When's the best time to go on a bike tour? For most bike tours in the US, it's spring or fall. The heat of summer hasn't arrived yet or has already broken, the mornings are warm enough to start without freezing, and the days are long enough for a full day on the bike.
That's the general answer, and it's only half of it. Which month is best? That depends on where the trip is. July is the worst month of the year to ride in Tucson and one of the best to ride in Montana. So here's how I'd think about it: where the riding is good in each season, and what to look up for the week you're actually going.
Why spring and fall are the best seasons in most places
Heat ruins more riding days than anything else. When the afternoon high is close to 100 degrees, you either start at first light and stop before lunch, or you spend the afternoon drinking water faster than you can carry it. In the desert Southwest and most of Texas, that's June, July and August.
Cold is the problem at the other end of the year. A 40 degree morning means a stiff start and a cold descent, and on a short winter day you run out of daylight before you run out of road.
Spring and fall sit between the two across most of the country. The mornings are cool, the afternoons are warm, and you have enough daylight to finish.
Where to ride in each season
Winter: the desert Southwest and Florida
From November to March, the warm riding is in the far south. Southern Arizona is the best known of these places, and its season runs exactly when the rest of the country is riding indoors. The California desert and Florida are the other two places riders go to get warm miles in winter.
In the desert, expect a big gap between the morning and the afternoon. How big? It's normal to roll out in long sleeves and finish in a short-sleeve jersey, so you need clothes for both temperatures on one ride. The layer-by-layer version is in what to wear on a bike tour.
Spring: Texas, the Southeast and the desert before it gets hot
March, April and May are good months in a lot of places at once. The Texas Hill Country has its wildflowers, with bluebonnets usually at their best in early to mid April. The Southeast warms up. And the desert is still pleasant until the heat arrives in May. Early April in southern Arizona is about as good as desert riding gets, which is why I put it in the best bike rides in Tucson.
Spring is also the busiest season on the scenic roads. Wildflower weekends bring a lot of cars to the famous loops, so ride those on a weekday morning if you can.
The high mountains aren't ready yet. Roads at elevation can still be closed or cold well into May.
Summer: the mountains and the North
From June through August, go north or go up. The Rockies, the northern states and New England have their best riding in summer, with long days and mild temperatures. How late do the high roads open? Glacier National Park in Montana is an example: its Going-to-the-Sun Road usually isn't fully open to cars until late June or early July, because that's how long it takes to plow the snow off the top. The Pacific Northwest is at its driest in July and August.
Summer is the wrong time for the desert Southwest and most of Texas. Tucson's normal high is about 101 degrees in June and 100 in July. Arizona's monsoon season, which the National Weather Service sets as June 15 to September 30, adds afternoon thunderstorms, wind and dust, with the most storms from mid-July to mid-August. In Florida and along the Gulf Coast, summer means heat, humidity and an afternoon thunderstorm most days.
Fall: New England, the Blue Ridge and Texas again
September and October are the best riding months in a lot of the country. New England has its fall color. In Vermont it usually peaks first in the north, in late September or the first week of October, and moves south through mid to late October. The Blue Ridge Mountains turn color in October as well.
Further south, the heat finally breaks. The Texas Hill Country is good again from October into November, with cooler mornings and less traffic than in wildflower season. More on that in the best bike rides in the Texas Hill Country. By late October the desert Southwest is cooling back toward its winter season.
Two things change in late fall. The days get short, and once the clocks go back in early November, it's dark before six in much of the country, which cuts the length of a riding day. And mountain roads start to close. Sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway close in winter for ice and snow, and because those sections aren't plowed, they stay closed until it melts.
What to look up for the week you're going
A season is an average. Before you book, check these for the actual dates and the actual place:
- Look up the average high and the average low. The low matters as much as the high, because it decides what you wear at the start of the day and on every long descent.
- Check the temperature at the top of the climbs. A mountain summit can be 15 to 20 degrees colder than the town at the bottom. That's the difference between a warm morning in the valley and a cold 25 mile descent.
- Does that week fall in a monsoon season, the Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 to November 30), or a stretch of the year with an afternoon thunderstorm most days?
- Look up sunrise and sunset. Count the hours of daylight against how long your longest day of riding will take you, stops included.
- Check road openings. High mountain roads and parkways can stay closed into late spring and close again in late fall.
- Find out what else is going on in town. A festival, a big race, a football game or the peak weekend for wildflowers or fall color fills the hotels and puts more cars on the roads.
How the dates get picked for a guided trip
On a guided trip, someone has already made this choice for you. When we research a place to ride, one of the first things we check is the weather for the week we'd be there: whether the mornings reach about 60 degrees by the time a group rolls out, whether the afternoons stay out of the heat, and whether that week falls in a storm season. The same place can be a great trip in one month and a hard one three months later, so the date comes from the place, not the other way around.
If you're looking at tours, check when each one runs and look up the weather for those dates yourself. You can see when each of ours runs on our trips page.