Planning the Route to New Jersey (Part 2)

As I mentioned in Planing the Route to New Jersey (Part 1), I didn’t have a lot to go on from The Letter. Since the furthest South and East GW Howell rode his horse was Fremont, OH, that left a lot of open territory to cover on my route to New Jersey.

 

 

In the early planning stages, I did a search on YouTube for someone who had done something like what I was planning.  I found a CJ Hoyle that did a Lake Erie Loop.  I commented on his video by asking him how he did his routes and the software that he used to show it.  He graciously responded that it was Google My Maps using the Bike option.  That was super helpful and that’s how I created the route you see on the Home page.

 

 

Q: How did I do it?  

A: All Google searches and maps:

 

1) I used Hope, NJ as a destination and my house as a starting point to get a rough idea on best route. I selected the Bicycle icon in Google maps and it showed me a way

2) Starting from home, I took the 60 mile per day goal I had and tried to find a campground in whatever area that was

3) Kept progressing one location at at time until I got to NJ

 

Here’s what I came up with:

4) I made reservations at each of these places (where I could).  Two  places don’t require them for tent sites and two places aren’t even open yet and haven’t responded to my incessant voice mails. That all makes me a bit nervous but I’ll go with it.


Maybe I’m crazy, but the 53 miles per day average, and the 700 miles total don’t seem too bad.  The number that stuck out for me was the 21 THOUSAND feet of elevation gain during the ride, mostly because of the Appalachians. That will slow the pace a lot, which is the reason I backed down from the 60 miles per day to low 40s per day to get through the mountains.

By Dennis

Ninth generation Howell in North America

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