WE Bike NYC is all about “creating a community of women who bike.” No matter what level you are at, there is always someone a little bit further along who can mentor and support you, whether you are trying to get more comfortable in traffic, go your longest distance ever, or start biking at a competitive level.

Ruby Gertz and Sarah Wilson, two WE Bikers planning their first cross-country cycling trip for spring of 2015, recently connected with Megan Ausen, another WE Biker who biked from Washington DC to San Diego last year. Ruby interviewed Megan about her trip, and WE wanted to share stories and tips from Megan’s epic journey for those also curious about long distance bicycle touring.

Ruby: Tell me about your tour.
Megan: My friend and I started in Washington DC and biked west all the way to San Diego over 9 weeks, starting in March. We loosely followed the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Tier maps. We knew each other from college, and we planned the trip in about six weeks.

Ruby: What kind of bikes did you ride?
Megan: We did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people, and both ended up getting a Surly Long-Haul Trucker. We wanted to get a really durable steel-framed bike that was constructed simply, so that if there were any major breakdowns it wouldn’t be really hard to fix. It was a big up-front cost, but my friend worked at a bike shop so she was able to get us both bikes with her employee discount (which was a huge help!).

Ruby: Your tour was unsupported, meaning there was no support vehicle or tour guide. Where did you spend nights, and did you feel safe?
Megan: We used a variety of resources: we camped, we stayed in churches, we stayed with friends (if we were lucky enough to know someone) or even second-third-fourth connections. When you do a really long tour, we found that people were really intrigued and wanted to reach out and open up their homes to us. Sometimes we would call the Chamber of Commerce in whatever town we were in and ask if they had any ideas for where we could stay that night — it was a lot of day-by-day planning. We stayed in a fire station, we stayed in someone’s business, basically anywhere with a roof over our head. Sometimes we would stay in motels but we were on a budget, so we tried to live as cheaply as possible. There’s also a really great website called Warm Showers, which is like Couchsurfing but for touring cyclists exclusively. We felt safe everywhere we stayed, but we had discussed beforehand that we would always make decisions together and stick together, including decisions about safety. In general though, we found that everyone we stayed with was very nice and genuinely curious about what we were doing and wanted to help us out.

Ruby: Describe your best and worst days of the trip.
Megan: The best day was when we finished the Natchez Trace Parkway — it’s a stretch of parkway that beings south of Nashville, TN where no commercial vehicles are allowed. It was really quiet, relatively flat, and really peaceful. When we first started, it was the end of March and still cold and dreary but in the three or four days it took to cross it we really saw the changing of the seasons, and it became spring and warm. There was a lot of natural beauty in this part of the country. The worst day was in Texas, when we were leaving a town called San Angelo. We were heading northwest and there was an extreme headwind of about 25mph. It was like a blast in the face of this hot wind, and it was like 94 degrees. I remember this stretch of open field with no tree cover to block the sun or the wind, and I looked down at my bike clock and it was hovering around 5mph, 6mph. We stopped at several points and I just did not want to go on, we finally ended up getting a ride with some people at the end of the day because we were running out of daylight and we were still trying to make it to this town that was about 20 miles away, which by car is no big deal, but in that type of weather condition would have taken us 3-4 hours by bike. I felt really defeated that day, battling both the winds and the extreme heat. It was the hardest day.

Ruby: Would you do a long bike tour like this again?
Megan: Definitely!

Ruby: Would you do anything differently?
Megan: First of all, go west to east! We went east to west, and the winds were just really hard. I would also like to do more of a northern route. I’m glad I got to see that part of the country, but it was very desolate and very hot. Also, the maps we were going off of were about two years old, and so places that were listed as rest stops weren’t always there anymore, so that was a safety issue in terms of where we could find water and shelter. In my situation, I also probably should have gone with a different person. Our planning was very quick and at the time I didn’t know anybody else who would want to do a cross-country bike tour — so my options were limited.

Ruby: What tips would you suggest for choosing a ride partner?
Megan: If you’re going with a friend, just make sure you have those really hard discussions before you start. Just those really nitty-gritty things. If you’re not in such close quarters with someone, you might not bring up those small little things that bother you, but you’re going to be in very close quarters on your tour, so those things will end up really bothering you. For example, I didn’t like Texas, and my friend loved Texas, and this created some friction because I wanted to get out ASAP and she was loving every mile of it. Make sure you can handle being with this person, because you’re fully dependent on this person for not only your physical safety, but also as your emotional cheerleader.

Ruby: Did you learn anything surprising on the trip?
Megan: I had lived in New York for 3 years before doing this trip, and my faith in the greater good of people had worn thin. I expected to always feel unsafe and always be on my guard, but the trip totally restored my faith in humanity! Everyone was very nice, everyone was very kind, everyone was very helpful, and always curious about what we were doing. People would drive by us and ask us if we needed anything, pass us bottles of water, just really nice stuff. I had never done any smaller weekend or week-long tours before, so this was definitely the most difficult bicycling I’ve ever done. It really tests your physical limits and mentally, and just keeping a positive attitude can be more difficult than spending two hours climbing mountains (which we definitely did!). My mantra that I took away from the trip was “if you keep pedaling, you will eventually get there.”

Ruby: What advice would you give to other women considering cross-country or long-distance bicycle touring?
Megan: I would say, first and foremost, don’t doubt yourself. I think that every person is capable of doing more than they think they can. You can do it! I also think it’s important to have good equipment. Everyone is different, you don’t have to use the same bike and gear that I used, but make sure that you are comfortable on your seat in particular, and that you have a good fit for your frame. If you’re miserable on your bike, that’s going to affect your tour and it could affect your health later on down the road. Do a fitting before you leave, and pump up your tires, lube your chain, do all those really small things to prevent major break-downs while you’re out on the road.

Have any sage advice from bicycle trips of your own? Let us know on our Female Bike Forum!
(This group is different from our Facebook Page, and is for women, female-identifying and gender non-conforming people only– to engage with each other, build community, and talk about all things bike!)