T H E R E I G AT I A N 2 013
FEATURES
NEW LEAVERS TAKE ON BIG CHALLENGE Dominic Constanti, Lewis Wing, Baz Lewis (All RGS 2005-2012)
Extracts from their travel blog
2/5/13 DAY 1 – 45.1 MILES (Total 45 miles) Mike’s Backyard [Yorktown VA - Jamestown VA] A very eventful day. We woke up around 7am, showered up and packed our bike panniers ready for our first day of cycling. We got a cab to the bike shop (with a crazy American cab driver preaching the Bible to us) where we arranged to pick up our bikes and started getting set up. We met a really friendly shop assistant, Rodney, who told us a bunch of stories about the TransAm Trail, and also recommended a nice cafe for breakfast, where we ate. We went back to the bike shop and carried on setting up (as well as purchasing a dog repellent pepper spray for Kentucky). We coincidently met a guy from Brighton starting the trail at the same time as us and had a few chats with him about our preparation. After 4 hours of tinkering and fitting our bikes we were ready, and with a few photos outside the shop we set off to the start point 12 miles away. We bumped into a friendly American cyclist who said he would cycle with us to the start point which was very helpful. We arrived at the Victory Monument in Yorktown and took a few snaps there. We then went down to the coast and did the obligatory rear wheel dip to mark the tour as officially coast to coast. From there we began the route and aimed to make it 30 miles to a camp site in Jamestown. After taking a wrong turn quite early on we had to back track slightly but then made it onto the Colonial Parkway which was pretty much one straight road to Jamestown. With around 10 miles to go we started to feel quite faint and hungry. Having not eaten since breakfast we were starving and couldn’t wait to get to the camp site. Eventually getting to Jamestown we soon discovered the camp site marked on our reasonably dated maps no longer existed. Our first priority was to eat
30
so we stopped at a 7/11 and had a sandwich. Undecided as to where we going to camp we walked down to a nearby lake looking for a clearing to set up the tent. We bumped into an American man, Mike, fishing and got chatting to him about where would be a good place to camp when he offered to let us set up in his backyard. We were over the moon and followed him back to his house. We set up the tent ending the day’s cycling on 45 miles, knackered. We then proceeded to meet the rest of Mike’s family and he offered to make us some food. We ate spaghetti bolognese with the hospitable family and discussed our plan to cycle to Oregon. They were very kind and gave us some freshly baked cookies, more detailed maps, a number for a relative in Portland that could help us out later on in the tour, and a laptop for the internet. We took a photo with them and then hit the hay for our first night camping, aiming to cycle to Richmond tomorrow, about 40 miles away or possibly further. DAY 72 – HITCHHIKING We woke up around 9am in the motel having had a long lie in. It felt great knowing we had finished the cycle and could now relax for a few days. The main plan for the day was to get the bikes shipped to their respective buyers and head to Portland. We looked up a bike shop nearby to try and get some boxes. We found one, rode there and they sold us 3 boxes for $30. They said they could also box them for us for $35 each but we thought we could do it ourselves and save the money so we began disassembling our bikes. This took longer than expected and proved harder than we thought, trying to get it to all fit in the box. After taking the wheels off, fenders, seat posts, and loosening some screws on the racks they just about fitted.
We taped all the boxes up and lugged them to the nearby post office. We weighed them and the dimensions were measured which calculated the price. They were around $100 each to ship which was more than we had expected but the buyers were happy to pay whatever it costs so this wasn’t much of a problem. The final box was slightly bigger and would have been around $200 which we were not going to pay. The lady said if we could reduce the dimensions by 1 inch it would be $100. This seemed ridiculous but we began hacking at the box and managed to cut a few bits back and tape it back up to the required size. We settled up for this and sent the PayPal requests to the buyers so we were glad to get that sorted. We then grabbed a Subway for lunch and needed to get back to Eugene to get the Amtrak to Portland. We could’ve got the bus but it looked quite expensive so we had a stab in the dark and attempted to hitchhike. We made a sign with a sharpie and cardboard for Eugene, and stood by the side of the road in attempt to get a lift. At first it felt really stupid and we were having no luck. We were just about to give up when a lady pulled in and said she was heading for Eugene. This was great and had saved us a bit of money on transport. We got a ride to the Amtrak station and then bought tickets for the bus to Portland which was leaving in an hour. We were on the bus for 3 hours but the time flew by as we kept ourselves occupied with the wifi and some music. We arrived in Portland around 8am and were unable to get in contact with any hosts that we had planned to stay with. We were forced to get a motel where we dumped our stuff and headed to McDonalds for some food. We returned to the room and chilled out whilst looking up hosts for the next day as well as planning to go to the shopping mall and cinema.