In the spring of 1976, as Bikecentennial riders began to cross the United States on two wheels, a very different procession began a similar journey from the Pacific Coast to the eastern United States. The Trail of Self-Determination was an attempt by American Indian activists to call attention to more than two hundred years of broken promises by the United States government. The 1976 Trail was inspired by several years of activism by the American Indian Movement, founded in the late 1960s to advocate for the rights of indigenous people. The juxtaposition of these two transcontinental trips in 1976, one a recreational tour celebrating two hundred years of American independence and the other a political campaign calling attention to two hundred years of violence, displacement, and oppression, provides an important perspective on this exploration of Virginia history along Route 76. While the Trail of Self-Determination did not cross Virginia, the issues highlighted by this political movement are particularly relevant to the history of Native Americans in the Appalachian region. Exploring this complicated history is particularly timely as the United States looks ahead to the commemoration of 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.

This episode is connected to Breaks Interstate Park, the starting point for eastbound riders in Virginia, and about 550 miles from Yorktown, where westbound riders begin their journey.

About two miles north of Davenport, Route 76 crosses Russell Fork, a mountain creek that winds along the side of the road for nearly thirty miles close to the Kentucky border. Or, to be more historically accurate, the road winds along the path of the river, as the waterway existed in this land long before these routes were established by people walking, riding on horseback, traveling in wagons, driving cars, or riding bicycles. Across Virginia, Route 76 is inseparably connected to waterways. Over and over again, cyclists cross rivers and streams on bridges. Even more commonly, as in the case of Russell Fork near Davenport, cyclists spend considerable time riding alongside the river before they actually cross over the water. It may not be obvious to a cyclist in the mountains of southwest Virginia, but every stream is connected to a broader waterway that shapes the contours of the entire country. In fact, Russell Fork near Davenport is part of the same Mississippi drainage system as the entire length of Route 76 across Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, and the eastern part of Colorado. All of the waterways crossed along this route ultimately drain into the Mississippi River and then the Gulf of Mexico. An exploration of how Route 76 is connected to Virginia’s waterways thus provides a basis for thinking about how lands and people are connected by water in ways that can be observed as well as experienced.

This episode is connected to the community of Davenport, located just over 530 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about twenty miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

In southwestern Virginia, traditional forms of Appalachian culture are celebrated along the Crooked Road, an 333 mile driving route that includes many milestones in the history of American popular music. The designated stops along the Crooked Road include recording studios, birthplaces of famous musicians, and key moments in performances for public audiences. The road also includes sites of musical festivals, including the Redbud festival each spring in Honecker, a town located along route 76. The Crooked Road recognizes music known by various names, including country, folk, bluegrass, traditional, or Appalachian. In 1976, as cyclists rode through the mountains of Virginia during the Bikecentennial, they often observed local musicians playing along the route. This tradition continues, as music remains integral to the identity and beliefs of Appalachian Virginia as well as contributing to the recreational tourism industry. An appreciation of the complex history of this music provides insights into the synthetic nature of Appalachian culture in the past as well as the present.

This episode is connected to the town of Honaker, located just over 520 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 30 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

As cyclists ride through the valleys of southwestern Virginia, the hills are almost entirely covered with trees. It is easy to think that this natural environment has been in place for centuries, since before humans settled the American continent. In fact, across most of the Appalachian region, including southwest Virginia, the forests were almost entirely cut in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The forests that cyclists pass day and day as they ride through western Virginia are relatively recent growths, mostly from the last century or so. The history of clearcutting Appalachian forests reflects the powerful intersection of industrial capitalism and resource extraction. The impact of clearcutting was evident in the destruction of old growth forests, the destabilization of the land, the contamination of creeks and rivers, and the disruption of community identities and individual lives. A few owners of land, mills, and processing sites became very wealthy, many thousands of workers contributed their labor, and the natural resources of the mountains were distributed across the country for use in buildings, ships, and fuel. Clearcutting forests was just the first stage in a history of environmental destruction in pursuit of profit that continues to shape Appalachian communities and cultures. 

