The
Southern Tier

Five years after completing the TransAmerica Trail, Terry and I headed back to the States — this time to tackle the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Tier from St Augustine in Florida to San Diego in California. The Southern Tier is a little shorter than the TransAm — 3041.9 miles compared to 4,264 — and runs across the deep south, taking in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

We made this trip back in 2020 and documented our journey in detail.

Click below to read the journals.

It turned out to be a completely different experience to the TransAm and tested us to the limit, both emotionally and physically. Despite its shorter distance — and far less climbing — it proved to be a far harder challenge. There was nothing like the support network we found on the TransAm. We also encountered far fewer cyclists —  for virtually the entire route we rode alone. The traffic, in certain areas, was also far busier than the TransAm. There were times we considered quitting, or diverting onto another route. But it was worth persevering. 

The landscapes are stark in their beauty. Forests of towering Saguaro cacti in Arizona, the blue-bonnet carpeted valleys of the Texas Hill Country and the endless white sands of the Mississippi Sound. It’s a ride of great contrast — from barren landscapes like the Yuha Desert — to major cities, including San Diego (California), Phoenix (Arizona) and Austin and El Paso (Texas). We also took a detour to New Orleans, arriving in time for Mardi Gras.

The Southern Tier not only exercises the legs, it’s also a major workout for the senses — tasting southern culinary classics such as fried catfish and sugar-coated beignets, listening to jazz in the streets where it was born, or breathing in the damp misty air of the Gulf of Mexico on a fog-bound evening.

And as with every ride, it’s the memories of the people that remain. Being plucked from a mountain by a US Marshall, sipping tea with a gun-toting Trump supporter, who loved watching the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, or spending the night sheltered in the bunker of a Civil War Fort after being rescued from a storm by the local fire chief. It’s all there in the blog — and also in my second book ‘Southern Tier’ due to be published in 2027.

And if you are wondering why the blog was posted a year to the day after the ride, then let me explain. During the TransAm, Terry and I blogged every evening, which is a big ask on top of riding around 60 miles each day. One night we were staying in a church with several other cyclists. Twenty years earlier, before the advent of the internet, we’d have been chatting and sharing stories, revelling in the discoveries and revelations that come from meeting people from different countries with different lives.

Instead, each of us sat heads down, tapping away on our tablets or phones, engrossed in uploading photos and crafting stories for our eager readers. One evening, as I was waving my iPad high above my head in a desperate attempt to catch a whiff of wifi, Terry hit the nail on the head.

‘Are we doing this ride for ourselves or for the people back home?’ he asked. That stuck with me. As ever, Terry was right. At the end of a day’s ride you should be resting, eating, or socialising. You shouldn’t be tapping on a keyboard. So, for the Southern Tier I chose not to slog with the blog, but instead keep an old-fashioned diary and write it up when I got home. I spent more time chatting to those around me (which was normally Terry) and less time communicating with an audience thousands of miles away.  Nobody seemed to mind.