By Tom Ewing
September 4, 2025
In 1976, Nancy Haldeman quit her job at the US Library of Congress to ride her bicycle across the United States. After three years as a book lister, Haldeman was cutting her ties with the Washington area for the opportunity “to see America almost the way the settlers saw it as they rode out West. Today that’s probably possible only by bicycle.” A profile published in the Washington Post on May 10, 1976, included this stirring prediction from Haldeman: “This is a turning point in my life, as it probably is for many people.” (Washington Post, May 10, 1976, p. B1)
Haldeman took part in the ceremonial departure of the first Bikecentennial group to leave Jamestown in May 1976. The Washington Post article cited above shows Haldeman and her roommate, Donna Steig, whose work as a bicycle messenger meant riding fifty miles a day, thus providing excellent training for the trip. A photograph from the collections of the Adventure Cycling Association, recently published in the Virginia Pilot, includes two women who appear to be Haldeman and Steig, given the similarities with the Washington Post photograph cited above and the photograph of Steig published later that summer in the Cincinnati Inquirer (below).
In September, an article about Louise Elser, the assistant leader of Haldeman’s group when it left Jamestown, reported that the trip took 82 days to cross the country. The group actually split, according to Elser, who offered this explanation of why she and a few others took a slower option: “We stopped to swim a lot, and meet people. We were laggers, but I still thought we were going too fast. There are just so many places to visit; so many people to meet.” (The Capital, September 21, 1976, p. 11, including photograph below)
Read more about the ceremonial departure of cyclists from Jamestown VA in the Virginia Pilot, August 24, 2025 also available from the publications page for the Bike 76 VA project: https://bike76-va.vt.domains/home/presentations-and-publications/
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