Since I'm an Engineer, I can't resist at least a brief discussion of some statistics. This may be helpful to others planning a trip as well. My first "half" consisted of Yorktown, VA to Canon City, CO, following the ACA Transamerica Route for almost all of the trip. The ACA says that Pueblo, CO is actually the halfway point, so I rode about 50 miles past the halfway point in reaching Canon City.

_____ACA Map Distance from Yorktown, VA to Canon City, CO: 2226 miles

_____My Actual Distance from Yorktown, VA to Canon City, CO: 2297 miles

My odometer was really quite accurate, based on comparison to highway mile markers. The additional distance is accounted for by off-route excursions one must make to reach lodging and to re-supply, do laundry, etc. In my case, these off-route excursions amounted to 71 miles, or an additional 3% above the ACA map distance. I think this is a good figure to use for planning purposes. Many restaurants, motels, and campgrounds are located immediately adjacent to the route, but there will be times when you must travel a couple of miles off-route.

_____Days to Traverse from Yorktown, VA to Canon City, CO: 37

This is the number of days it took me once I started biking; it does not include the day I spent flying to Yorktown or the day required to drive back to my home from Canon City.

_____Number of Rest Days from Yorktown, VA to Canon City, CO: 4

The first 2 rest days I took were to allow some healing for a muscle sprain; I pushed too hard at first and the body demanded some time off. That's not the recommended plan, and certainly wasn't my intended plan, but that's what happened. So I was hobbling around on those rest days. The 3rd "rest" day was to give me time in a big city to get my cell phone charging system fixed. Finally, the 4th rest day was an actual planned rest day to enjoy some time off and prepare for the next surge. Four days off was enough for me, but I would recommend that you take more days off early in your tour so that you have less chance of an over-use injury as your body adopts to the stress of cycling every day.

_____Average Mileage on Biking Days: 69.5

It is what it is. There were days when I biked less than 60 miles, and many days when I biked more than 70. The terrain and weather are certainly factors that can influence how far you travel each day, but probably the logistics of where you can stay are more of an issue. Some days you may want to travel farther, but you can't because there's no place to stay the night within a reasonable distance. You can spend a lot of time trying to determine where you will stay the following night. Pre-planning is great, and I did that, but it all fell apart on the 3rd day, so you have to be flexible.

_____Number of Days I Rode 70+ Miles: 17

_____Number of Days I Rode 80+ Miles: 10

_____Number of Days I Rode 100+ Miles: 2

In my opinion, the effort required to propel a fully loaded touring bike is about 1.5 times the effort required to propel a typical road bike. Nothing scientific about this, that's just my personal opinion after traveling 2297 miles with a fully loaded touring bike and comparing that effort to tens of thousands of miles I have ridden on road bikes. So then, any time you travel about 66 miles on a fully loaded touring bike you have expended the effort it would take to complete a century ride on a typical (unloaded, lightweight) road bike. Obviously, terrain is a big factor that could sway this estimate dramatically, but I think that's a good rule of thumb. If you have never carried 50 pounds of gear on your bike and had to spin slowly up hill in very low gears doing 3-4 mph, and rode almost the entire day doing that, you will be rather shocked when you commence touring. Start off with short distances and build up gradually during the tour.

_____Average Speed While Biking this half?

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I don't know. Really I don't. My bike computer will of course calculate my average speed while biking, but this information is erased each time I reset the computer. A typical ACA map panel may only cover 25 miles or so, and then the next panel starts over giving you cues from "0.0" mileage at the match point. So, each time you finish a panel you reset your bike computer. I could have jotted the average speed down each time and then averaged the averages each night, but I didn't do that. Well, OK, I think I did it a few times early on during the tour, but usually I would forget to note the average speed even if I meant to. So I don't know, but I can probably guess pretty close. There were days in the Appalachians and Ozarks when my average speed was probably only about 7 mph. There were days in Kansas and Eastern Colorado when my average speed was probably 12 mph. If I had to pick a number for the entire trip, I would guess that my speed probably averaged about 9 - 10 mph. Any time I was rolling along on flat ground with a tailwind and doing 14 mph or faster, I thought I was flying. You aren't going to break any speed records on a loaded touring bike, at least you aren't going to do so if you plan to travel any appreciable distance that day.