Pacific Atlantic Cycling Tours

We start the tour riding a 75 mile day to the tourist town of Julian, California, located in the Volcan Mountains. Our next three days crossing the desert with 65-110 miles distances PAC Tour support includes plenty of ice and fluids.

The days climbing the mountains of Arizona offer some of the best scenery and challenging riding of the tour. The climbs up Yarnell Hill and Mingus Mountain are both memorable accomplishments. We will include plenty of local history across New Mexico and riding on old sections of Route 66 in Texas and Oklahoma.
Each day offers new and varied terrain as we ride eastward.

Arrive in Tucson and saddle up for a tour filled with sizzlin' southwest history every day! The first day we ride 54 miles to the artist community of Tubac. Next day onto Patagonia! The following morning we'll head out on an easy 56 miles through the wine country of Elgin before spending an evening walking the wooden sidewalks of historic Tombstone. Bisbee and Benson are the last towns on this tour.

This tour is for riders who are looking for a fun cycling holiday. It's the easiest Desert Camp Week. You'll enjoy this tour more if you can average 10 mph to have more time to explore the old southwest along the way. If you want to train for racing and average faster than 15 mph you should not attend this week. Please consider joining a longer mileage week of Desert Camp.

This week is for riders who want to ride long miles everyday, but stay at one location for four nights. The first day's ride to Nogales offers a change in scenery then we head to Sierra Vista (Holiday Inn Express) for four nights. On the last day we ride back to Tucson. Daily rides can be customized for riders with specific intensity. Evening cycling programs will be provided on a variety of topics. Each day will offer routes with 60-100 mile options.

The riders at this camp will range from intermediate to experienced. All riders should be able to ride 50 miles in 4 hours with stops.

We have not ridden this route for the past 8 years and it is a great tour to start Desert Camp. The lower elevations of these towns provide warmer springtime cycling conditions. We depart Tucson and head northwest toward the desert towns of Casa Grande, Gila Bend and Wickenburg. Distance are about 80 miles per day without too many climbs. Our route goes out and back through the Saguaro National Park. We ride on Interstate 8 in and out of Gila Bend.

We need a minimum of 15 riders to run this tour. If you are interested in this classic tour please sign up soon and encourage your friends to join you!

This new week combines our favorite route sections from previous Mountain and Chiricahua Weeks. This tour includes two nights in Safford which will allow riders to ride 30 miles to the summit of Mt. Graham and back to Safford in one day (60 miles total). We will also spend two nights in Willcox that will allow everyone the chance to ride to the top of Chiricahua Mountain and back in one day (88 miles total). A winding 35-mile-long road that climbs steeply up the southern flank of 10,717-foot-high Mount Graham is the highlight and challenge of this week. We ride past the Chiricahua Mountains on our way back to Tombstone!

Our new route spends the first day exploring the coastal region of Puget Sound on Whidbey Island. The next day we climb through the Cascade Mountains while crossing the rural roads of northern Washington. On the third day we visit Grand Coulee Dam. As we continue east we cross the rugged Rocky Mountains in Montana and the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming.

We have several active recovery days with shorter miles to see the sites along the way. In the Black Hills of South Dakota we spend a shorter day visiting Mount Rushmore. Our new route across Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan includes a rest day crossing Lake Michigan on the ferry boat. Then ride across Michigan to Ontario, Canada. Crossing Niagara Falls, New York, Vermont and finally Massachusetts! We have found that late summer is the best time of year for this tour because of the dry forecast. Expect warm temperatures in the mid 90s at this time of year.We have had many weather related adventures on this tour. In 1992 a hailstorm blew in after lunch on the Big Horn Mountains. Most of the riders had shed their coats at lunch. The temperature dropped from 80 degrees to 45 degrees in minutes. Hailstones covered the highland meadows like snow. An occasional passing motor home made ridable tire tracks through the marble size hail. Some riders walked and pushed their bikes for over an hour. Finally we descended into Sheridan, Wyoming. The sun came out. We were hot again. By the time we reached the motel the day of hail was just a bad memory.

One evening we were eating dinner at the "Little Chef" restaurant in Mitchell, SD. It was raining hard . The wind was howling. Suddenly, the lights went out. We wanted to leave and go back to the hotel, but the restaurant said the cash register lost power so they didn't have our bill. We overpaid them with a stack of $20 bills and ran back to the motel in the pouring rain. As the power came back the television announced a tornado sighting two miles west of Mitchell. Everyone congregated in the interior hallway. The power went out again and we sat in the dark listening to the wind roar. After 15 minutes the rain suddenly stopped. A great sunset lit up the sky again and we knew the tornado had decided to pass on by.

Don't be afraid. The weather isn't always that bad. The Northern Tour always adds more stories for veterans to tell. Every year is different because of the people, weather and even road conditions. We are looking forward to collecting a few more adventures on our cross-country tour!

Route 66 first became a recognized highway in 1926. It evolved with many different alignments that carried thousands of travelers from Illinois to California and back again. Our tour will explore these forgotten towns and sections by linking together many desolate pieces of original 1920 roadbed. 

Besides finding old concrete, we will experience the culture that defined America from 1920 to 1980. Route 66 is a unique tour that combines over 60 years of cross country history with a really fun bicycle adventure.