Bikers...

[Bronk]

Bumped into these guys earlier today...they looked like they had been on the road for awhile so I asked them where they were headed...said they started in Oregon and were on their way to Virginia...they've made it about halfway so far...reminded me of the bikers I met at Four Pines Hostel near Catawba, VA in 2002 who were doing something similar:

http://www.rideforjim.org/index.html

[Mountain Wildman]

I passed a bunch of bikers on the way home from North Conway the week before the Fourth of July, There were so many of them in full bike gear that I thought it was some kind of race, but none of them had numbers and I didn't see any support crews or officials, Maybe it was something similar.

[FFTorched]

Every weekend is the Tour di Italia over here. You can hardly make it to mountains to start hiking because the Italians, Germans, Austrians and other Europeans are riding all the mountain passes through the Dolomites.

[garlic08]

Their route will take them through Damascus, VA. They're on the old "Bike-Centennial" route, first mapped out in 1976. Now it's the "Trans-America" route mapped by Adventure Cycling in Missoula, MT.

I've ridden that route and that was the first time I stayed at The Place. Back then, I thought it was a biker hostel that AT hikers used occasionally.

[Spokes]

Their route will take them through Damascus, VA. They're on the old "Bike-Centennial" route, first mapped out in 1976. Now it's the "Trans-America" route mapped by Adventure Cycling in Missoula, MT.

I've ridden that route and that was the first time I stayed at The Place. Back then, I thought it was a biker hostel that AT hikers used occasionally.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/US_Bike_76.svg/450px-US_Bike_76.svg.png

[garlic08]

Thanks for the memories, Spokes! I just saw one of those old signs at the intersection of CO Hwy 9 and US 285 near Fairplay. They're still out there. I still can't believe that's nearly 35 years ago.

[Tuckahoe]

Route starts here in Yorktown. When I worked at Sherwood Plantation in Charles City, Virginia on Rt 5, we would have a lot of cyclists stopping in for a break so early in the trek.

[10-K]

If I'm driving pedestrians are annoying. If I'm walking, cars are annoying.

But no matter how I'm moving bicycles are annoying.

:)

[Pedaling Fool]

A lot more routes since route 76.

[Spokes]

I did the TransAm in 2008 from Yorktown, VA to Astoria, OR as a precursor to the thru-hike last year. Both were great adventures- similar in some respects, different in others. Yes, the AT was harder and the social bonds more endearing. Kept a journal at crazyguyonabike.com (http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/ibikefar).