by Bill & Cassie Bauson

Having had a little taste of bike touring and always having loved endurance activities, I, Cassie, was thrilled. After hosting an overnight guest who was riding across the country, Bill said, "You know, I think we could do that." Before this, I didn’t really think he would ever consider it. For us, it was a no-brainer; if we were going to bike across the country, we would follow in our son Peter’s footsteps. He had ridden the TransAmerica Trail in 2016 with his friend Lucas. Bill conveniently retired in 2019. After much discussion and prayer, we bought plane tickets in January 2020 to start our ride from Portland, Oregon in June 2020.

We obviously did not have 20/20 vision. Who knew in January that COVID would become a thing and that everything would begin to shut down? As our June departure date neared, we debated, “Should we, or shouldn't we?” Things were beginning to open up a bit in many parts of the country, and we asked the opinions of several friends and even medical professionals. We decided that we would be mostly outdoors, often camping in our own tent, and we finally made our decision. Our first state would be Oregon, which was one of the stricter states. Although campgrounds were opening up along the coast, they were only open to self-contained vehicles. Since we didn’t carry a toilet on our bicycles, that meant they wouldn’t be open to us. So, before we went, we made sure that we would have lodging options for at least the first three nights. People assured us that once we got inland, things would be easier. Some people plan their tours in great detail before they begin, but we decided to plan two or three nights out to give us more flexibility for varying mileage in case of bad weather, unforeseen problems, or just wanting to take a shorter day.

Preparations

(Bill) To help get in shape, we rode more than usual. We also did a mini tour in May to Brown County via Indy, covering 50-60 miles per day. We carried our panniers, but didn’t bother to pack camping gear since we stayed at our sons’ apartments.

We spent a lot of time researching and figuring out logistics for our trip. Darren Alff, the “Bicycle Touring Pro” (bicycletouringpro.com) was the most helpful source of information. His videos cover topics from “animal encounters while camping in your tent” to “how to pack a bike box for flying”. We kept track of our rides with Ride with GPS. We set up a WordPress blog (bauson.wordpress.com) to document our trip. For navigation, we used the Adventure Cycling smartphone app and their TransAmerica Trail maps. We used Peter’s TransAm journal and other TransAm blogs on crazyguyonabike.com to learn what was ahead on our trip. Two riders named Tim and Jim were just a few days ahead of us on the TransAm, so we made good use of their blog entries. We did catch up to Tim and Jim just before we reached Yellowstone.

We added racks to our road bikes to carry our panniers. Here’s a list of our basic gear:

Fuji road bikes (3.0 LE Finest and 3.0 LE Sportif) with 50/34 chainrings and 8-speed 11-32 cassettes
Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires (we never had a flat on the entire TransAm Trail)
Topeak rear bike racks
Ortlieb Back-Roller Classic panniers (2 each)
Headlights and taillights, including a Garmin Varia RTL510 radar taillight
Two-person backpacking tent
Backpacking sleeping bags
Klymit Static V sleeping pads
85 oz CamelBak bladders (1 each)
No stove
Rain gear
Minimal clothing for on and off bike
Chromebook for blogging
Power bank, chargers, cables for electronics

Fully loaded, with food and water, we each carried 35-40 pounds.

*One of our bike boxes ready for travel*

For lodging, we had the option to stay in hotels, camp, or stay with Warmshowers hosts (Warmshowers is a hospitality exchange service for cyclists, similar to couch surfing, where you stay in people's homes for free). We didn't want to spend a lot of money on hotels, and we didn't want to "wild camp" (setting up your tent somewhere in a field or along the road). Little did we know that COVID would cause most campgrounds to close their bathrooms, and most Warmshowers hosts to stop hosting. We often wound up camping in city parks and primitive campgrounds.

And We’re Off!

(Cassie) So, on June 24, 2020, we found ourselves packing our bikes in boxes, along with our gear and some food. We were fortunate that a friend of our daughter had a brother in Portland, OR, who was willing to pick us up from the airport and let us stay with them for the night. We needed to repack, reassemble our bikes, etc. and the next morning we were off! Because we wanted to follow in Peter and Lucas’ footsteps, we biked from Portland to Astoria on the coast for the official start of the TransAm trail. Who knew that Portland was so hilly? And that in between Portland and Astoria, we would need to cross the Oregon Coast Range? We took 2 days to do those 125 miles. Our Astoria Warmshowers host met us on the road and suggested a ride up a steep hill to the Astoria Column at the end of our hilly day to enjoy a wonderful view of the Columbia River and the surrounding area.

Some Highlights

(Bill) We dipped our wheels in the Pacific Ocean at Seaside, OR, and then continued down the Oregon Coast. The coast was beautiful!

