With the Omaha to Ames Bike Tour the desire to finish the cross state ride over Iowa with another tour. My wife and I did ride across Iowa together during the 2001 RAGBRAI so it's not a first, but touring across the state by yourself is a totally different adventure. Many other adventures and life events have come and gone between then and now. But now it's the time to attempt this goal to ride the rest by myself. I'm stoked!
The route I planned will take me a bit north to Waterloo, IA to catch the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and Hoover Trail for about 80 miles. Primary goal is to ride a fun and enjoyable route and including nice trails should make that more likely.
Plotting the route I saw that out of the Quad Cities on the Illinois border the Hennepin Canal trail toward the east. The I&M Canal would then take me all the way to Chicago, Illinois where a patchwork of shorter trails get me across Indiana to Columbus, Ohio. With the GAP and C&O trails the route from Pittsburgh, Indiana to Washington DC is all off street. This means the route from the Iowa border to DC is only about 30% on roads. With such a proposition I could just could not ignore it and the IA to DC tour became reality.
 |
| IA to DC Route |
Since I don't have a time constraint I can be very flexible with the routing and daily milage. My primary goal of this adventure is the experiences I get along the trip. While finishing the ride across Iowa and hopefully finishing in DC would be very awesome it takes a slightly lower priority. In other words, I won't be racing across the country and I won't hesitate to take extra time to meet interesting people and awsome places.
My planning bejond that is pretty loosy goosy. I hope to tent, being hosted, and take an occasional hotel room for zero days. Resupply at groceries. None of these locations, besides my first overnight, has been planned out so that I can be flexible with my daily milages. Similarely I don't know how I will get back. Possible options are flying commercially, renting a car, asking my spouse to pick me up and be forever in debt, or biking back home if I still enjoy riding more.
The IA to DC tour will start later this month (August 2025) when the kids are back in school. You can track my progress at SpotWalla cheer me on through Bluesky / Mastodon / Twitter (X) and watch my videos at YouTube.
Hope to see you down the trail!
Comments