Bicycling in all 50 States
I have set a long term goal of bicycling in all 50 states. My simple rule for including a state is that I must have a ride on my Strava account that shows the GPS track in the target state. I got back into cycling in 2013, and I have recorded essentially all of my rides on Strava since then. The map above shows the 31 states that meet my criteria thus far. I expect that it will take me until 2027 or 2028 to complete this goal. However, as I describe below, I am hoping to add 10 of my 19 remaining states to my completed list this year.
This map essentially shows all of my rides since 2013. The most obvious feature of this map is my 2019 ride from Santa Barbara CA to Myrtle Beach SC. Also quite visible is my 2023 ride from Madison WI to Portland ME. New England is of course full of many rides, and the Finger Lake region of NY is also a large blob. My 2024 cycling in PA shows up as a little cluster as do my three separate trips to the Shenandoah / Blue Ridge Parkway region of VA. Moving west, my 2024 gravel trip in South Dakota is visible as a small blob. My 2024 trip from Bend OR to Boise ID (van transfer providing a gap in the middle) and my 2016 Crater Lake trip create three collections in Oregon. My 2022 Seattle to Glacier National Park MT is visibly cut short just inside Montana following my bike crash. The last spot on the map is the start of my 2017 trip from Glacier National Park up to Jasper Alberta.
If I am able to complete my 2025 plans, I will add 10 more states to my list. I have plans for a predominantly bird photography trip to Hawaii later this month and a cycling tour in Alaska in June. In April, I intend to complete a self-supported cycling and bird photography trip timed for the spring bird migration, cycling from Savannah GA to New Orleans LA. This trip will have me ride in the states of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. I also have a fall bird migration trip planned from Cape May NJ to Chincoteague Island in Virginia picking up New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
Assuming these plans come to fruition, I will be left with 9 states on my list: Indiana, Arkansas, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, and Nevada. My guess is that it will take 2 or 3 more years to finish this list. My plan is to cycle into Nebraska from a neighboring state to reach my 50 state goal. The reason for this is that, separately from cycling, I have already visited the other 49 states, so this way I will reach 50 states visited and 50 states cycled in simultaneously. Alaska was the 49th state which I visited, doing so on my honeymoon with Kate over 30 years ago.
There are two states that clearly meet my inclusion criteria but seem less than entirely satisfying to me. The first state is Illinois. On my 2019 cross country trip, we crossed the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois where the Mississippi river and the Ohio River meet. Rather than build one huge bridge over the Mississippi below the merging of the two rivers, there are two bridges above the split, one across the Mississippi from Missouri to Illinois and a second from Illinois to Kentucky across the Ohio. The distance between these bridges in Illinois is under 1 mile.
The second somewhat unsatisfying state is West Virginia. On day 4 of our gravel rides in Virginia last year, we cycled up Reddish Knob whose summit is right on the Virginia / West Virginia border. For about 10 miles, we cycled a gravel road that followed the border, mostly on the Virginia side, but clearly drifting into West Virginia for two stretches, the first of about 0.7 miles and the second for 1 mile.
For both Illinois and West Virginia, I am going to see if there is relatively easy way to add a longer ride in each state as I work towards my 50 states goal. I may be able to pick up a longer ride in Illinois when I figure out how I will ride in Indiana. However, getting a longer ride in West Virginia seems challenging to achieve without dedicating a specific trip for it.