I am planning on riding Route S this June and do not know how many miles I can cover in a day based upon the elevations. Can any one estimate how long it will take me to ride from Houston to Hanover PA using Route S.
I can typically cover between 60-90 miles a day without any hills. Any information would help. Thanks.
While I certainly can't estimate your capabilities, one thing I can suggest would be to do a couple of local rides in the 50-75 mile range with a full load of whatever gear you plan to carry. That will give you a better idea of your sustainable pace.
If you'd like suggestions for a local route that will be vaguely similar to the Route S terrain, I or many others on this board can help you out.
I'm riding from Chicago to Hanover PA, so I'm not in the area. I recently rode 380 miles from Chicago to Kentucky fully loaded and was able to ride 100 miles one day and the next about 60, and so on for the five days it took.
However, my ride was in the flat farmlands and with very little hills. My concern is how hilly Route S is and how will it effect my mileage.
are you riding alone? in my experience, it's all mental.
i would suggest taking how long it would take you to bike that distance if it were flat (call it n days) and adding a day and giving that as your estimate (n+1 days). but i would also try to make it in the if-it-were-flat time (n days).
for me, the pain of cycling long distances isn't about how far my legs can go in a day, but how far my butt can be in the saddle for a day. and while they're surely related, i imagine that it wouldn't be that different if the route were flat or hilly. when you go up a hill, you go slower, but when you go down you go faster, so it ends up being not too terribly different from flat, time-wise. sure, your legs get tired sooner, and you put more weight on your posterior, but i would try to make it in the same time. if it were me.
but on it being all in your head: if you don't embrace the hills and keep reminding yourself how much you love them, it gets a lot harder to say "i can go [so] much farther today." or if you don't have someone there to do that for you.
I am riding alone and I agree with you that 80% of this trip is mental. I have a time limit of 13 days so I'm looking closely at the distance.
I'm picking campgrounds now and making reservations. I will figure at or close to flat distances for this trip. Thanks for the suggestions.
Mike
I just rode Route S (as part of the CtC epic) for the first time and I am candidly amazed at how hilly the section from Bedford to Breezewood and the section from Breezewood to Burnt Cabins was. It would make a "Dirty Dozen" rider proud - if you ask me. I was "partially loaded" gearwise (not booze) and these were not grinder climbs, they were out of the saddle, hung over the bars standers that were 1/4 to 1/2 mile in length. Before and after that, the ride is pretty much rolling.
Wow, thanks for the information. I will be fully loaded and will plan for each day in this area to be a slightly, if possible. I plan on changing my cog to obtain a lower gear which will allow a 4.75 mph, (currently I'm at 6 mph in my lowest gear).
Mike
I received this from a woman who completed a ride of PA Route S a couple of years ago:
Yes, I did the ride a couple of weeks ago. It went well although the weather was unusually warm for the whole ride. Still, that's better than rain in my books. The route was well marked most of the time although whenever I ran into construction, signs were bound to be missing. Mostly I still found my way ok, except in Bedford where I ended up leading a convoy of cars and trucks up a freshly paved hill with no shoulder for me to move onto for about a mile (a new section of route 30, I think). Many of the roads were busier than I expected, but the scenery was usually quite lovely.
