The Transamerica Bicycle Trail crosses the United States from coast to coast, starting at the Pacific Ocean in Astoria, Oregon and ending in Yorktown, Virginia. It travels through 10 states east to west, it travels down the Oregon coast before veering inland, over the Cascades and into Idaho and Montana, turning south at Missoula and travelling through Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, crossing the continental divide over the Rockies in Colorado, descending to the great plains of Kansas and Missourian midwest, briefly traversing the southern tip of Illinois and heading into the Appalachia it spans the entire width of Kentucky, and the final state of Virginia ending at Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

The route is was originally mapped in 1976 for the bicentennial of the United States and is one of the most popular cross country bike routes in America, following lower trafficked roads. End to end it’s 4,200 miles and an awful lot of feet of climbing. At a rate of 60-70 miles a day it should take around 60-70 days, or a little over 2 months.

Friday was my last day of work, the start of a 3 month break, easily the longest continuous period I’ve taken off work since I started working. I spent the weekend getting my apartment and bike ready for a multi-month absence, clearing out all the perishables, and getting everything in order.

I won’t know if I’ve packed the wrong things or the right things until I get going. I’ve been backpacking for many years and feel like I’ve gotten my gear dialed in, so I know exactly what I’ll need, and never carry too much, or too little. I’ve done 5 camping trips on my bicycle since buying it last October; 3 days over thanksgiving, 6 days down the California coast in February, and 3 other overnight trips, most recently in Owens Valley. Each time I’ve wanted to make gear and setup tweaks when I got home. This time I’ll have to make any changes on the road.

My gear has been laid out in little piles on the floor for the past week or so to make sure I have everything I need. Today I packed it all up onto the bike, ready for tomorrow, when I pick up a rental car for a 2 day road trip up the California and Oregon coast, to the starting point in Astoria, the northernmost point of the Oregon coast, which sits on the south shore of the Columbia River which separate Oregon from Washington. Tomorrow night I’ll be camping on the California side of the border, on the coast, and on Tuesday I’ll drive the full length of Oregon, drop off the rental car, and spend the night in Astoria, before setting off on my bike on the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail.

Day 0 was really a 2 day road trip through northern California and the entire length of the Oregon coast. The first day I took the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco and drove up through Humboldt County, just past Eureka to Sue-meg State Park to camp for the night.

The second day was a longer but I was able to get an earlier start as I didn’t have to deal with picking up the car and packing up my apartment. The road out of California took me through Redwood National Park. As I crossed into Oregon I realized that this would be the longest I’ll have spent outside of California since I moved to America.

The Oregon coast is as pretty as the California coast, although 101 isn’t quite as pretty as highway 1, for longer sections it just runs straight through the forest instead of hugging the coast. I stopped for lunch on the beach and weathered the strong wind which deposited fine sand onto me as I ate.

And after a long day’s driving I arrived into Astoria, the first thing that strikes is how enormous the mouth of the Columbia is, and the bridge that spans it between Oregon an Washington. Astoria itself is a cute little town, and the views from the Astoria column are pretty amazing. I had considered riding up and starting from the top, but quickly vetoed that idea as I drove up the steep inclines.

Tonight I sleep in a motel, tomorrow I start pedalling!

I woke up early after a semi restless night, a combination of the thin ceiling and loud neighbour at the motel, and an overactive mind running through the next day. In the morning there were low clouds on the banks of the Columbia and the air was crisp.

I had a quick breakfast, cooking some oatmeal on my stove and coffee from the motel, packed up my bike, took a deep breath, and rolled out of the motel.

I planned a shorter day for the first day, around 50 miles. The route starts at the Columbia River Maritime Museum, which is semi arbitrary, but the original route was created to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States so starts and ends at military sites. I chose to start another mile up the street at the welcome to Astoria sign.

I drove into Astoria on 101, but the first section of the route avoids the busy road and takes a different bridge out of town, and then goes through the Lewis and Clark National Monument. This road goes all the way to the town of Seaside, which no surprises is a seaside town.

