Intro: If you wonder about the choice of route, phase and schedule, please read more about the 'How?' on the 'Home'-page.
As we progress, we will add 'trail-pictures' and will add travel blogs with stories and our travel experience.

Current Location:  Boonville, Missouri

Stage 1: Beulah CO - Great Bend KS (563km)

Leaving the Rockies
​Stage 1 - ​We are leaving the Wet Mountains and Beulah behind us and ride into the city of Pueblo, past Lake Pueblo, an artificial lake that provides a great local recreational area for wildlife and people.
We cross the Arkansas river and head east towards the endless horizon of Eastern Colorado and Kansas (we cross into Kansas after Sheridan Lake). There are no passes but pretty level terrain with open roads. No trees and never-ending fields of wheat, corn and grass. Will we have great tailwinds, or if it will be a battle with headwinds? However... we are back on the road again!
(Distance: 358 miles / 563 km; Up: 2'275ft / Down 6'625ft)
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​​May 2nd 2026 Beulah - Ordway
This morning we left Beulah behind us. Just yesterday it had snowed and the weather forecast for today was promising. Some of our friends said goodbye to the crazy people. It was not easy to leave a safe home, but Yorktown VA was not going to move to the west...
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We knew the road to Pueblo really well, and we also knew our way around Pueblo, but as soon as we left Pueblo to the east it was all new. After the green hills and mountains of Beulah, the area East of Pueblo just became flat and mostly brown at this time of the year. We followed the 96 east and it pretty much all looked the same. The little towns with 300+ inhabitants have a post office, a small city park with a covered area and often a small general store, not much else. The 96 also runs parallel to the railway, so we got to see really long trains, with up to 5 locomotives pulling the same train. We took a couple of breaks but made it to Ordway shortly after 4pm. 127km! It was the longest daily ride for the whole trip. We intentionally wanted to see if we would be up to it, and we think we are!​
May 3rd Ordway - Eads
Today, we continued through Eastern Colorado, still along the train tracks. After a cow farm. The plain got even wider, with a lot of brown grass, always some birds, but not much else, not even a single train! The cows of that farm were so funny: there were dirt mounds spread out in their field, and from far you could see the silhouettes of single cows on top of these mounds! We were still a bit sore from yesterday, so we had a break after 20 miles, in Arlington, under some beautiful Cottonwood trees. Arlington consists of one single old farm with two barking dogs.

The plains are so wide open and empty! You can see the next place from far ahead. Most of the time you see an old grain silo against the horizon, but you know it's going to take another 30 minutes to get there. There are the tiniest towns (like Haswell, pop. 65). They have a city park with covered picnic benches and a relatively large playground.
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As we got closer to Eads, our destination for the day, green fields became more frequent, possibly with winter wheat. Most of the huge silos are right next to the train tracks. The wheat is loaded directly onto the train. We had winds from all directions during the day. We definitely don't like strong headwinds. Especially on a landscape like this, there is nothing stopping the wind. But we managed. Some forecasts call for a change in the weather... cold, rainy, and even snow. We will decide on Monday night if we need to hunker down in a warm motel room...
May 4th Eads, CO - Tribune, KS
Today was more of the same regarding the landscape. We did not expect any change when we finally reached Kansas... However, the road, that had become really bumpy for the last 30 kilometers, got much better the moment we crossed the state line! Kansas seems to have more money to maintain the roads. We will stay the night in Tribune, KS. We were even early for check-in because  Greeley County (Tribune) is in Kansas but still belongs to the mountain time zone, while the rest of Kansas is at Central Time (+1 hour).

Today the weather was mostly sunny and almost 30°C. Tomorrow there is supposed to be  a high of 9°C max, and the next day a high of 5°C max... We will decide tomorrow morning whether to stay here for a couple of days in a warm place or at least make it to Scott City.
May 5th Tribune - Scott City
Today, the conditions were tough: temperatures around 6/7° C (45° F), constant headwinds between 15 and 25 km/h, and even rain in the afternoon! And we had our first flat tire. A piece of wire had worked itself into the tire of the trailer. We replaced the tube on the side of the road, without freezing our fingers off. We had all the tools and parts. We had lunch in a warm restaurant at Leoti, and now at the end of the day, we got to a warm place in Scott City safely.

Tomorrow will be even colder, with the possibility of snow. We'll just stay here and have our first break day a bit earlier than planned! The local people are glad for the precipitation, so we can take it. As we drove deeper into Kansas, the farms with these huge fields are mostly well taken care of, and the houses look nicer! We saw some houses that were built lower, up to their windows in the ground! Probably because of the wind and insulation.
May 6th  Rest Day in Scott City
We decided to stay in Scott City. Read, shop for groceries, plan the next days, fix the damaged tube to have a spare again, etc. Tomorrow we are back on the bike! The weather forecast is much better!
May 7th Scott City - Ness City
Weatherwise, it was almost the perfect day! Nothing like a couple of days ago: Nice tailwind, 10C in the morning, 20C in the afternoon! So we arrived earlier than expected in Ness City, our next stop after about 90km. Ness City doesn't have a motel, and camping would have been 3-4C at night, so we booked an Airbnb. A whole house just for us, including a garage for the bicycles. So instead of eating at a restaurant, we got a healthy meal from our own kitchen.

