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Bikecentennial - Summer 1976

Compiled from My Journal and 35mm Slides

Richard Rathe, July 1976 (History)

In 1976 I was a sophomore at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. I had already done a few cross-country, multi-state bicycle trips in High School and continued planning short trips during my weeks off. The Bikecentennial was too good to pass up! In 2002 I scanned my 35mm slides and created this travelogue with representative quotes from my journal. What you see here is the current version updated in 2026, fifty years later!

Preparation

March 13 Carleton

It's interesting how this trip started out in my mind. About two years ago Gary [my best friend from high school] found an ad in Mother Earth News for the '76 Bikecentennial. Well, that was enough to make us start planning to go on it. That summer we left on our own trip across Iowa and down to Kansas City. As I look back on it it seems amazing…We were about as into bikes as anyone our age, but we still knew very little about it. We learned quite fast. It was a great success and I've been completely bike ever since…

It turned out Gary could not join me. For a time I was considering a more modest east coast journey, but finally decided to attempt the big one.

April 2 Carleton

…I'm going to go as an independent cyclist…I'll have the freedom I need to take off and go where I want…

April 8 Carleton

…My tent will be a combination of a military mosquito net pup-tent and a plastic tarp, the netting for bugs and the tarp for weather. When neither are threatening I'll sleep in the open…

We actually used our bikes to support a shelter once or twice. Most of the time there where better options close at hand.

May 3 Carleton

Yesterday I got a call from Byron Miller, a friend…from my first summer bike trip…He wants to get together to bike this summer. …It snowed today, my goodness, the summer is only a month off!

May 9 Carleton	Byron called back today…He's going along with me at least from Oregon to Lawrence Kansas.
May 10 Carleton	Bikecentennial returned my registration today as accepted. I'm going! Now it really gets intense.

The Bikecentennial organization still exists and is now known as the Adventure Cycling Association. The 1976 event was the focus of a Bicycle Safety Report published in 1978.

Oregon

The best trips start in the rain…

June 15 Portland	… We spent the night in the Portland airport and headed out the next day. The rain started about noon. The mountains have been a bitch. We spent the next night in a rest area half way to Astoria.
June 16 Cannon Beach	We found the coast at about two in the afternoon. Had a sandy lunch on the beach…Things are looking up. Hot showers tonight!!!

June 18 Cape Kiwanda	We had a good day today. Morning in the sun and afternoon in the fog…
June 19 Reedsport	In Florence…this lady pulled up. She must have been the ultimate bike tripper. She was approx. 45 and from Aspen. She was riding a 17 year old bike with minimal packs and she said that she had come 140 miles the day before.She told us she had slept in a billygoat shed after she kicked the goat out…I feel like I've had a visitation…

June 22 Dorris State Park	…We're camped with Carol and Ash from L.A…I expect a hard day tomorrow…I want to make it over the pass.
June 23 Fish Lake	We didn't make it over the pass.
June 24 Cline Falls State Park	The second half of the pass…was easy…We were in Sisters by 1:00…After 5:00 we buzzed out east of town 16 miles to Cline Falls where we dove into the stream and had our first wash in 5 days…

Eastern Oregon, Idaho, & Beyond

Eastern Oregon was particularly tough for us. Some combination of altitude, heat, low humidity, and poor technique kept me on the edge of dehydration most of the time.

June 25 Mitchel	Today was our longest day. We did 75 miles over a large hill that was nearly 5000 feet tall.
June 26 Clyde Holliday State Park	We're in pretty country and I've got the most outrageous suntan/ sunburn. Weird experience today. We were resting by the side of the road and up on the fence post jumps this peacock…

June 27 Unity Reservoir

This heat is getting to me…It was a rough 45 miles today. Byron's and my morale seems to be falling a bit. Today we biked over Dixie Pass in the Blue Mountains. It was weird to go from semi-arid to coniferous and back to semi-arid climate all in one day…The two Englishmen, Andy and George, are very interesting. They're over here on an Adventure Program with the British Army. They're paid to bike across the country! We've gone 709.7 miles so far.

That day was the closest I came to quitting. I believe I was suffering from heat exhaustion of some sort. I also remember being amazed by the two Brits. They'd sit around a campfire late into the night consuming large quantities of buttered toast and gin. Next day they'd be up early, ready to go!

