Bike 76 VA: The Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast

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.