Here's the Deal

A few weeks ago, Tomas and Daumantas, two old friends living in London, have decided to finally take a break from the corporate world and see what's it like to roam around with just your bike and a tent for a while. We were considering a number of destinations but settled on the US because we both miss the places and people over there. It's also an incredibly beautiful place for cycling or backpacking and the infrastructure for that kind of tourism is superb. The latter is especially important for first-time cycling tourists like us.

The plan is to fly over to Seattle, WA, collect our bikes and gear and start pedalling south along the coast across Washington, Oregon and into California. Once we reach San Diego, which should be  towards the end of June, we will fly over to Chicago, circle the Lake District, ride into

 Canada, and turn south from Toronto, through New England and all the way to Washington DC. We plan to cover 60 miles (or ~100 km) each day, resting one day a week, though that may have to be adjusted on the go. We will start from Seattle on May 13 and finish in DC on July 25, which gives us 10 weeks to complete the route.

The first leg of the trip will look something like this:

And the second leg will incorporate the Lake District and a part of the Atlantic Coast Ride below:

We are planning to stay on campgrounds when possible, sleeping in our tent and cooking our own food. A lot of this is a new experience for both of us, which will require learning many new skills, getting familiar with different kinds of cycling and camping gear, and just getting used to a very different lifestyle we had up until this point. We don't expect this to come quickly or easily but we've given ourselves enough time to go through the entire learning process without haste. Ten weeks should be enough time for me to learn how to cook my own meal after all :)

The two of us will travel the entire length of the course but we're hoping that our friends that are interested in taking up the challenge can join us for any of the segments during this trip. We will be updating this blog and our Twitter/Facebook pages with details of our whereabouts so that we can meet people along the way. So please let us know if you'll be in the area with some spare time to travel. More details to follow. Stay tuned!

First Entry

Exactly two weeks left until the start of our 10-week trip around the US!