June 29 Brownlee Dam in Hell's Canyon

Last night [at Bishop Springs] didn't go so well. The tent we made with a bike fell over. The ground was rough and hard and thorny. Today all went well until we got to Hell's Canyon. My freewheel gave up. Byron and I spent an hour and a half rebuilding it…Oh yea, we're in Idaho!!!

July 1 White Bird	…Today we came down the Salmon River valley. It was beautiful. After lunch, however, the wind picked up and we had to pedal hard in 3rd or 4th gear to move ahead at all.
July 2 White Bird Hill	We're just below the top right now. It was a nice ride up. I feel good…I'm pretty sure we'll make it to Missoula by the Fourth.

We were able to cycle most of the way up the dirt trail to the locally famous Jerry Johnson Hot Springs!

July 2 Five Miles Beyond Kooskia?

We got to Grangeville quickly after an hour on top of White Bird Hill. Their Fourth of July parade was just starting. We stayed there quite a while…Tomorrow we're shooting for the base of Lolo Pass.

July 3 Powell

83 miles today and two hours in the hot springs!…Gordy and Byron went trail biking and I finally tried it…Lolo pass tomorrow and then on to Missoula!

Gordy was a more experienced cyclist we traveled with for a few days. He's the one who taught me to spin (pedal faster in a lower gear) and how to configure my bike for half-step with granny gearing. He was also one of the few people we met who wore a bicycle helmet—as you can see in this photo.

Montana to Yellowstone

We celebrated the Fourth of July sleeping out on my college friend's parent's deck, in a valley above Missoula, MT. I was a somewhat callow (and politically naive) young man trying to make sense of the world.

For context this was just after the first Oil Crisis and Watergate, near the peak of the Vietnam War, and deep in the Cold War/Nuclear existential crisis. My friends and I were particularly concerned about protecting the Environment. That's why we were on bicycles! 🙂

July 4 Missoula

Here we are on the Fourth of July and what of it? It's been very low key since we got here. Not that I mind. I've learned to expect things to go in directions I don't expect…We asked everybody What's happening? Oh, nothing, came the reply. Besides a little more incendiary activity, tonight seems like an average night in this town. My friends at school were going to leave the country for fear of the fourth and here it is, the day itself and nothing more. (quote, quote) I was thinking the 200th birthday might give people pause, might make people aware of how young and old this country is, and try and get in touch with what the day has to teach. Some pretty far out people started this country and some pretty far out people live here now. It's terrible how the beauty of the people and lands of this country can be hidden so easily at times. It used to be that I abhorred people for what they did to the natural world. Now I think I can see man's place a little bit better and I don't recoil from his use of the world as much as his abuse of himself. The most important thing the founding fathers saw was that people should be given an environment which would lead them not into abuse and futility, but on to growth and happiness.

Our Yellowstone experience was not very pleasant… mostly because we were there peak season and nothing seemed to break our way. We did some stealth camping outside of the park and took a day trip. Then we retraced our route and made it all the way thru the park in one day!

July 11 West Yellowstone	We got here…only to find that all the campgrounds were full. We backtracked about a mile and are camped 150 feet off the road in the woods. After we got here we dumped our stuff and rode bare bikes up into the park…
July 12 Old Faithful	A lot of tourists! A lot of Winnebagos!…I've got a theory about Winnebago camping. So many people in this country live in cells surrounded by other cells…they feel they have to have a cell that they can move around…After the vacation they're back in the cell block…

Things got better!

Grand Teton

Our luck was better in the Tetons. The first night we found what we missed in Yellowstone—a sort of communal campsite in an official campground. This was fairly common and almost expected in the larger parks. Our needs were so minimal that as long as at least one party was there to take over the next day—everyone benefited.

July 13 Colter Bay

We had nice fast tour through [southern] Yellowstone and then we boogied down to the Tetons. The riding was really nice. We saw Yellowstone Lake, Lewis Lake, Lewis Falls, and Lewis Canyon on our way out. When we caught our first glimpse of the Tetons we freaked out. They're so beautiful!

We were in for a real adventure the next day—an unplanned hike into the back-country! At that point we had linked up with two solo cyclists, Glen and Tyler.

