Originally Posted by
axolotl
I want to point out that the figure "750 miles" from St. Augustine to DC keeps getting thrown around. That distance originally came from a post of mine on the original thread, but I said at that time that the 750 miles distance was for the Interstate. In other words, the cycling distance would definitely be longer.
Having said that, one could definitely reduce the distance for the Southern Tier + Atlantic Coast routes by not going all the way to St. Augustine, Florida. I imagine there must be a decent way to get from, say, Tallahassee heading northeast toward Savannah, that would cut off at least 200 miles from the 2 routes combined. That figure is just a guess on my part.
Another thing worth pointing out is that if Ryan was in Deming, NM yesterday afternoon, and left Phoenix on Dec. 8, that means he only biked about 320 miles in 5+ days.
I've cycled up the Atlantic Coast but followed my own routing rather than the Adventure Cycling route. My distance between Jacksonville and Virginia Beach was 772 miles and Google Maps says another 208 miles from there to Washington (I went up DelMarVa instead,
http://www.mvermeulen.com/bicycle.coast.html). So I agree a number over 1000 miles is probably a better estimate even if you try to optimize things some. I repeated the 750 without questioning where it came from.
I also agree with you that his pace so far is less than his pace needed to get to Washington by January 20th. He might be able to increase the pace, though I found the Texas Hill Country took some more effort and one still needs to watch the weather.
That is among the reasons why I've suggested it is useful to keep track of those cities where Amtrak has baggage service since you can try using the train if necessary as a contingency. I took Amtrak with bike from Jacksonville to LA after my 2001 trip and also took Amtrak with bike from Savannah via DC to Vermont after a segment of the ride above. Things may be a little tighter now, but the advantage was last-minute tickets weren't as expensive and you get some flexibility in routing. One way car rentals are another alternative I've used.