This episode is connected to the area where the route crosses Logan Creek, located nearly 500 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 50 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

In the town of Damascus, Route 76 intersects with the Appalachian Trail in the center of town. Once a year, in May, an estimated 25,000 people attend Appalachian Trail Days in this small town with a regular population of just 650 people. Camping is encouraged in a designated tent city in a town park, hundreds of vendors sell crafts, food, and hiking gear, and a full schedule of music, including many local and regional performers, fills out the days and nights. A highlight of each weekend is the Hiker Parade through the downtown, with thousands walking and other cheering. Spraying hikers with water guns is encouraged. For about forty years, this festival has allowed Damascus to demonstrate its designation as “the friendliest town on the trail,” with the goal of welcoming new hikers and welcoming back hikers and community members who attend regularly. This episode uses the location of Damascus, in far southwestern Virginia, close to the border with North Carolina, to explore the parallel development and divergent paths of two major routes: Route 76 for cyclists and Appalachian Trail for hikers.

This episode is connected to the city of Damascus, about four hundred seventy five miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about seventy five miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

In June 1976, as cyclists made their way across the country during the Bikecentennial, a ground-breaking ceremony in a small town in the mountains of Grayson County celebrated plans to open the Troutdale Community Health Clinic. The health clinic was built near the intersection of route 16 and route 603, less than a mile from the route followed by cyclists riding the Bikecentennial in the summer of 1976. A few cyclists might have observed this ground-breaking ceremony or the construction of this facility that continued through the summer and into the fall. An article in a regional newspaper included a photograph of the ground-breaking ceremony, a list of speakers representing regional organizations, and the statement that Troutdale had not had professional medical care for nearly fifty years, since the early 1920s. This timing is suggestive of the history of Troutdale, but of small towns more generally, as it reveals a trajectory where the economic growth of the early twentieth century was not sustained in the subsequent decades. A history of Troutdale thus provides a basis for exploring the history of small town America in the century before the Bikecentennial and in the half-century that has followed.

This episode is connected to the community of Troutdale, located about 450 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 100 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

Raymond Arthur Byrd was a veteran of World War I, who served with the 807th Pioneer Infantry, a segregated unit fighting in France during the last months of combat in the fall of 1918. After the war, Byrd lived with his wife and three children in Black Lick, located just a few miles north of where route 76 crosses Mill Creek and several miles west of Wytheville. Bird worked as a laborer on a farm owned by a local white family. In the summer of 1926, Byrd was accused of inappropriate sexual relations, arrested, and then murdered while he was locked up in the Wytheville jail. In the summer of 2020, a historical marker to the lynching of Raymond Byrd was placed in downtown Wytheville, along Route 76, due primarily to the sustained efforts of local historian John Johnson. Cyclists in southwestern Virginia thus have an opportunity to view, and reflect upon, the complicated history of racial relations that led to this lynching episode and the subsequent efforts to recognize the long term significance of this moment from almost a century ago. This episode explores the lynching of Raymond Byrd in the context of a long history of using racialized violence to maintain structures of white supremacy in law, politics, and society.

The episode is connected to the area where the route crosses Mill Creek, located nearly 430 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 130 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

At Fort Chiswell, Virginia, the Transamerican Bicycle Route parallels a section where two interstate highways run together. Interstate 77 connects North Carolina to West Virginia and Interstate 81 connects Tennessee to the Canadian border in New York state. For a cyclist, the highways are not accessible. Interstate highways are closed to two wheel vehicles, which are relegated to lower traffic routes to reach the same destinations. Yet these highways, which seem so inaccessible and even dangerous to cyclists now, have a history which is inseparable from the development of cycling in late nineteenth century America. This podcast explores the ways that the development of cycling in late nineteenth century America contributed to the establishment of a national system of roads. While this aspect of cycling history is relatively well documented, one dimension of this change, the connections between cycling and racial politics in the United States, are the focus of this podcast, which situates this intersection in the broader history of Virginia specifically and the US south more generally. This episode also explores ways that traffic patterns in the 1970s compare to traffic patterns today, thus illustrating how America has changed in the half-century since the Transamerican Route was established in 1976.

