USA: Pacific Northwest, Yellowstone Adventure

Fifteen nights across five states from Portland, ridden self-guided, following much of the Lewis and Clark route into Yellowstone and over the Beartooth. Bikes are rented in Portland, or riders can bring their own.

Highway 84 and a first coffee stop at a waterfall open it, with Vista Point above the Columbia River, then the Columbia Gorge, the forests and the open plains of eastern Oregon, and Hell’s Canyon into Idaho and the Montana mountains.

Salmon in Idaho gets a rest day with a long list of options: off-roading, hot springs, shooting, museums, horseback riding, river rafting, or the forty-mile Lewis and Clark Adventure Trail, a gravel and mud loop in complete isolation that follows the ground the Corps of Discovery covered in 1805 when they were looking for a water route to the Pacific and found mountains instead.

The Lolo Pass carries the route into Wyoming and Yellowstone, the oldest national park in the world, with a rideout day for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs, and the Lamar Valley, where bison, elk, bighorn, wolves and bears are all resident, though no sighting can be promised. Cody and the Buffalo Bill Museum are nearby. The Beartooth Pass follows, a long climb of switchbacks that is one of the great American roads, with the Rockies crossed twice and Montana’s big sky country beyond. The price is quoted per rider. Self-guided suits this one: the distances are long, the navigation is simple, and the rest days are where the trip is actually won.