Bike 76 VA: The Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast

Railways are a familiar sight for cyclists on Route 76, because the expansion of the railroad network for the last two centuries has been an important element of the history of Virginia and the United States more generally. Ashland, where Route 76 literally runs on either side of a train track, thus serves as an illustrative example of how the growth, consolidation, decline, and now renewal of rai...

As it circles to the east of Virginia’s capital city, the Transamerican Bicycle Route 76 passes by several locations of Richmond Battlefield Park. These facilities commemorate a Civil War battle that took place over ten days in early summer 1864. Visitors to this historical site will be able to view explanatory signs and walk along the ground where men from both sides fought and died. This experie...

As Route 76 travels along the James River between Williamsburg and Richmond, cyclists should be aware that they are passing through a region that had some of the oldest and largest plantations in Virginia during two centuries of enslavement. Yet just fifty miles south of where Route 76 passes through these well preserved legacies of plantation slavery, in Southampton county near the North Carolina...

For nearly fifty miles, the most eastern section of Route 76 runs parallel to the James River. Sturgeon Point is located on the northern bank of the river, just a mile south of Route 76, as indicated by a historical marker visible on the west bound route. This episode explores the history of the James River as a way to enable cyclists to make connections between the observed landscape and the long...

Jamestown, located along Route 76 in coastal Virginia, represents two alternative origin stories for the United States. First, the establishment of the Jamestown colony in 1607 would lead to the creation of the first representative legislative government in the new world, thus beginning the steps toward democratic self-government that would eventually lead to the Declaration of Independence in 177...

The Victory Monument, the starting or ending point for the Bikecentennial route since 1976, connects the independence of the new nation following the military victory in 1781 to the emergence of the United States as a world power in the subsequent two centuries. This episode is connected to Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and about 550 miles from the Kentucky border, where ea...