July 14 Jenny Lake (Late Entry)

We got up and went out to the Chuckwagon at Colter Bay for pancakes—all you can eat. We didn't leave until about 12pm. When we got up to [Jenny] Lake all the camping was taken but the ranger issued us a backcountry permit and sent us off into the mountains, which is what we wanted to do anyway. Byron and Glen didn't like the idea of stashing the bikes in the woods but we did it anyway. Glen stayed down at the last minute and Byron, Tyler and I started up at about 6pm. This was the most rugged hiking I've ever done and I did it with the poorest equipment—tennis shoes and a Cannondale pannier [for a pack]. We got up to the lake about dusk. We sort of lost the trail a bit before the end but we made it. The trail was 45° in some places!

July 15 Ramshead Lake

We got up this morning and all went walking around the upper two lakes…There is a lot of snow up here and the ice isn't off the lakes yet. The thing about the Tetons is how they just rise up from the plain. Grand Teton is over 13,000 feet while Jenny Lake at its base is 6700. Yesterday we went up almost 3000 feet in a mile of horizontal…We came down the mountain alright. Tyler's still up there and he's in trouble if they catch him. He doesn't have a permit [for tonight]…I think we lucked out with our little excursion…

Wyoming

July 16 Falls Campground (Late Entry)	… We hit Towgwotee Pass about mid-day. It was a bitch for the first half. We got lemonade and pie from the lady caretaker at this closed lodge. The last 8 miles up were pleasant. The top was a problem—mosquitoes. Coming down was something akin to flying.
July 17 Falls	We're starting out the day with a $15 fine. Shit!!! [Camping without a permit.]
Dubois (Late Entry)	We stopped after 25 miles for many reasons…There were a lot of other bikers around…It would be very hard to describe what happened with me [last] evening. I got to feeling very lonely…It was that old alone-in-the-crowd feeling…

One of the reasons we stopped early was fear of crossing the Wind River Indian Reservation late in the day. While it's strange to remember this today, we felt the reservations were hostile territory for bikers. (We had a few beer cans tossed at us prior to WY.) The trip to Lander the next day was entirely uneventful.

July 18 Lander

I feel a lot better this evening than last… The two young ladies Cindy & Amy… are camped with us tonight. This is the site for all the Kosmic Kampers tonight, we've got a real odd collection, bike, thumb [hitchhiker], east, west, you name it. Byron and Glenn are going to be leaving soon…I may be on my own before I know it.

My Nineteenth Birthday on the Nineteenth!

Jeff City was/is best known for uranium mining and ranching. It is pretty much the middle of nowhere. It was there I celebrated my nineteenth birthday. By some karmic coincidence most of the people I had traveled with off and on up to that point were there to celebrate with me. This included Byron, Glen (seen in the photo above), and Cindy & Amy who I synced with four or five times over the summer.

July 19 Jeffery City

Byron got up an hour and a half early and waited 45 minutes for the store to open so he could buy me a cake. He woke me up with it. So we had birthday cake for breakfast… In the evening…we devoured a half gallon of pineapple sherbet followed by spaghetti dinner. After diner was real nice, everybody talking about everything imaginable…

Colorado

July 21 Encampment

Today was a nice day and a sad one. I said good-bye to Byron… I loaned him $40 to get home on…

I left the official Bikecentennial trail for much of my trek through Colorado [see map]. As a consequence, I was alone for several days. This was a real change from having a partner. Loneliness was a factor, but not overwhelmingly so.

The area between Muddy and Gore Passes was open range with no fences. So a meandered over to one of the ubiquitous hay frames a few hundred yards off the road.

July 22 Cow Pasture

Today was a long day [102 miles] even though I didn't mean it to be quite so long. I wanted to camp near the top of Muddy Pass. There wasn't anywhere to camp… So here I sit in a cow pasture waiting for the sun to go down.

July 23 Grizzly Creek [Glenwood Canyon]

Another near 100 mile day… I got up early and got over the pass I knew about. Little did I know there were three more in store for me… I trucked through some high mountain pastures and came down to Bond, where I had a big bowl of ice cream… The traffic was a bitch between Eagle and Gypsum, but as I came to Glenwood Canyon there was a fairly dependable six inch bike lane. The canyon is beyond words. Now I'm camped under a highway bridge…

I had planned to cycle through Glenwood Canyon and over Independence Pass for several years. With the canyon there was some urgency since plans were already in the works to push the four lane interstate through and forever change it.

July 24 Aspen

I got here in the middle of the afternoon and immediately checked all three bike stores for a [replacement] crank pin. None of them had one so I went to the hardware store and bought a 10¢ bolt and fixed it right up. After that I sat down to eat lunch and watch the Rugby game. I met this nice woman named Peggy who turned me on to a shower and a place to crash my bike. Finally I went to the Mother Lode for dinner. They ran out of food and I ended up getting dinner for free… After that I was off to bed up on Little Nell.

