Al Gore in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech quoted an African proverb: “go alone if you want to go quickly, if you want to go far, go together.” That really hit me as pertinent to the Seattle to Florida bike ride that Hugh Kimball and I are planning for this summer. It’s an adventure that I’ve thought about for quite some time but it’s not something I would want to do alone – I’m not in any hurry. Hugh’s recent retirement gives me a riding partner for this trip. Hugh, Tom Harrylock and I did the northern coast section from Seattle to Eugene as a 500 mile test ride last summer.

The plan this time is to head South on the STP route to Portland and then to Eugene and west to Florence. Then down the Oregon and California coast and though red wood country to Napa across to Lodi and up to Yosemite where Hugh is meeting for a reunion of climbing buddies. We plan on leaving late late April so as to arrive in Yosemite in 12May. We’ll spend a couple of days and then go east over Tioga pass. In recent years Tioga is rarely open in mid may but if Gore is right about global warming we’ll get over that 11,000 foot pass without a long detour to find a lower pass.

The Seattle to Yosemite portion of the trip is just over 1100 miles. The goal is to ride 6 out of 7 days and try to average 100 miles per day. 10 hours at 10 miles per hour doesn’t sound too bad. I guess we’ll find out. We plan on traveling with very little gear, but do hope to camp during nice weather. The first two weeks is mapped below.