We recently had 60-year-old Keith Morical on the podcast to talk about how he rode his bicycle through 48 states in 31 days, with almost no rest… which means riding almost 250 miles per day! After chatting with him about his route planning, on-bike eating, and approach to preventing saddle sores, I knew I wanted to accompany his podcast episode with a list of his top tips. So, here we go:
On route planning… It takes more time than you expect
From Keith: I found the fastest route somebody had ever driven, the 48 states. Of course, a lot of that was on freeways, which many I couldn’t go on, and some of which were on roads that I just wouldn’t be caught dead on, or I would be dead if had I ridden on them. And so I ended up pulling up Ride With GPS, and literally going mile for mile all the way across the country and redoing the route using the basic parameters of what makes a short route. With satellite imagery, you can literally put the little Google man down on the road and say, ‘is there a shoulder here?’ What kind of condition on this road? What kind of traffic level is there and stuff like that? It took me six weeks full time, just to put together the route.
Know your riding style and have a plan
My strategy was more to ride to the conditions. So if there’s a certain weather front coming behind us, then I want to stay in front of that front and I won’t get off my bike until it catches up to me. If it’s starting to rain, that’s the time to get in the RV, take a nap and come out when it’s not raining. And so consequently, my schedule vary quite a bit across the month. Normally, I’d get up just around sunrise and I would eat my first breakfast, oatmeal or some other carbohydrates and some juices and things to get me going. And then I would ride for a couple hours, and have my second breakfast. And the second breakfast was more of a bacon and eggs or some kind of a sandwich meal, then I’d ride for another four hour slot. Then I’d have first lunch, ride and have second lunch. After sunset, I would stop for dinner and I would have a hot meal, steak and potatoes and salad with a side of vegetables or some other carbohydrate, and maybe four or five different drink options on the table all at one time. That was my reset for the day. And then I would get back on the bike and I would start riding for the evening. Then I’d ride until I needed to stop to sleep.
Seriously, some saddle sore advice
I break saddle sores down into three things: One, your bottom hurts from sitting on the saddle. And that’s usually a bike fit issue. The second one is really where your skin is rubbing raw, and that has to do with staying dry or using chamois cream. And then the third one are the saddle sores that are the little jelly beans, under your skin that are more bacteria-based. But keeping everything dry and clean, those are the ways to help it. Now, I always immediately take my shorts off, take a shower, dry myself off. I won’t stay in the same shorts for more than four hours, and I won’t sit in dirty shorts. On this ride, I was changing three times a day, showering once or twice.
RELATED: What New Cyclists Need to Know About Comfortable Riding (+ If You Have a Saddle Sore!)
Enjoy riding how you enjoy riding
I toured across the country of my daughter and her partner, Jared, back in 2016. And there was always this running conversation of do we stop and smell the roses? Or do we ride further. And of course, I was on the “ride further side.” I just like to ride my bike. The enjoyment of doing this is the riding. And when I was riding the 48 states, I had to remind myself a few times of that statement that I just like to ride my bike. Put a different way, I ride my bike to have fun. So therefore, if I’m riding my bike, I’m having fun.
Download the Episode + Links for Different Podcast Players