July 25 USFS Campground

I'm a little over a quarter of the way up Independence Pass. I got all the way down to one end of town on the way to Cathedral [Lake] and something inside me said uh uh, nothing doing. I just pulled a u-turn and headed the other direction… It seems to have been the best choice too. It rained hard down that way…

July 26 Buena Vista

I must have been pretty burnt out because I got up real late. I didn't start up the hill until 10am. Aspen is gone. Independence Pass is gone. It's weird but the places and faces fly by. I got myself psyched and paced and the pass was no problem…

Kansas

July 30 Tribune (Late Entry)

Last night we stayed in Tribune. I'm glad we did because the people were real nice. We met Sy Higgens the friendliest man in Kansas outside the grocery store. He later took Cindy for a drive down main street in a pink convertible [to get] an ice cream sundae…I got a tour of the Tribune printing house…

July 31 Scott City

We've only come 100 miles in the past two days. First the heat killed us and today the wind, 20 miles per hour out of the east, stopped us after 44 miles.

August 2 Hoisington

… It's one of the ironies of life that I can't make over 50 miles [a day] in Kansas when I was making 100 miles in the mountains…It's weird how I'm getting used to one set of clothes, the same cooking pot and spoon, the same shoes…I'm really into a routine. When I'm back at school I may go into a minor shock. I'll suddenly have so many choices whereas out here I'm limited to what I can carry on my bike.

One of the nice things about Kansas is every little town has a city park and most of these allow you to camp for one night. So while I was struggling with the wind I had nice places to sleep. The east wind was continuous—day & night—until it stopped and its absence woke me up!

August 3 Three Miles East of Geneseo

I woke up at 2am today. I got up at 2:30 and hit the road before 3:30. I'm now 30-40 miles down the road. The stars were fantastic this morning. I passed a lot of oil wells and a refinery before the sun came up…I made Linsborg by 10am…It's a very German-oriented town right down to the accent…The man at the [Hope] Post Office told me about [Herington] lake…I think I'll have a pleasant evening. Lawrence tomorrow!

Released from the headwind I made very good time all the way to Lawrence (132 miles) where I reunited with my partner Byron.

August 4 Lawrence (Late Entry)	… The day could be described as a real burn-out. The last fifty miles or so got extremely hilly. Kansas ain't flat!…When I got here I just caught Byron on the way out to dinner…[We] split the largest vegetarian pizza they had. We went partying afterward, then came back here and ate ice cream before bed.
August 7 Harrisonville	…stopped at 6069.6… oh well…

Until this point I had measured mileage with a mechanical ticker on my front wheel. It read 2986.1 on the first day of the trip so I had traveled approximately 3083.5 miles by the time it quit.

Missouri & Illinois

August 9 Edwards	I woke up in a terrible mood this morning. I didn't sleep well so I was burnt-out. The bike trip didn't seem to make sense. Now I'm feeling better. I just ate a late breakfast and soon I'll be on my way again. I had to walk up my first hill this morning. It was an easy 10 percent if not 12. I've biked shorter ones that steep but this was too much. Highway 7 has got the hills, but the roads are in excellent shape and the traffic ain't bad…. Missouri seems to be a state of 80 mile days. No matter what I do that's how far I go….
August 10 Roby	This morning I got off fairly early and I've gone about 30 miles already, most of it through Clark National Forest. It was real nice, just me and my bike; the road, the trees and the sky overhead.
August 11 Johnson Shut-Ins (Late Entry)	…Now up until that afternoon I hadn't seen any other bikers. Then I came around a corner and I could see a biker about a mile off…it was Cindy, and Amy was right in front of her…. That night we stayed at Johnson Shut-Ins. We swam in some real neat rock pools and falls on the Black River.

August 12 Ellis Grove (Late Entry)

The next day we boogied, with the addition of Al, to St. Genevieve and over the Mississippi [by ferry]…the combination of being back in Illinois, talking to my parents and enjoying a thunder storm was enough to make me real high. I buzzed up to the park in a gail. There were a lot of bikers there. The view was terrific of the Mississippi (strangely resembling the view from Pike's Peak Iowa).

