bikenh

It depends on the day in question and how far I plan/need to go on the day in question. I generally shoot for 120-150 miles each day again depending on how far I need/how far apart decent resupply towns are located. I generally try to shoot for certain destinations/resupply points and not anything else. My average this year 4991 miles thus far and I still have over 2000 miles left in the trip has been around 110 miles a day with 7 days being quite low mileages days off in town. I had 4 days off in Annapolis, MD and another 3 days off in Mitchell, SD where I was just riding around town to get food and see the sights. Including those days as being days of riding I've averaged 110 miles. Otherwise you'd be looking at 4991 in 38 days, 131 miles a day average with 9 consecutive 100+ mile days. This has been with 30 pounds of gear, hot temps and a bike that hasn't cooperated worth a darn.

Longest day...so far, was last year at 200 miles(40 pounds of gear). This year I've had two days over 180 miles and 6 days over 150 miles.

I don't do well with reading a book...my mind drifts too easy so by the time I've read for 3-4 minutes my mind starts drifting off elsewhere and I'm lucky to get two or three pages read before the drift occurs so reading isn't fun. This years trip has been so big...err, small that there hasn't been anyplace to stop other then the start location/finish location. It's been so remote that the only thing to do is to ride. I had a 1.5-2 week stretch where the only times throughout the day I would see a Walmart or McDonalds was first thing in the morning before I left town, or when I got into town for the night. The rest of the day I saw only gas stations along the way. A few days down south in Louisana I didn't even see that. I was having a heck of a time trying to find places to pull over and get off the bike for a bit so I could get out of the sun for a while. Normally my trips aren't anything like this but this year has been a routing nightmare.

If your in shape before you leaving you can ride big miles, if you aren't than you can't. I've ridden over 13K miles so far this year. I had 21 consecutive days where I rode at least 100 miles from April 28th-May 18th. I'm in shape and I'm used to the big miles. It all depends on what feels right to you not what feels right to someone else...hence why I ride solo and not with anyone else. I make it so I ride my way, not their's. Go find out what feels comfortable to you and ride it...don't worry about what everyone else is doing.

staehpj1

My suggestion is to have an open ended schedule or end point and don't plan too much. Just take each day one at a time. There will be times where the distance is dictated by available water or other services, but for the most part I just ride as far as I feel like each day. I don't necessarily pick a stopping point until I am there.

Machka 

+1

mev

A planning guideline that has worked for me is assume an average of 10 mph including all my stops. It then becomes a little more about how many hours I might want to ride. As I've gotten older, my speed hasn't changed much, but I've reduced the number of hours in the saddle. For example, in college once did a trip from Boston/Montreal/Quebec City/Riviere Du Loop/Houlton/Bangor/Boston ~1200 miles in 8 days of riding and one rest day in Quebec City. I pretty much got up at first light and cycled until shortly before dark. Since then I've mellowed and six to eight hours a day is more often a sustained average so somewhere in the 100-120 kilometer. There is something nice about at least covering a 100km and then finding next place to stay.

As far as cycling in a group with people at different speeds, unless it is folks I know very well, I prefer to go at own pace and use restopping/synchronization points rather than trying to cycle all kilometers close together.

Obviously the 10 miles per hour including stops will vary with terrain and weather (and actual riding speed is higher), but it has been a planning guideline that has worked well so far.

checoles

I'm running a cheap build up tourer, only running 14spd (52/36 and 11/32) but I live in East Yorkshire, England. Or "God's Back Garden" as its known here Countryside for miles, and if you're not going uphill, you're going down. no flats, no easy way about. But my god it's a beautiful place to cycle all year round. Anyway, back on track.... I try to do around 50-80 miles a day if I'm overnight packing/riding with around 15kg luggage or so. Not tried anything heavier yet

Trevtassie

How long is a piece of string?

You do what you do. I like stopping and looking at stuff, that's why I like bike touring, because you are going slow enough to see the fine detail and can stop and look at it. If I'm in a place with fine detail I like I'd be lucky to do 40 miles. If it's a bit boring, generally the noise through the intercom lets me know it's time to stop, which seems to occur at about 60 miles. I'm sure if we weren't carrying all the luxuries we could go further. We have 26" wheels and 22,32,44 and 12 to 34. That is low enough that I don't need to get off and push, but my partner does.

DropBarFan

Wow, some very athletic posters here! I'm like mev, I figure on 10 mph avg over the day's ride incl stops. My only century took about 10 hrs; ordinarily I'd try to limit day's ride to 6-8 hours I think. OTOH I've found that on tours the excitement/adrenalin can help one rise to the occasion & ride stronger than on local rides.

djb

OP---this is really good advice!

Really.

chasm54

Giving you an average is meaningless. Distances vary hugely with terrain, with what I want to do in particular places, with how far apart places are that I really want to visit, etc. etc. I've done 125 miles on successive days on a loaded tourer because I had limited time and really wanted to see a place thatwas 250 miles from where I happened to be. I've done zero miles because I've decided to stay somewhere an extra night. I've done 60 miles through seriously mountainous terrain, and cut a flat day short to about 15 miles because I felt unusually tired.

Improvise. A self-supported bicycle tour isn't a scheduled event. Make it what you want it to be and don't make too many plans - or, at least, be prepared to change them.

djb

OK now that's enough, two well thought out, reasonable recommendations, I think we need to get back to 30km/h averages and Green Giant tall orders of maxitude.

Tony Marley

On my first coast-to-coast ride with a friend, we averaged 59 miles per day. Several years later, with my then 10-year old daughter on a tandem with a BOB trailer, we averaged 52 miles per day. I enjoyed the lower daily rate more; I believe we stopped at and read every historical marker we encountered coast-to-coast, and also included time for playgrounds, etc.

The farthest I have gone on a bike tour was 128 miles one day. We had a glorious tailwind for about 124 of those miles, and a torturous crosswind for the last four to the campground.

Leebo

Somewhere between 50-80 miles, lots of gear with me. Harder to pack when the temps swing for 50 -85F. I go faster downhill. Longest? 85 I guess.

mstateglfr 

right about 50 per day. give or take based on where I am wanting to end up.
I figured I want to ride for about 4 hours or so. really don't want to ride much less than that unless I don't ride at all on a given day. So 50-60mi.

manapua_man

It's variable for me, since I prefer an extremely leisurely approach whenever possible. The longest I've done on tour is maybe 100 miles, but my average is probably closer to 30-40, probably less.