I remember Bikecentennial in 1976. Good times, tube socks, homemade trail mix, cooler drivers.
ABC’s Wild World of Sports used to cover an annual cross-country bicycle race. It looked absolutely grueling. How many people would really want to do this?
For you interest :)
My wife and I were talking about this just the other night. Great bucket list item that I’ll probably never get to.
My hunch is that the Rockies might be a bit tough.
“IF YOU’VE DREAMED OF A CROSS COUNTRY BIKE TRIP...”
Not ever, not once and the very thought horrifies me.
I was fine just watching Forest run cross country.
IMO, rail trails are a great re-purpose of abandoned railroads so long as it’s done with private money.
Id bet before you got out of Virginia that your @ss would hurt like the mayor of South Bend’s after his honeymoon.
We already have the nuts hiking the Appalachian Trail north to south and back (it takes a year or so). Now we will have people spending months or more riding a bicycle to and fro east to west and back. Joy.
So, a bicycle version of the Pacific Crest or Appalachian Trail? It will likely be too crowded to enjoy. The Pacific Crest Trail is far too difficult and rugged for the vast majority of people to complete more than a small segment of it. No doubt the bike trail will be packed and have a Starbucks every few miles. Instead of complaining about cars, cyclists will whine and moan about hikers, especially those with dogs and kids.
The only cross country bike trip I want to take is on the seat of my Indian Scout. I don’t do peddling.
This is a very nice project and it will take many years, however it’s been in the works for some time.
My longest bike trip was 1,500+/- miles and it would be nice to do a long ride NOT on the roadways...
All I can say is Coeur d’Alene - one of the most beautiful places in the country.
My physical therapist did this down the US west coast with her husband. She was already a marathon runner and started training for this months ahead of time. More than half who started didn’t finish. She said while it was tough, it was easier than some of the weeks she went through training and prep because they had all day to ride and they weren’t racing everyone. I’ve done 80 miles a few times in a day and that was brutal, but I can see how you can build up to that.
Coincidentally the same year, there was a documentary about a group who went cross country. During that event, a woman was hit by a car and died.
trails-all separate from vehicle traffic
___
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Many rural rail routes have disappeared and gone out of business, but in an act of foresight by Congress that surprised me, they passed legislation to keep these “rights of way” open and un-developed for possible future national use - whether again for rails, telecom, pipelines or whatever.
I believe the Feds provided some funding, but its basically up to states and private entities to decide how to use these pathways. Our county is going through this now. With state support (New York) local “rail to trail” groups were encouraged to form and decide what they wanted to have. Bare trails or paved? lights and bathrooms? bikes? foot-travel only? How to pay for upkeep? These sorts of questions.
I hope this eventually becomes a reality. I would love to do it with my wife on one of our tandems, pulling our weinerdog and camping supplies behind us in our little trailer.
My wife and I are very familiar with the parts of the trail that they are showing in Washington State. Unfortunately, it is a little bit misleading if you think that you will be able to ride the parts that we know of on a standard road or even touring bike, because much of it is not actually paved, or very well maintained. And the gaps where you would be expected to ride on the highways are ridiculous in some cases.
For instance the 5 miles of excellent trail that connects the Cedar River Trail in the Maple Valley area to the John Wayne Wayne Trail at Rattle Snake Lake has been closed off by the City of Seattle because it is in their watershed. The trail is not actually near one of their reservoirs other than Rattle Snake Lake which is open to the public anyway.
This means that instead of 5 miles through peaceful wilderness at about a 1% to 2% grade on a trail that is better maintained than the surrounding trail, one has to ride nearly 20 miles on Highway 18 over the top of Tiger Mountain with barely any shoulder which is the most dangerous stretch of highway in the entire state. From there you need to continue on all the way into Snoqualmie where you can finally catch another section of poorly maintained trail. The detour adds over 30 miles along with some very long and in some cases steep hills to your ride. The steepest part is actually between North Bend and Rattle Snake Lake.
That said the ride from Rattle Snake Lake through the two mile long tunnel next to I 90 coming out on the East Side of Snoqualmie Pass is great. But it is only open after the snow melts in late Spring and before the snow starts falling in early Fall which varies from year to year.
Knowing what I do about our local trails I do not trust the article very much. It is interesting to me that Seattle causes this horrendous gap in the trail for almost no reason considering the huge section of their watershed that are already open to the public. My wife and I have actually done it on our mountain bike tandem, but it was not a fun day and that was when we were younger and in better shape. From Renton to the top of Snoqualmie Pass going that way is a heck of a hard ride. Without the detour it would be only about 3000 feet of elevation gain, and around 50 miles, which lots of people could do and there are camping spots along the John Wayne Trail that are really nice.
The detour adds another 3000 feet and 30 more miles. Most people would not be capable of riding it in a day and have the common sense not to ride on the horrendous stretch of Highway 18 that goes over Tiger Mountain. When I was younger and crazier I used to ride up it for training and even back then it was risky.
Here is the current WSDOT camera at the top of the Tiger Mountain Pass which is about the safest part of the whole section of road. But it will give you an idea of how narrow the shoulder is with cars whizzing by at high speed.
https://www.wsdot.com/traffic/cameras/default.aspx?cam=5010
I remember Bikecentennial in 1976. Good times, tube socks, homemade trail mix, cooler drivers.
