Six months from now a bicycle race of truly epic proportions will begin on the Oregon Coast. On June 7th riders will begin the inaugural Trans Am Bike Race from Astoria to Yorktown, Virginia. That’s a whopping 4,233 miles of racing that will be missing one important thing: support. That’s right, competitors in the Trans Am Bike Race will not be allowed any outside assistance.
Each racer (80 people have signed up so far) will be tracked via satellite and their progress can be followed online by “virtual spectators.”
Nathan Jones, a Portland-based volunteer organizing the Oregon portion of the event, said the Trans Am is part of a larger trend in self-supported “bikepacking” — a lighter (and often faster) version of traditional touring where you carry all the gear you need. “It seems 2014 is going to be a pretty big year for self supported bikepacking in Oregon. The Trans Am along with the Oregon Outback are going to bring a lot of exposure to the previously smaller world of bikepacking.”