From Seaside the rest of the day follows route 101 going south down the road I drove north on the previous day. There’s a tunnel with no shoulder that you press a button for and it lights up signs that let drivers know to slow down because there’s bikes in the tunnel.

All in it was a good day, although the wind remained as strong as ever on the Oregon beaches. The state park campsite I’m camped at has hot showers, so after walking along the beach this afternoon I had a shower and now I’m ready for day 2.

I wake up early and gather my things for an early start. The sun rises so early in Oregon, although the campsite is nestled in the trees and there are clouds in the sky so no view of the sunrise.

As I leave the campsite there is mist hanging in the air, low over the mountains. The morning air is still, although it doesn’t take long for the stiff coastal wind to pick up.

The first half of the day I follow 101 around two large lagoons to the town of Tillamook, where I leave 101 to hug the coast. In the early morning there are fewer cars and the riding is easy with pretty views of rivers, and beaches, and lagoons. The road follows a railway line, and as undulated I look jealously at the flat grade of the tracks.

I was making good time to arrive at Tillamook around 10 am when the Tillamook Cheese Factory opens. Those from America will Tillamook Cheese, I’m not sure if it’s a west coast thing, but it’s very popular in California. I can see why this is a great place for a diary, the climate is seems very similar to Marin, very green, good for pasturing cows.

About 5 miles before I got to Tillamook I heard a loud thud thud thud, and I thought something must have poked into my spokes. I stopped and looked for what it could be but couldn’t see anything, so I carried on, and sure enough my rear tire was deflating. My first flat tire and it’s only day 2! This isn’t a good omen. There was a fairly large and very sharp screw embedded into my tire, I think it would have caused a flat on a car tire too, my Schwables didn’t have a chance.

The cheese factory was heaving with people, but it was neat to see through to the factory floor and the complete cheese making process. I picked up a block for dinner.

The afternoon ride followed a scenic road all the way around to Netarts (which in my head sounds like some web company’s name) and finally down to Whalen Island County Park where I got a campsite for tonight. While the road was scenic it had two steep climbs, the first had a warning on the road signs of 12% grade, and the second right at the end of the day was nearly as steep. I was pretty beat by the time I got into camp.

I’m over 100 miles from Astoria now, down the Oregon coast. Tomorrow starts going a little further down the coast before turning east, and I’ll leave the Pacific Ocean behind.

I woke up to dew on the tent, the clouds were hanging low on the Oregon coast again. I got an early start and continued on down the coastal trail.

The early morning ride took me past a couple more beaches, but the fog was so thick I couldn’t see many of them. The air was cool and the riding was pleasant. The coastal trail rejoined 101, and then finally left 101 for the last time, taking the Old Scenic Highway 101. This was a really pleasant ride through the forest on a road with basically no cars. I’ve finally left the coast for the last time.

The end of Old Scenic Highway 101 dropped me out to the Salmon River Highway, and the mist rapidly burned off revealing the sun.

The rest of the day was riding on fairly busy roads, with the temperature increasing, and the forest giving way to farmland and rural Oregon.

There were no particularly steep climbs today, just some rolling hills and a couple of longer inclines. The longest climb was through the forest along Old Highway 101, which was really pleasant.

The afternoon sun got pretty intense, but the downhills gave me a chance to cool off the sweat I’d built up on the uphills. This evening I rolled into a city biker campground in Riverside Park, which as you might guess, is beside the river.

The first two nights I’ve shared the hiker/biker campgrounds with 1 other person each night, both times they were hikers doing the Oregon Coast Trail. Tonight I finally met some other bikers at the campsite, a group of locals doing an overnight shakedown, they are also backpackers looking to get into touring. I have yet to meet anyone else doing the Trans America, although the hiker the first night told me that there was a person the previous night, so maybe I’ll catch up to them, or someone else!

Depending how today’s riding goes I may have time to go into Eugene this afternoon, and after Eugene I’ll be heading into the Cascades mountain range, which I’m looking to.

