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As much as is practical I intend to stay on the routes published by Adventure Cycling Association (www.adventurecycling.org). I have never used their maps but I have purchased them and looked them over carefully. They seem to be excellent for my purpose. They certainly have had more experience than I have in planning routes that are safe and efficient.
I would like to use their maps all the way but, alas, the metro Atlanta area seems to have been left out of their planning. None-the-less, I will use sections of their TransAmerica Trail, their Northern Tier Trail, and their Great Rivers Trail, connected by stretches of my own laboriously planned route.
I have ridden a large section of my own route here in the Southeast. That was done on the trip, previously mentioned, to Columbia, Tennessee. Monumental stupidity on my part kept us from riding all the way through the Land Between the Lakes as we had originally planned. I managed to kick my spare parts bag under the motel bed in Scottsboro, Alabama and didn’t notice that it was missing until I had two flat tires within a half mile of each other near Columbia. No spare tubes, no tire tools, no patch kit, no nothing. A very friendly gentleman (I didn't catch his name) gave us a ride in his pickup truck into Columbia and we spent the night in a motel. The next morning we tried to locate new tubes but the only bike shop in Columbia did not have any. Although I could have purchased tire tools and a patch kit at the bike shop, I felt that it was foolish to travel the other half of the trip with no spare tubes or any other tools. If we waited for a special order to arrive the vacation would be over anyway so I called Jan for an emergency rescue. She and our good friend Peggy drove the 250 miles by car to pick us up and carry us home, with our tails between our legs.
The good part of the trip to Columbia was that the route was acceptable, the traffic bearable, and the heat tolerable at 95 degrees on at least two of the days. The bad part was that we had finished all of the mountain riding and were just getting to the level stretches. We had only made 37 and 30 miles, respectively, on the first two days of that trip (the mountains, remember). But we made 63 miles the third day and were well on our way to a 75 mile fourth day, despite the rain and lightning storm. Pictures of this trip can be seen here.
I am hoping that having the support vehicle along will allow me to make longer days with no need to necessarily stop in the towns with motels whenever I should happen to get there.
If you have Microsoft Streets and Trips software and you are interested, you may download my route to see much more detail. Right click here, then select "save as" to store the route. Then open the resulting file with Microsoft Streets and Trips. It will take a while to process since it's a long trip.
If you live anywhere close to my route and would like to ride along for a day I would be glad to have the company. No need to plan ahead - just keep track of my progress and show up when you can.
If you are interested only in seeing a list of towns and cities that are on or close to my route, click here.
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