One place we stayed was right on the beach. After a few days down the coast, we finally started heading straight East. When we reached Eugene, OR, Charlie Skoog met us. We had already ridden 63 miles, but Charlie was so excited to show us around his new hometown that we rode another 18 miles before we finally arrived where we would stay for the night!

*At Charlie Skoog’s house in Eugene, OR*

(Cassie) For me, some of the highlights of our trip included meeting people, although there weren't nearly as many people out touring in 2020 as usual. One really special night we stayed with the Watson family. Back in 2017, they were our first Warmshowers guests, biking across the country with their four children, ages 4-10. They had two triple tandems, pulled carts and were homeschooling along the way. We stayed with them in their home in Montana, and we were their first Warmshowers guests as well. A couple of other scenic highlights for me included McKenzie Pass with its beautiful snowcapped mountain views and lava flows. We learned the story of Earthquake Lake in Montana and the area was beautiful as was the area along the Lochsa River in Idaho heading up to Lolo Pass. It was also fun to see the historic Nevada City in Montana which was an abandoned gold rush town. We saw and learned a lot about the country!

*At the McKenzie Pass summit - the Three Sisters*

(Bill) The TransAm route avoids large cities, and in some areas, even small towns were few and far between. We always carried a few days of food with us, so we had to look ahead on the map to decide when and how much food to buy. We ate breakfast and supper at camp and usually stopped along the road to eat lunch. Sometimes people would share their food with us. One time, a motorcycle camper made us hot oatmeal. Another time, a camping couple cooked us a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage. On the Fourth of July, we stayed at the Spoke’n Hostel, a famous hostel in Mitchell, OR where Peter had stayed. It happened that a certified pitmaster and a chef from Alaska were staying there, so we had a delicious gourmet meal of pork ribs, grilled vegetables, potato salad, and apple pie. All we had to contribute were some mandarin oranges!

One night, our host was watching the news and saw that there was a rockslide on our route a few days ahead. Any other routes would take us hundreds of miles out of the way. Fortunately, the highway department was able to open a short detour around the slide. The pilot vehicle gave us a ride so that we wouldn’t hold up the one-way traffic.

In Montana, we stopped at a “Cowboy church” for their Sunday service. The pastor asked us if we had a gun (we didn’t) since we were heading into grizzly country. Then, when we stopped to buy some groceries, a local told us that the area has the highest concentration of grizzlies in the lower 48 states. One of his friends was riding his bike and stumbled across a grizzly and her cubs. She swiped at his face and badly injured him. But he told us not to worry; it was just a chance encounter. Right, very reassuring! And that night, a sign near our tent read, “Welcome to bear country!” We spent a nervous but uneventful night in our tent. We didn’t see any grizzlies until Yellowstone when drivers stopped to warn us that there was a grizzly ahead on our side of the road.

End of the Road

(Cassie) I knew heading into this adventure that there would be mountains to cross. I just had no idea how many mountains. We rode along the Oregon coast. I didn’t know how hilly that would be and I came to dread the Tsunami Warning Zone signs. If we were going down, it only meant that soon we would be climbing again. We did not invest in special touring bikes and don’t have the best gears for climbing and with 35-40 pounds of added gear it was a lot of effort. I was also sometimes nervous about how the next day (or the next climb) would go and wasn’t always getting a good night’s sleep. Out west, the mountain climbs are more gradual, but it’s not uncommon to climb for 8-20 miles with a 6-7% grade. Of course, then there’s the 8-20 mile downhills as well. It seemed that every day we were seeing at least one summit sign and one day was a “three-hump” day. When we reached Yellowstone, I was ecstatic, but in Yellowstone alone there were three crossings of the Continental Divide. Our daughter, Grace, came to spend time with us there and it was amazing how much more territory we covered in her rental car and how easily we went over those same Continental Divides. I was realizing that I wasn’t having as much fun on this vacation as I’d anticipated. Other touring cyclists kept telling us that they were “living the dream”, but we didn’t feel that way. After lots of agonizing discussion, we made the decision to rent a car and drive home. It had been a great experience, but I wasn’t enjoying all the hills, the backpacking tent just seemed to be getting smaller, and we were missing things at home, family times, etc.

We had ridden 1,532 miles over 27 days. We had stayed at one hotel, a few Warmshowers hosts, and done lots of camping. Believe it or not, even as we were driving home, we started talking about the possibility of continuing the trip another time. We had learned a lot and knew that we could do some things differently to make it more enjoyable and if we continued, we wouldn’t necessarily plan to finish it all at once. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves and that’s a story for next time.

Bike Touring Anyone? TransAm Part One