Today was the flattest day so far, the morning ride was cool as I headed towards Corvallis. The group I met at the campsite were from Corvallis and they recommended if I had time I do a quick loop of Oregon State University, so I stopped at the supermarket, picked up some lunch, and cycled the few blocks to campus to eat.

Oregon State University was very pretty, the whole town of Corvallis was very pretty, I can see why they liked living there.

Both the morning and afternoon’s riding was through farmland, large fields of wheat and other crops. Near to the town of Corvallis there were research farms that had little plots, but as I got further the fields got larger. Today was also on much quieter roads than yesterday, on rural roads that paralleled the main highways.

The afternoon’s ride was long and flat and hot, and I was relieved to get to the end. I was glad to have 3 water bottles today.

The end of the ride I am only about 4 miles from downtown Eugene, so I spent the late afternoon doing a quick bike tour of downtown. It’s an interesting place, they have pretty great bike infrastructure, and just like California towns there are quite a few homeless people, but in general it didn’t feel there was a real focal point, there are a couple of very old houses, but they are unassuming, small, and privately owned. I guess the main focal point is the Willamette River, which I had camped next to last night and followed all the way down todays ride. I was thinking as I was cycling past it that in California a river would never discharge this much water, it would be dammed upstream and only a trickle would flow downstream.

Tomorrow I head into the Willamette National Forest and follow the McKenzie River, which joined up to the Willamette just before it flows into Eugene. I will have to take the alternate route and not the McKenzie Pass main route unfortunately, the McKenzie Pass road is meant to be the best cycle route in central Oregon, and cyclists unofficially ride it before cars each spring, when the Oregon Department of Transportation ploughs a single lane down the center of the roadway to promote snow melt. The Oregon DOT never actually opens to cyclists but they seem to tolerate them, which as a Californian seems strange to me, Yosemite would definitely write you a ticket if you rode the closure. But anyway, this year they are repaving McKenzie Pass so they’ve made it extra clear that this year no bicycles really means no bicycles.

I’ve now finished Section 1 (of 12), so I’m 235 miles ito the 4,200 mile route. The next section is 336 miles to Baker City, still in Oregon, but at the far east of the state, from Baker City it’s not far to Idaho.

This morning I woke up to low hanging clouds in the mountains around Eugene, and the ground was wet so I assumed it had rained overnight, but as I started moving I could feel the moisture hanging in the air, the early morning fog.

Today was the longest days ride I’ve done yet, almost 90 miles, and it took me the complete length of the McKenzie River to just shy of Santiam Pass. While I started below 500 feet and finished just above 4,000 feet there were only a couple of steeper sections near to the end of the day, for the most part it was a very gentle incline and very pleasant riding.

By mid morning the mist started to burn off and the sun came out again. The beginning of the day meandered through some more small farms and rural communities nestled between the tree covered mountains. As I entered the main valley that McKenzie flows down it turned into a burn area. The river was wide and looked fairly gentle.

After lunch as I kept climbing I got out of the burn area into forest. I could see a snow covered peak in the distance, I think it must be McKenzie Pass which I couldn’t take, coming up Santiam Pass there is no sign of snow. As I got nearer to the top of Santiam Pass the forest floor turned from pretty thick lush vegetation into lava fields. The lava that flowed in this area is the most recent in the United States, it was flowing when the Mayflower sailed into port.

I couldn’t help but compare everything I was seeing to the Sierra; the relative lack of glaciation, there are no real foothills, we go straight from Willamette Valley into the forest, and just how much vegetation there is on the forest floors. I was also still struck by how much water flows down the McKenzie River and how wide and gently it flows.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet, western Oregon is absolutely covered in blackberry bushes, they are everywhere! From the coast all the way to base of the Cascades, there are blackberry bushes all along the sides of the roads. Unfortunately none of the berries are ripe, Most of the bushes are still flowering, and at best there are green immature berries. Later in the season there must be enough berries for everyone to eat their fill.

The campsite tonight was chosen because I ran out of legs, it’s kind of near the highway and there are mosquitos out, but I will enjoy sleeping in the forest none the less.

