Norther Tier bike route as mapped by the Adventure Cycling Association. My start and finish will be different but I will mostly follow this route
The Adventure Cycling Association is a bicycle touring advocacy group that maps a number of bike routes around the country. My cross country ride will follow the Northern Tier which starts in Anacortes, Washington and ends in Bar Harbor, Maine, 4,300 miles later. I will ride a slightly modified route starting about thirty miles south on Camano Island where we have friends with a beach house. Rather than finishing in Bar Harbor I prefer to ride directly home to Danbury, Connecticut. The official route follows the Erie Canal trail east of Buffalo, New York for while before veering north into the Adirondacks then east to Vermont, New Hampshire and finally Maine. My plan is to stay on the Erie Canal to Albany, NY then head south to home. The route south of Albany will follow part of the Empire State Trail, New York states 750 miles of rail trail and road trails linking New York City north to Canada and Albany west to Buffalo. The Maybrook and Dutches County rail trails are part of this network connecting New Paltz, NY to Brewster, NY, where I rode many miles training for this ride.
I haven’t spent much time planning mid route options. With the Canadian border still closed I probably will not ride the Glacier National Park alternative route. There are a few other alternative routes along the way that need to be sorted out as they get closer. My modified route should be about 3,800 miles.
For navigation I will use digital maps on the Bicycle Route Navigator app by the ACA. I also bought the old school paper maps which are very informative plus technology always fails at the worse possible time. The paper maps split the route into 11 maps with descriptions of the area, services available along the way and enlarged tiles for about every 50 miles.
Adventure Cycling paper maps. Route consists of 11 maps broken into tiles.Each tile has a lot of useful information about service, elevation profile, annual weather and history.
Us (John (me), Sierra, Savanna, Michelle) the day before leaving on our round the world trip in 2012
I registered this domain back in 2011 to document our upcoming round the world trip in a blog but I underestimated how much “free” time we would have while on the road. Full time travel is a full time job not vacation for a year. Over the course of a year we only made about a half dozen posts. Out of embarrassment I hid those post for this new Wandering Ruski focus, for now at least.
A lot has happened since the above photo was taken on July 9 2012, the day before our departure. From July 10 2012 to July 10 2013 we:
Flew to London for week
Rode the Chunnel to Paris
Drove around Europe for a month
Spent a couple weeks in Greece
Flew to Morocco for a month
Flew to Egypt for a month
Traveled around Namibia and Botswana for a month on a self driven safari in a truck with rooftop tents
Spent a few months traveling around south east Asia
Maxed out our 3 month Australia visa including a month renting a house in Perth and a month+ driving around the country in an RV
Hopped over to Fiji, Hawaii and then home
All totaled, 19 countries plus Hawaii.
Once back to normal life we continued to take family trips to destinations like Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Arizona, Iceland, Hawaii, and Florida. Savanna and I took an annual dive trips to places like Honduras, Cozumel, Belize, Tobago, Barbados, and our favorite, Bonaire.
So there’s 9 years worth of blog posts in a few bullet point. I’ll try to be better with this new blog.
Of course a lot else has happened over this time. A few years ago Sierra graduated high school and is now attending the University of Maryland. Savanna just graduated high school and will also attend UMD in the fall. Michelle retired from work a few years ago and I also retired earlier this year.
For years my plan for immediately after retiring was to take a cross country bike ride. The kernel of and idea dates back about 30 years, when I was buying my first mountain bike just after college. The salesman mentioned he rode a mountain bike cross country. I never considered such an idea but found it very intriguing. My plan back then was to quite my job after a few years and hike the Appalachian trail. Thankfully I never did since 30 years at the same company has allowed me to retire at the ripe young age of 53, along with meeting Michelle which has led to everything else in my adult life.
About fifteen years later we were on a cross country flight, Sierra was about 5 years old. As we looked out the window at the country passing below Sierra asked how long would it take to fly across country?. I said about 6 hours. She asked how long would it take to drive? So I replied about 6 days. I said some day I want to ride my bike across country. She asked how long will that take? I said “about 6 weeks. Do you want to ride with me?”. She said “No! Why would I want to do that?”. Most people find this a little crazy, intriguing but crazy.
Many people asked if I will document my trip anywhere so I’m reviving this blog for daily updates of my progress. I will also post abbreviated updates on Instagram. Over the years I spent many hours reading other peoples trip journals which I found entertaining and insightful so I hope others can virtually join my travels and maybe learn a thing or two about bike touring. Perhaps a few will be inspired to make the ride.
Michelle and I have a lot of plans for the upcoming year including sailing lessons, an extended Caribbean or Hawaii trip and hopefully Italy next spring for our 25th wedding anniversary. The obvious place for updates is Facebook but I hate Facebook.
Oh, the name, let me explain “Wandering Ruski’s”. The wandering part is obvious but Ruski maybe not. It’s not some kind of racial slur or anything. Michelle’s maiden name is Russell so RUssell SikorSKI.
