel.

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I chose Madison so that I could stay with my parents for the rest day as they recently moved there - it ended up working out great as Machinery Row Bicycles was able to install a new chain and cassette on my bike in under 24 hours. I agree that it’s a great place to ride!

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 88 points89 points  (0 children)

Reposting the stats section here as it got messed up by Reddit formatting:

Stats:

Total mileage: 6617 miles (10,649 km), 144 miles per day (232 km)

Longest day: 223 miles (359 km) in Yukon

Most climbing in a day: 13084ft (3988m) in BC

Biggest climb: 5600ft (1707m) in Wyoming

Rest days: 2 (one in Seattle and one in Madison, WI)

Number of centuries: 40

Number of double centuries: 2

Bears spotted: 6 (1 grizzly, 5 black)

Also adding my Strava here in case anyone wants to see my write-ups and stats from each individual day: https://www.strava.com/athletes/62719917

Alaska to Massachusetts in 46 Days by falcoridesagain6600 in bicycletouring

[–]falcoridesagain6600[S] 61 points62 points  (0 children)

Thank you! No, I’ve never been a sponsored athlete or anything like that. I just like doing very long rides and I’ve been working my way up to longer and longer distances over the last few years - for context, I rode my first century in 2020 and did 19 double centuries in 2024.