Route

Welcome to my xCountryRyder Blog.  This summer, I will be riding my bike from Pacific to Atlantic (San Francisco to Maine).  I will be updating this blog whenever I get the chance along my journey.  

Here is an overview of my route:

If you would like to follow my trip through pictures and through an interactive map, please visit Click Here for Map and Pics.

The daily climb (the last column) is my significant statistic. That is only up, not up less down. Day 4 is the consistent grind up and over Donner's Pass. Coming down the east side is a scream, literally - it is very steep and speeds of 50 mph+ on a bike is not unheard of. In practice I have only been in the 40's on the mountains here in Alabama. (My coach mentioned... hmmm... hate to break the news to you... what you have in Alabama are not exactly mountains.  Next week I will be introduced formally to mountains.) Days 50th and 51st are rough, but nobody ever gives up that late in the challenge.  The roads in the east are much steeper and the New Englanders are so proud of them that we seem to go over the same hills a dozen times.  The first day of the ride has the steepest climb on the entire route, a 17% climb.

Notes on Donner Pass (Wikipedia) Donner Pass (el. 7,056 ft (2,151 m))^[1] is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake about 9 miles (14 km) west of Truckee, California. It has a steep approach from the east and a gradual approach from the west