ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010120
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
The TransAmerican Bicycle Trail is turning 20 this year, and while there will be an occasional celebration along its 4,450-mile, Oregon-to-Virginia route, for the most part the event is destined to pass into obscurity.
Which is a good word to describe the trail itself - remote and mostly unknown even to the people who live nearby. It is marked by a few black-and-white signs with ``76'' and a bicycle on them, and it attracts an occasional weekend clump of bike-club riders moving along at a 12- to 14-mph pace in flashy clothes that hug the figure.
The trail was launched in 1976 as part of the nation's bicentennial observance by a group based in Montana that called itself Bikecentennial. The organization was renamed Adventure Cycling Association several years ago, but the TransAmerican Trail continues to be called the Bikecentennial Trail in some areas, especially Western Virginia.
``Bikecentennial was a name that was a natural,'' said Greg Siple, 50, one of the trail's founders who is the art director for Adventure Cycling.
Some 4,000 cyclists showed up to try the trail its first year.
``Of that, half of them signed up to go all the way,'' Siple said. ``Not everybody made it, of course.''
Adventure Cycling produces maps of the trail and publishes a magazine titled Adventure Cycle that has a 40,000 circulation, but what it doesn't do is keep records of how many people bike the trail.
While the first year produced large tour groups that moved across the country in 90 days, cross-country cycling tours now draw modest groups of 10 to 12 riders. The last of three groups for the 1996 season left Virginia in early June.
``The rest just buy the maps and go on,'' Siple said.
Virginia gets high marks from TransAm bikers for its beauty and beastly characteristics.
``Virginia is the prettiest and the toughest state of all,'' is a quote you often hear, said Donna Lynn Ikenberry, the author of a recently published book, ``Bicycling Coast to Coast: A Complete Route Guide Virginia to Oregon.'' (The Mountaineers Books, $16.95, 800-553-4453.)
Twenty years earlier, Anita Notdurft-Hopkins said much the same thing in her book,``Bike Tripping Coast to Coast.'' She was one of the first to tackle the trail.
``Every biker dreams of someday finding the perfect road. Well, I am one of the lucky ones - I've found it,'' Notdurft-Hopkins said.
That road, she said, stretches from Daleville to Christiansburg, through Catawba and Ellett valleys.
There is another stellar chunk, too, said Hank Ebert of Roanoke, who compiles the newsletter for the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club.
``There is a real pretty section between Troutville and Buchanan,'' he said. ``It is a very popular ride.''
For the most part, the trail follows quiet and winding rural roads, where black cows graze in dew-dampened pastures and where freshly cut fields are dotted with large bales of hay with too much bulk to fit into the weathered barns that hug the roadside.
Fat, furry groundhogs waddle along the shoulder. Deer snort just beyond the blackberry and honeysuckle tangles along the fences.
There is more than the beauty of the trail, said Ebert, who has been a serious biker for a little more than three years.
``One thing [is] it is recognized as a bike route,'' he said. ``The signs are there. The folks who live on it often see bike riders. In most cases the dogs are chained up. Occasionally, you will run into someone pedaling cross-country, and that makes for an interesting conversation.''
There are hills, too. Everywhere. But few are more menacing than what bikers call ``Danger Hill,'' which is officially known as East Main Street in Christiansburg.
"I was going so slow - 1.5 mph - I just tipped over,'' Ikenberry said.
Someone told Ikenberry that East Main is ``the climb from hell'' and no doubt was plotted ``by masochists who never turned a crankset in their lives.''
In reality, much of the Trans-American Trail was laid out by long-distance rider Lys Burden. In 1972, Burden and her husband, Dan, along with Siple and his wife, June, were cycling from Alaska to Argentina.
``We were taking the trip to promote the potential of biking - the fact that adults could get on a bicycle and enjoy themselves and see the country and cover significant distances,'' Siple said. ``While we were on the way, we began to wonder what we might do next.''
Why not map a trail across America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and open it on the 200th birthday of the country?
The four bikers established an office in Montana, and Lys did much of the fieldwork, searching for just the right route in a Volkswagen Microbus.
``She would establish a corridor of 50 to 100 miles wide,'' Siple said. ``Once that was settled, she would go back and look at all the options. One of the factors was the traffic level, another was the scenic value. There also were considerations of services and historical sites.''
Lys has a bicycle tour company in Florida, where Dan works for the state highway department. June is back in college.
The past 20 years, Adventure Cycling has established two other cross-country trails and has mapped trails along each coast, for a total network of more than 20,000 miles.
It also is developing the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, following the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico.
Interest in mountain biking doubtlessly stole some of the traffic from the TransAmerican route, Siple said.
``Touring has been in something of a slump in recent years,'' he said. ``I think it is because mountain biking is so popular. We are seeing some signs now of growing interest in road touring.''
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. 1. Members of the Blue Ridgeby CNBBicycle Club ride a portion of the TransAmerican Trail in Botetourt
County. 2. Signs bearing the No. 76 and a drawing of a bike
occasionally mark the route in Virginia. color. Graphic: Map.
color.