Touring - West Coast Canada to Mexico...in the early early spring

Question:

I'm contemplating doing a tour this spring from Canada to Mexico down the West coast. It seems like a pretty popular route, but it seems like everybody does it during the warmer months. But as it turns out, I'll have a golden opportunity to take a couple of months off with a friend from Jan-March. Does anybody have any experience riding that route at that time of year? I don't mind it being cold, but I'm worried about ice and road conditions.

thanks!

Will

Ice and snow - - no, but you'll be soaking wet.

The Pacific Coast has a Mediterranean climate with a very significant precipitation maximum in Dec/Jan. Aberdeen, Washington gets 13 inches of rain in January. Average high/low - 46/35 - not exactly pleasant cycling weather. Reedsport, Oregon gets 13 inches of rain in January, too, but drops to 9 1/2 in February. It drops to 8 1/2 inches for Crescent City, California in March. Even Santa Cruz gets 4 1/3 inches of rain in March.

There's a reason nearly everybody does the Pacific Coast in summer.

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/precip.html
Click on the months in the right-hand column to see percentages of precipitation each month in the West.
I think the Southern Tier is much more appropriate. Maybe run the border from Boca Chica, Texas to Tijuana, Baja California.

Thanks--I might look into that instead. Cold and wet does not sound very fun.

And windy. Don't forget windy. It seems that anytime I've gone to the Oregon coast for a couple of days between November and April, at least one of them was windy and rainy. Nothing like having rain and mist blasted against you with at 20 mph headwind!

I've been on this route a couple of times in the high summer. I thought it was great to have so many other bicyclists doing the same thing. You can always find a campsite - the state parks can't turn away a bicyclist. The hiker/biker sites are full of wonderful, interesting people from all over the world. The locals have always been friendly and welcoming to me. I even saw a motel with a billboard reading, "Bicyclists Welcome!) And when the weather is good, it's a wonderful place to ride!

The cloudy damp cool weather has already arrived. See you next May or June.

2 of my friends are doing this route at the end of this month! i don't think you'll have to worry about snow too much....just rain and the cold. have fun!