Bike Hikers Club Meeting

I think I've mentioned over on my Elegant Reflections blog that Gerry, my husband belongs to a bike club, called the Sacramento Bike Hikers. He's been riding with them for more than 5 years. On the first Wednesday of the month they have their club meeting. Gerry asked me to go with him last night. A couple that are members of the club did a cross country bike trip last year and they were going to talk about their trip at the meeting.

They flew to the Washington, DC area, rented a car and drove down to Virginia. They started their trip in May in Yorktown, VA by dipping the rear wheels of their bicycles in the Atlantic and started riding west. The reason they rode east to west is because the blazing morning sun would not be in their faces while they rode. They took the Trans Am bike route which was created, I believe, after the nation's bicentennial celebration in 1976. The husband, Jerry, carried 80 plus pounds on his bike and the wife, Peggy, carried 60 something pounds on her bike. They camped out and stayed in hotels, B&B's, motels, and people's homes along the way. They only cooked their meals 2 times during the whole trip. The rest of the time they ate in restaurants, stopped at several coffee shops, bakeries, etc.

The pictures they shared were fantastic. They traveled through Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, the southern portion of Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and into Oregon. They went through the Ozarks, Blue Ridge Parkway, the Rockies and crossed the Continental Divide in several places. The most beautiful scenery was seeing the Tetons. Their trip ended in August in Florence, OR where they dipped their front wheels in the Pacific Ocean. Evidently they have taken other long bike trips. They had a small laptop with them and blogged during their trip.

It was very interesting. Gerry has talked about doing some long rides through different areas of the country. However, I'm not too terribly excited about him doing that sort of thing.