Thoughts on the US route

Over the last few days there has been much discussion on the North American section of the trip. The original itinerary was to head for Tok in Alaska and then on to New York. The distances and time remaining mean much of this would be on dull freeways, with long hard days.

To me Tok is an odd inflection point in the route. I can understand riders wanting to get the Alaska passport stamp, or wanting to go all the way up to Prudhoe Bay, but Tok feels like an odd middle point. It is neither the quickest way to get the Alaska stamp or the top of the Pan American highway.

I've ridden twice in the US previously, my job means I will regularly visit in the future. I'm going to have more opportunities to ride the many interesting parts of the various US routes being discussed. On the other hand, I will probably never ride up to Prudhoe Bay. I will certainly never do it after having just ridden up from Ushuaia again. For this reason my personal goal is to reach Prudhoe Bay and complete the ride from the bottom to the top of the American continent.

This will add around 6 days - 3 from Tok to Prudhoe bay, and three back down. While it would still be possible to do this and then ride to New York to make the shipping date, there would be no slack time and some very long days.

There have been some organisational changes in my company while I've been away, for this reason I am now probably going to ship the bike back from Canada after reaching Prudhoe bay and then fly to San Fransisco. I can then visit the head office and meet with my managers before heading back to London. There will be some additional costs doing this, but it gives me a much easier schedule and I think it is the right thing from a work perspective too.