{"id":1564,"date":"2026-05-08T18:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/?p=1564"},"modified":"2026-05-08T18:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:13:21","slug":"paul-carnahan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/blog-posts\/paul-carnahan\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Carnahan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 7, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Tom Ewing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Carnahan was a senior at Brattleboro High School in Vermont when he completed a 4,200 mile ride across the United States as part of the Bikecentennial. Carnahan\u2019s journey was recounted in the Brattleboro Refrormer, November 18-19, 1976, which included a detailed account of the final days in Virginia as well as a map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carnahan began his cycling trip in Oregon on June 13, 1976, and ended almost three months later on August 28, 1976. His group averaged about 65 miles each day, as \u201cEmphasis was placed on seeing the country and people, not on speed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After recounting the trip from Oregon in Colorado in the November 18 issue, the remainer of the trip from Colorado through Kentucky and then through Virginia was discussed in the November 19 issue. While the western section had the highest mountains, first the Ozarks and thenwestern Virginia presented a different kind of challenge for eastbound cyclists: \u201cThe roads in the east go straight up and over mountains rather than winding back and forth in a series [of] switchbacks as in the Rockies.\u201d Carnahan praised western Virginia as \u201ca very beautiful section of the country. Small farms occupy clearnings in the tree covered hillsides. The area has not been penetrated by the large masses of people as on the eastern seaboard and provided some pleasant biking.\u201d After crossing the Blue Ridge, \u201cwe crossed the fall line and entered the flat Piedmont Plateau. The miles flew as we pushed for the coast.\u201d When Carnahan\u2019s group reached the official end of the journey, \u201cThere were no brass bands or waving flags as we rode up the dirt road to Chicahomany, after spending 12 weeks pedaling loaded bicycles across the country.\u201d On the following day, they rode \u201cunloaded bikes\u201d to Yorktown, where they dipped their front wheels \u201cin the Atlantic Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On the drive back to Vermont, Carnahan reflected on his journey: \u201cIt had been a long summer, a summer of hot and cold, of trauma and laughter, of teaching and learning, or challenges and defeat, of closeness and solitude; it has been a rewarding summer. As I sped along at an unprecedented 60 m.p.h., I began to realize how fortunate I had been to have had such an experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 7, 2026 by Tom Ewing Paul Carnahan was a senior at Brattleboro High School in Vermont when he completed a 4,200 mile ride across the United States as part of the Bikecentennial. Carnahan\u2019s journey was recounted in the Brattleboro Refrormer, November 18-19, 1976, which included a detailed account of the final days in Virginia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}