Those of you who have been regular readers of Biking Bis will know that my friend Bruce and I took off on a cross-country bicycle tour beginning on May 13, 1984.
We each kept journals of our impressions at the time, and I first started publishing those journal entries — day-by-day — when this blog started back in 2005.
If you've seen them before, then please pardon my repeating them again. But more people come to Biking Bis every year, and I think some of the touring cyclists among you might enjoy reading our adventures from Virginia to California.
Time marches on
A lot has changed in the past 23 years along the TransAmerica bicycle trail, but a lot has stayed the same. For instance, authors of current journals I read on line at websites like Crazy Guy on a Bike still talk about the Cookie Lady, the trains passing through the city park in Sebree, Kentucky, all night and the good pies in Kansas.
A lot has changed, though. The biker's hostel in Elk Garden, Virginia, used to be a log cabin, but is now a brick building. Lazy Louie has passed away and his bike camp in Missouri is long gone.
Our bicycle route maps came from Bikecentennial, which is still around and going strong, but under the name Adventure Cycling Association.
The idea
My friend Bruce and I had met while working at a newspaper in Annapolis. Neither of us were particularly athletic, but we did enjoy road trips and somehow hit on the idea of bicycling. A week-long loop in Virginia one year was followed by a bicycle tour along Lake Champlain and up to Montreal the next.
I seem to remember the idea of a TransAmerica ride hit us at a party while a bottle of Yukon Jack lubricated our bearings, but it took a couple of years for us to bring it to fruition.
The journal
I first printed my journal here in 2005 and added Bruce's journal in 2006. The pictures are slides that I scanned several years ago after some had lost their luster.
This year, I'm going to try to add news headlines for events that occurred in the outside world during our trip.
If you want to check it out, the whole project is indexed at TransAmerica Bicycle Tour 1984. The journal entries will begin running on Sunday.
Please feel free to comment, especially if you've pedaled the route. I'd be interested in your impressions.
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