Congratulations! Awesome from start to finish..👍

Thank you for sparing us the “other sights”..

Cuyamaca STREET? Not, THE Cuyamaca Rancho? Story for another day..

Hasn’t changed in almost 50 years ( from what I remember….)

Awesome! You can actually see the hills in the distance! No smog..👍

Good journal!

Thanks for the nature photos! Most cycle tourists seem to not notice nature, let alone photograph it, and then make the effort to post photos with limited time, limited energy and limited internet...

I also want to comment on the direction and time of year. I originally wanted to do it in the fall, but Esther preferred me to do it in the spring. I would have liked the fall because it would have given me the summer to train. In retrospect, I did a pretty good job of training. Going to Florida for a month before the tour really helped. I read part of the blog from the group that did it starting last September. They had some really cold days at altitude in New Mexico, etc. They also had lots of rain as it was hurricane season in the Southeast. As far as winds, I think they can be bad both ways. The prevailing winds are supposed to be from the south, and that seemed true. I used myWindSock to analyze my ride data and looked at their Wind Impact statistic. My understanding is that it is supposed to be the amount of additional (or less) power needed to go that speed in the winds compared to riding the same speed and course on a wind-fee day. For example, a Wind Impact of 4% means that it required 4% more power to overcome the headwind and go at the average speed of the ride for the day; a wind impact of -5% means that 5% less power was needed to achieve the average speed for the day, because of tailwinds, than had there been no wind. I am not sure this is a perfect statistic, but it does give some idea of how the wind affected things. Overall, there were 15 days where wind helped and 35 where it hurt. That seems about right. The time-weighted average Wind Impact was 4%. That seems low, but a lot of rides had very little impact so perhaps not. I am not sure how it would have affected us going the other direction because a wind has be be at your back by some angle greater than 0 before it helps. I guess it still means that we would have had less difficulty with wind going the other direction, but not by a factor of 2:1.
On the other hand, we discussed the benefits of this direction. We started out in Florida where there are very few hills. So, we could train to get ready for the hilly days in Texas, NM, AZ and CA. Going from the West to the East would have meant riding to Alpine and over the Sierra Nevadas on days 1 and 2. That would have been a lot of climbing. Also, a lot of the long days were on the western part of the trip. Assuming we stopped in the same towns, I think I would have needed more training to get ready than doing it from East to West. Finally, I think the scenery was better in the west than the east, at least on average. That may be because it is different than what I am used to, and there were some beautiful rides including on the barrier islands in FL and the rural rides in LA. However, the scenery in the Texas Hill Country, Emory Pass, the Desert in NM and AZ, climbing to Alpine, and descending into SD were all really beautiful. I think it was better to save the best for the last.

So, all things considered, I am happy that we went the direction we did and at the time of year we did. Of course I haven't done it the other way. I plan to post more detailed ride data in another post, and of course you can look at my data on Strava. Maybe that will help decide which direction.

I can say that the ride was type 2 fun. A lot of the riding was not particularly fun (there were definitely exceptions), but I got a great sense of accomplishment from completing the entire tour, and from conquering Emory Pass and the days into Mesa and Alpine. I have not been this fit for a long time, and that feels really good. It was also really nice to get to know the other riders, and that only happens on a long tour like this.

Equipment-wise I would have like to have 32mm tires. My bike wouldn’t accommodate them, but it might have been nice in the rough roads.

I am happy the way chain waxing went. It was not practical for the eastern part of the trip because it was wet, but synergetic worked well. On the western part it was so dry and dusty that wax was perfect. Drip wax isn’t as good, but hot waxing to refresh chains would’ve have worked.

The Karoo was great.

The bike was great. I didn’t seem to be bothered as much by rough roads as some people and wonder if that is partly because of my Ti frame and ENVE carbon stem, bars and seatpost. Still, as I said above, wider tires would have been even nicer.

I am super happy with my position, (pretty low), aero bars (aero and extra hand positions), and that I had a light weight bike. People with touring rigs suffered longer, I think.

I would have gotten a helmet light with a long life. The Varia was great but petered out around 5 hours.

I would have gotten a mirror that worked and practiced using it before the trip.

BW had a bigger tent and I kind of wish so had brought our 3-person tent. But it is bigger and heavier.

I would have started the trip with more stuff sacks and better organization. I bought some along the way and that helped me be more organized so I could set up faster in the afternoon, get to the shower quicker, not spend so much time looking for stuff, and get out faster in the morning.

I brought a lot of stuff I didn’t use like tubes, CO2 cartridges, a heavy wool base layer, a Garmin Inreach satellite communicator and some other stuff. Some of that I could have left at home. The same with some of the tools I brought. But I am glad I had the chain wear gauge (for others as much as me) and the quick link pliers (for me and others).

I am super glad I used tubeless tires and was glad I brought the pump with the reservoir. I used it as did BW and SR, plus many others as it had the most accurate gauge.

I was not prepared for the relentlessness or headwinds. I am not sure what I would have done to prepare. During the trip I learned to try to stay in the moment: focus on the distance to the next turn and not the winds or the upcoming difficult days.

The biggest thing in preparation would have been to get a bike seat fitting and do some longer (7 hour) training rides. I did long distances, but not that many hours in the saddle. I also wonder if a different seat would have been more comfortable. I think that I spent a bigger fraction of time on the aero bars, and that may need a different saddle or saddle position. My a__ really hurt on some days. It was so bad I really thought about quitting. Johnson City to Kerrville was absolute agony.

Related to that, my feet also hurt, especially near the end. I almost wish I had used road shoes, but it was nice to be able to walk around camp. Maybe some SPD pedals with a wider base would have helped.

Those are the things I can think of right now. I plan to go through my equipment and talk about it later.

I have enjoyed following along with your journey. Congrats on finishing an epic and thanks for sharing.

After having this experience, what would you have done differently?

Congrats! A tough ride but you did it.

Good tour! Thanks for the nature shots!

California brittlebush, if my internet searching is correct.

https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?query_src=photos_index&rel-taxon=begins+with&where-taxon=Encelia+californica

Rosemary! Nice to nip a leaf and sniff, or even suck on it. Good stuff!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary

Storksbill. So named due to the seed pod shape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erodium