The Route

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” -- Ernest Hemingway

We are biking the TransAmerica Bike Route – beginning at the Pacific Ocean and ending at the Atlantic Ocean.  Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?  It is a trip across the U.S. created to optimize its scenic beauty.  As the crow flies it is approximately 2,700 miles from Pacific to Atlantic; according to Google maps driving from the beginning to the end of our chosen route is exactly 3,000 miles.  But on our bike trip we will log over 4,000 miles.  Yes, we are taking a circuitous journey.  But it wouldn’t be a journey if it were a straight line.  At least not a very fun journey!

The route was established in 1976 as part of an event to celebrate the country’s bicentennial and is considered the first official bike route across the U.S.  That inaugural year, over 2,000 people biked the entire route; unanimously exclaiming, “it was the best bike ride ever!”  The route was mapped out with the following goals in mind: road surfaces suitable for biking, minimal traffic, varied terrain (i.e., lots of mountains), historic and interesting landmarks, and access to basic services like campgrounds, grocery stores, and an occasional bike shop.  This is the most-travelled bike route crossing the U.S. with tens of thousands riding it since its inception; apparently all agreeing, “It is the best bike ride ever!” 

On our bike ride we will cross ten states, 22 national forests, two national parks, and 112 counties.  We will travel mostly on two lane highways and purposely avoid big cities and heavy traffic.  The four largest cities we will pass through on this trip are: Eugene, OR, Missoula MT, Pueblo, CO, and Charlottesville, VA.

Here are the details:  We will start our journey in Florence, OR (just east of Eugene) smiling and excited as we leave the Pacific Ocean behind and ponder the awesomeness of the days to come.  We travel straight west across Oregon and at the Idaho border we turn our bikes northwest, traveling to Missoula, MT – the northern most point of our destination.  On our way to Missoula we follow the Lochsa River through Idaho for the longest ascent of the trip (approximately 70 miles).  Now that will be awesome!  Once we leave Montana we pretty much “bike the Rockies” heading southwest through Yellowstone National Park and Teton National Park in Wyoming.  In Colorado we will bike through Breckenridge, which just so happens to be one of my favorite ski destinations.  This will be the first time I see Breckenridge without snow (hopefully).  From there we head to the Continental Divide at Hoosier Pass where we will peak at 11,542 feet.  On to Pueblo, CO, which marks the halfway point of our journey.

After conquering the Rocky Mountains we bike the great plains of Kansas on our way to the Ozarks of Missouri.  As we pass through the Southern tip of Illinois we will cross the Mississippi River, paying homage to the great state from which it originates.  Upon leaving Illinois we will take a ferry across the Ohio River into Kentucky.  We then ride the Appalachian Mountains.  Note that the Appalachian Mountains are significantly steeper than the Rockies – shorter ascents but significantly steeper.  How cool is that?  Well for sure the descents will be really awesome!  After all the Appalachian fun we enter Virginia moving on to Colonial Williamsburg and our final destination of Yorktown, VA.

We start this ride at sea level and we end this ride at sea level, but somewhere in-between we ascend and descend over 150,000 feet.  How awesome is that?  We are riding from west to east so the prevailing winds will supposedly be at our backs.  However, upon researching other bike riders’ accounts of their rides across America one soon discovers that everyone who makes this trip, no matter the direction they travel, apparently faces the wind almost 100% of the time.  Sounds to me like, “the best bike ride ever!”