The episode is connected to the historic site of Fort Chiswell, located just over 400 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 150 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

In the summer of 1976, as cyclists rode through the city of Radford, they passed within a few blocks of the community hospital, established in the second world war, and a pillar of the community’s downtown. At the present time, cyclists along this route will see a new facility, built in the late 1990s, from route 76 just southeast of Radford, where Mud Pike Road parallels Interstate 81. This hospital is an example of how Radford, like other cities in predominantly rural parts of Virginia, has become a hub for medical care. The shift from a downtown hospital serving the immediate community to a regional health center on a highway interchange is reflective of broader patterns in small town America as well as the reconfiguration of health services into managed networks. This structural shift also provides a unique perspective to explore the impact on rural and small town America of a major health crisis of the twenty-first century: the costs of opioid addiction. In this case, underlying social, economic, and regional dynamics created vulnerabilities among marginal populations that brought long-term losses to individuals, families, and communities. Understanding southwest Virginia in the present is impossible without an appreciation for the causes and consequences of this devastating health crisis, in Appalachia specifically and more broadly in rural America. This episode is connected to the city of Radford, located just under 400 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 150 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

On the afternoon of June 25, 1909, Booker T. Washington, the most famous African American leader of the early twentieth century, delivered a speech in the town of Christiansburg, Virginia, located along the Transamerican bicycle route 76. An exploration of the history of Booker T. Washington’s visit to the Christiansburg Institute provides a basis for exploring the complex relationship between race and education in Virginia during Jim Crow segregation while also making connections to current issues related to identity, opportunity, and equality. This episode is connected to the town of Christiansburg, located just over 350 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 200 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

As cyclists ride through the Catawba valley west of Roanoke, they observe two strikingly different examples of how twentieth century Americans have thought about the relationships between health, physical activity, and the natural environment. Immediately to the south of the Transamerican Bicycle Route is McAfee Knob, one of the most famous landmarks along the Appalachian Trail, which extends for more than two thousand miles along the eastern United States. Immediately to the north of route 76 in the same valley is the location of the Catawba Tuberculosis Sanatorium, opened in 1909 to fulfill a very different vision of the relationship between health, exercise, and nature. This episode explores this vision of physical well-being in a location that is adjacent to two of the major routes for strenuous physical activity: the Appalachian Trail and the Transamerican Bicycle Route.

This episode is connected to the community of Catawba, located just over 330 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 220 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

Located just north of the city of Roanoke, Troutville is situated at the intersection of four major transportation routes: Interstate 81, the historical Highway 11, the Appalachian Trail, and the Transamerican Bicycle Route. Troutville is also one of the few places where Route 76 passes through a suburb. This diversity makes the Troutville route distinctive among the more than 500 miles of cycling in Virginia, as well as representative of major shifts in American society in the last century, including in the fifty years since the Transamerican Route began in 1976. Exploring the growth and impact of suburbs, and particularly the relationship between cycling and suburbs, provides new insights into American history along route 76. This episode is connected to the town of Troutville, located just under 320 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 230 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

Along the Blue Ridge portion of the Bikecentennial ‘76 route, visitors find themselves in the small town of Buchanan, the hometown of suffragist Mary Johnston. Born in 1870, Johnston grew up in Buchanan, and then her family moved around the east coast of the United States. She became famous in the early twentieth century for her fictional novels and short stories. Once she had established her reputation as a novelist, she began to write essays, letters, and speeches advocating for women’s right to vote. As a white southern upper class woman, Mary Johnston lived a complex life that highlighted the connections between race, class, and gender in the US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Johnston’s life thus provides a  lens for understanding the broader issues that shaped the lives of Americans in the important transitional period in US history. This episode is connected to the town of Buchanan, located just over 300 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 250 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia.