I don’t know where I’ll end up tomorrow, I’ve set myself up for an easy ride up to the pass, I’ll figure it out on the road. Time for dinner.

Last night sleeping at 4,000 feet the air temperature got lower, and overnight everything got covered in dew again. I woke up to a low mist hanging above Lost Lake.

The morning riding started off with a short ascent to Santiam Pass and then a 1,500 foot descent down to Sisters, the first town on the east side of the Cascades. From the east side Mount Washington stands tall and white, still covered in snow. It captures all the rainfall, enough to create glaciers which have carved it’s prominent pointy peak. It was visible in my rear view mirror the rest of the day.

As I travelled east the trees got smaller and less dense, and the arid landscape turned to golden grasses and sagebrush that I’m familiar with in California. I stayed at around 3,000 feet pretty much the whole day from here, travelling east first to Redmond, the largest of the towns, and finally through Prineville, which sits at the base of the Ochoco Mountains, which I will climb into tomorrow.

As I pulled into an overlook state park just before Prineville (which is a 300 foot descent from the road I’d been tracking across, sitting in a water carved valley) I met another cyclist doing the Trans America, the first person so far! They said I was also the first Trans America cyclist they had met, they left the same day as me but as a Portland local started just south of Tillamook. He was planning to go further than me tonight so we parted ways, but I suspect I’ll run into him again tomorrow or the day after maybe, he can’t be far ahead.

Tonight I’m staying at Ochoco Lake campground, really a reservoir rather than a lake, that sits just above Prineville. There are showers which will be nice after sweating across the hot roads today, I’m pretty sure I’m mildly sunburned on any exposed skin, which I tried to cover up, but not much you can do with your ears and face.

Tomorrow is going to be a scorcher too, the hotest day so far and climbing over desert mountains I’m planning to try and get the climbing done in the cooler morning hours. The route goes through John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, which looks interesting, if it’s not too much detour.

I’ve been riding for a week non stop now, I’m around 475 miles from Astoria along the trail.

The weather forecast today was for highs around 36°C (that’s about 97 for those who deal in freedom units; either way it’s hot), and unlike California the highs arrive later in the afternoon and stick around to the early evening. I wanted to get the two climbs to the passes done in the cooler morning temperatures so I got up at the crack of dawn at 4:20 and set off just as the first rays of sun were touching the top of the mountains at 5:30.

Leaving early was definitely the right call, the morning riding was so pleasant. Just before the first pass I ran into Dominic who I met yesterday and spent the rest of the morning cycling together, first with a glorious descent down from Ochoco Pass, which was so pretty, and then with a slog of a climb up Keyes Creek Pass, it was heating up and there was no shade.

From the second pass much of the afternoon was a meandering gentle downhill through increasingly dry landscape which was really beautiful, the plateaus from successive lava flows caused steps into the hills with table top mountains and crumbling basalt sandwiched between them.

The descent ended in the Sheep Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. There were really pretty rock formations here, I would have stopped to do one of the hikes but it was so hot and standing in the sun was much hotter than moving on the bike, so in the end I just stopped for lunch before continuing on.

The rest of the day followed the John Day River upstream. I decided to just push on after stopping for a very satisfying ice cream sandwich in Dayville, spinning the pedals through the heat wasn’t really any worse than sitting out in it, and this way I’m closer to the climbs tomorrow, which I can hopefully do in cooler morning temperatures, although the forecast is for cooler weather tomorrow anyhow.

Todays ride took me through really varied landscapes, the first climb from Ochoco Lake to the pass was through fairly thick forest, and as the day went on the trees got smaller and really sparse, replaced by sagebrush. The east side of the Ochoco Mountains was beautiful landscape that was fun to ride a bike through, and the final ride up John Day River the terrain flattened out some more, the mountains turned rounder, with irrigated farmland stretching from the road to the mountains. As I cycled past the cows looked at me suspiciously, the horses pensively, and the goats curiously. The dogs always bark like hell.

Tonight a campsite with a shower again, very welcome after today’s heat, sitting along the banks of the John Day River. Looking forward to an early night tonight.