Originally Posted by
bikemig
I hear you; time is tough. I did the northern tier in '97. Pretty much everyone I met doing the crossing was either in their 20s or retired. Lots of retirees actually. I'm getting the itch to do another though. I'm thinking more of a west coast to Des Moines ride; the west is the best part of the crossing by a long shot and this way you maximize the good stuff (mtns out west, Black Hills SD, sandhills NE, etc). It doesn't get boring until you hit IA and then you're almost done,
Still a lot of people in their 60s doing the ride.
At a restaurant in Fort Hancock, Texas, we were talking to a couple of nice older women (that is, they were about our age) and one of them asked why we were doing the ride. I said "It's just something guys do once they're so old that they're no longer of any use at home." They laughed and laughed and slapped their knees and and laughed some more--much more, I thought, than the remark really warranted. I think they read more into it than I had intended.