Just one mile east of Route 76, US Highway 11 crosses over Natural Bridge, a rock formation recognized in the early nineteenth century as one of the wonders of the new American republic. The bridge is a natural formation, probably the result of an underground river that carved through original rock to leave only the bridge intact. The fact that Highway 11 was constructed on top of this remarkable environmental feature provides interesting perspectives on the history of this land before European conquest as well as the implications of making this feature accessible to tourists while retaining and protecting its scenic and spiritual value. This episode is connected to Natural Bridge, located just under 300 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 250 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

Irish Creek flows almost fifteen miles from the headwaters near the crest of the Blue Ridge until it passes under the bridge that carries cyclists along Route 76. The name of the creek references a connection back to an earlier era, where this region of the country was settled by descendants from the British Isles. The crossing is also suggestive of another dimension of Route 76 across much of Virginia: the enduring impact of assumptions, prejudices, and expectations associated with Appalachian cultures, communities, and traditions. This episode is connected to the point where Route 76 crosses Irish Creek, located just over 250 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and nearly 300 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

Cyclists in Virginia may occasionally see a specialized license plate on cars with the title: Blue Ridge Parkway. The license depicts a series of mountain ranges in shades of blue with a sky in varying shades of pale yellow. The Tye River Gap is a mountain pass where Route 76 travels along the Blue Ridge Parkway, offering stunning views into the adjoining valley. The Blue Ridge Parkway provides an experience of being in nature while using engineering to arrange for a carefully managed experience of the natural world. This episode explores the Blue Ridge Parkway as an example of a twentieth century practice of engineering the experience of nature to make it accessible to people and their automobiles. The episode is connected to the Tye River Gap, located just over 350 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 200 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

Less than a mile below where Route 76 intersects with the Blue Ridge Parkway at Rockfish Gap, a new rails-to-trails pathway allows visitors to walk or ride through a tunnel carved for almost a mile, from one side of the ridge to the other. The Blue Ridge Tunnel, built in the nineteenth century, was described when it opened as “one of the wonders of the age.” After remaining inactive as a railway tunnel for several decades, it was converted into a pathway for use by visitors seeking a new perspective on the Blue Ridge mountains. This history, from innovative engineering, to decommissioning due to other technological changes, to conversion to a new purpose, is the focus of this episode, which asks what the lessons of the Blue Ridge Tunnel suggest about the long term trajectory of other major infrastructure projects in America’s past, present, and future. The episode is connected to Rockfish Gap, located just over 230 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 220 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

The section of Route 76 on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains is also known as the Monticello American Viticulture Area, which designates thirty distinctive varieties of grapes used in making wine. The name, Monticello, recognizes that Thomas Jefferson shaped the first efforts to make wine in this region in the decades before and after the American revolution. Watts Branch, which flows down the northeastern slope of Calf Mountain and intersects with Route 76 north of Crozet, is just one of many creeks and streams in the Appalachian region that contribute to the natural conditions ideal for winemaking. In recent decades, cideries, breweries, and distilleries have further expanded the production of various forms of alcohol and now serve as tourist destinations vital to the Virginia economy. Yet the history of alcohol in Virginia is more complicated than simply an expansion in cultivation and marketing. An exploration of key moments in the years since the American Revolution illustrates how alcohol became a contested space with particular implications for the relationship between individuals, communities, and the state. This episode is connected to the section where Watts Branch crosses Route 76, about 210 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and 340 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

As cyclists ride through downtown Charlottesville, two monuments on the edge of the University of Virginia campus provide two starkly different representations of Virginia’s history: a statue to Thomas Jefferson and a memorial to the enslaved people who built the university. The contrast between the two monuments in design and meaning is profound, respectively recognizing individual leadership and the collective subaltern agency of an oppressed community. This episode uses these two monuments along Route 76 in downtown Charlottesville to explore the longer history of how Americans recognize and remember history and how these patterns of recognition and remembrance are shaped by contemporary contexts. The episode is connected to the city of Charlottesville, located just under 200 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 350 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.

A historical marker for C. E. Abrams school, which provided high school education to African American pupils during the era of segregation, is located on the grounds of Fluvanna Middle School in central Virginia, along route 76 between Richmond and Charlottesville. In recent years, the history of African American education in the twentieth century has been remembered with museum exhibits and historical markers, including the sign for C. E. Abrams school visible from the main road. This episode explores this history of race and education with particular attention to sites along Route 76 across Virginia where memories of schooling and the implications of segregation are being preserved for the public. The episode is connected to Fluvanna County, located just under 200 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 350 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia.