Biking Across the Country

This is the route I took to complete a cross-country tour by bicycle. The coast to coast trip consisted of 4 separate rides. The first, in 1984, was my first ever bicycle tour: a 380-mile/4-day test ride from Vermont to Maine to see if I had what it took to do my dream of bicycling back "home" from Vermont to Missouri. The ride to Maine was a success and prepared me for my ride the next summer to Neosho, MO (where my parents then lived). I actually rode a little past Neosho into Oklahoma to round up total trip mileage to 2000. The ride took 21 days.

In 1993, I was forced to take saved vacation from my job at IBM, and decided to use that time biking the entire Bikecentennial TransAmerica trail (Oregon to Virginia). Unfortunately, that ride ended after 28 days and 2625 miles when a passing pickup hit me near Girard, KS -- only 53 miles from where my previous eastern trek had ended. Not wanting to leave the cross-country goal unfinished, in 1997, I went back to my accident site and rode the final 53 miles to Narcissa, OK.

Click the "legend" icon to identify the routes in the map at the right. Details of the 4 rides can be found in this spreadsheet.