4264 Miles Across
the Heart of America

We made this trip back in 2014 and documented our journey in detail.

Click below to read the journals.

The TransAmerica Trail is the coast to coast cycle trail America loved first. Established in 1976 to celebrate the country’s bicentennial, it was the first cross-country route established by the Adventure Cyclist Association – the US equivalent to Cycling UK.

The idea for the TransAmerica Trail can trace its roots back to 1973 when cyclists Greg Siple and his wife June, along with friends Dan and Lys Burden, were undertaking a mammoth 18,000-mile bicycling adventure from Anchorage in Alaska to Tierra de Fuego on South America’s southernmost tip. They called the trip ‘Hemistour’.

As Greg cycled across San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park he had a brainwave. Why not organise a bike ride across the United States to celebrate the country’s 200th birthday? What better way to bring the country together than a coast-to-coast journey achieved by muscle power alone — a modern interpretation of what the early settlers had done.

In the summer of 1976 more than 4,000 men and women from the United States and many from overseas, pedalled out on Bikecentennial ’76, setting out from both coasts. More than 2,000 of them made it all the way across. The team behind Bikecentennial then went on to found the Adventure Cycling Association, which has now mapped 36 routes in the US, covering more than 55,000 miles.

But the TransAmerica Trail remains the granddaddy of them all, spanning 4,262 miles from Virginia on the Atlantic coast to Oregon on the Pacific. On the way it traverses ten states, crosses the Great Plains and climbs four mountain ranges including the Appalachians and the mighty Rockies.

I cycled the route with my friend Terry Wooller from May 7th to July 19th 2014. We decided to travel East to West because it followed the movement of the early Europeans from one of the earliest settlements at Yorktown, dating back to 1682, all the way west to the Oregon Trail.

Along the way we passed through ten states: Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and finally Oregon. On route we explored parts of the country very few of its citizens even visit —  the so-called fly-over States. We saw some of the most spectacular scenery America has to offer and met incredible hospitality throughout.

If you’d like to know more then check out the blog, buy the book, or check out the Adventure Cycling Association’s website: www.adventurecycling.org  But a word of warning — once you start looking, you’ll be hooked.