August 13 Murphysboro (Late Entry)	…all of a sudden there was this sign: Welcome Richard… I hadn't seen Gary for over a year so it was great to see him again… We spent the rest of the day talking, going into Carbondale, and repairing bikes with Cindy, Amy and Al (all of whom saw the sign and stopped in)…
August 15 Old Shawnee Town	The next day…Gary and I went out after lunch for a hike. He took me to a place they call Panther's Den…. Today I left late and came to the Illinois / Kentucy border. Tomorrow I'm off into bluegrass country.

Kentucky & Virginia

August 18 Hodgenville (Late Entry)	On the 17th I boogied [from Sebree] to Mammoth Cave. I left at sun up and did the almost 100 miles…by 5:30pm or so…. A couple from Houston [bluegrass pickers] turned me on to some talk, a place to camp and some tunes.
August 19 Manse	In the morning I took a wrong turn that took me to Lincoln's birthplace, which was worth it anyway…. About 6:30 or so I stopped to ask directions and now I'm spending the night here at the home of Rita and Dale Barlow. Nice folks!
August 20 Old Orchard	This afternoon I went through two tires and two tubes in fifty feet of riding. It was a drag…. The country here is impressive [with] knobby hills and wide valleys. The roads wind around a lot but there was almost no traffic between here and Berea….Tonight I fixed dinner and split it with Clark…. then we got interrupted by visitors with beer. They were some local boys in a pickup, fresh out of the tobacco fields, on pay day, out to get drunk. It was interesting to meet and talk with them. I had a beer and it spun my head.

August 23 Breaks State Park	The bikers have introduced a new term into the CBer's lingo, Triangles. That's what the truckers are calling us…. Oh yea, we're in Virginia!
August 24 Hungry Mother State Park	Q: Why do they call this park hungry mother? A: Because by the time you get here you'll be one!

August 26 North Creek

On the road after Catabwa I came around a corner and saw a uniformed man with a shotgun standing there. On the other side of the road were a bunch of guys cutting weeds. It was a chain gang (of sorts)…. a trustee gave me some water [and then] asked me for a joint behind the truck…. This place was a long ride off the trail but I'm glad I did. The valley I came down to get here was so beautiful it literally brought tears to my eyes…. I skinny dipped to get the sweat off me in a clear, cool stream. There aren't too many people up here and it's very clean.

August 27 Long's Campground

I made Lexington about 1:00 or so. I ate lunch at Washington and Lee College. I saw General Lee's grave…. Tomorrow it's Vesuvius Hill, the Blue Ridge, and Charlottesville….

The Blue Ridge & Atlantic Ocean

August 28 Spy Mountain

[When I stopped at] Vesuvius this guy showed me his 350 magnum [a huge handgun!]. I'll blow any nigger that comes in here through the wall. [He was pointing it at my belly for an uncomfortable minute or so.] He wanted to sell it to me. [I bought a candy bar and left.]… I took the hill and the first mile of the parkway all in one shot. It wasn't too bad. This is the Independence Pass of the east. No more mountains…. I've made it. It's all over and I'm just sitting back watching the last couple of hundred miles slip by….turned in for lunch at Raven's Roost. This guys were just getting read to hang glide…

August 29 Richmond	…I've learned more this summer than in a whole year at school…. If I were to reorganize the educational system in this country I'd put each college freshman on a bike and tell him the term starts after you put 3000 miles cross country on that thing.
August 30 Chicahominy	Today was the finish of my trip. It's very anticlimactic. I guess that's the way it is with things like this. There is just too much to take in to appreciate what you've done…. I'm happy though…. In Williamsburg at the grocery store I met the two Englishmen, Andy and George…. They [gave me directions to the campground] and I boogied out here, ate dinner, and slept.

My college girlfriend lived a bit further north on the coast, so instead of ending at Williamsburg I hopped a train for New Jersey.

August 31 En Route on Amtrak	I'm on Amtrak headed for Trenton, NJ. My bike is with me [in the baggage car]. I didn't even have to take it apart!
September 1 Oceanport, NJ	It was a bizarre night I spent getting here. I buzzed out of Trenton and got a map from a guy in a little town. I got yelled at by a cop…. I arrived at 6:30 [am]. I left Trenton at 11:00pm.

So I finally dipped my front wheel into the Atlantic Ocean on the New Jersey coast exactly 80 days after I began on the opposite side of the continent. The next day I disassembled my bicycle and packed it up for the flight back to the Midwest.

This is a slide!