​We noticed on the way that the farms got nicer and the towns got cleaner. A lot of houses have several rows of trees and bushes to protect them from the wind. We spent some time at the city park as we were waiting for check-in time, and talked to people. People around here live almost exclusively from and with farming. One lady has a farm with 10 thousand acres (40 km²!). They grow sorghum and wheat. They have cows and even pump a few barrels of oil on their property. It's a lot of work, but it provides for two families. The average farm only has about 5000 acres. What would a Swiss farmer do with 20 km²...?
May 8th Ness City - Great Bend
Today, after 7 days cycling, we finished our first leg out of 6 to Yorktown, Virginia! It was about 600 km (350 mi). We had to work hard for it though! There was a lot of headwind, and for the last third the rumble strip was right in the middle of the shoulder! Try to ride a bike on it! You're not going to last 10 seconds! So we rode on the street, and most cars/trucks are very polite and changed lanes!
All day the route took us alongside Walnut Creek, which actually carried some water! You could always see its location because it is framed with fresh green-leafy trees!

We met some cyclists today, and exchanged experiences on bikes and bike routes. These are interesting people! All enjoy the independence on the road! One was from South Korea. He has been cycling in Asia a couple of times, and this is his first time in the USA. In Korea, people aged 40 and older like to cycle, but it's not in fashion for the younger ones.

We will continue our blog further down for section 2.
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Ready for the ride
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Stage 2: Great Bend KS - Clinton MO (558km)

The Open Roads of Kansas
​​Stage 2 - We ride the open roads of Kansas through lots of small towns, still along Section 7 of the official TransAmerica Bike Trail, rolling pretty parallel to US Highway 50 and straight east. We leave the TransAmerica trail and get onto the 'TransAmerica Connector' near Toronto Lake and head northeast towards Clinton MO, but stay south of Kansas City. We cross into the State of Missouri shortly after the town of LaCygne. We decided to leave the TransAmerica to use more of the Rail-to-Trail network like the KATY Trail further north. Most of the Rail-to-Trail trails were not yet available when the original TransAmerica was set up.
(Distance 347 miles / 558 km; Up: 4'925ft / Down: 5'975ft)
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May 9th Great Bend - Hutchinson
Today's ride led us to Hutchinson, KS. The original route would have ended in Nickerson, but we couldn't find any place to stay for the night. There was no city park with toilets, and thunderstorms were in the forecast. Hutchinson is a larger city 10 miles south of Nickerson. Almost all day, we rode off the main road through a wildlife refuge with ponds, lots of trees, and reeds. Virtually no traffic, so we could usually ride side by side, discussing what we saw and 'everything else' life has to offer. It was also hotter than previous days with 30°C+, but it was OK, not humid. For those Swiss who can't imagine how big Kansas is: Kansas is about 5 times the size of Switzerland, with about 650 km to cross Kansas from west to east. So currently we feel like ants crawling across this huge and open state at about 100 km per day.
❤️ Happy Mother's Day Mom! 🪻🌸🌻❤️
Your Children and Grandchildren
May 10th Hutchinson - Newton
We left kind of late because of rain storms. At 3pm we got to the beautiful little town of Newton. It wasn't a very long distance, 60 km (37 mi), but we had headwinds pretty much all the time. Luckily, they grow these long, narrow and dens rows of trees (about 5-10 m wide) in between fields and sometimes alongside the roads. 

​Newton is beautifully situated on the Sand Creek: There are walkways on both sides of the creek with benches and a big park!  It carries a lot more water than the Arkansas River, which we have been crossing once in a while since Pueblo! As a comparison for the Swiss: the  Arkansas River here has a little more water than the "Pfaffnere", while the Sand Creek is about the size of the"Emme".
May 11th Newton - Eureka
It was a long day today: we did 120 km (78 mi) and had headwinds for about half of it. I think we are ready for a break! But we are going to check the weather first.

In the morning, the landscape was really beautiful: very green with lakes and creeks! Later, it was more cowboy land: a lot of huge, rolling pastures -  without trees, with big herds of Angus cattle. There were a lot of young calves, that liked to either run away as we cycled past, or chase us!​
May 12th Eureka - Iola
Another day in the saddle... We made it to Iola, still in Kansas, after a total of about 1000 km on the road! We had a couple of special moments! We saved a turtle that was trying to cross a major highway from being run over by one of the many cars or trucks. We bravely fought pretty bad crosswinds of 30-40 km/h that tried to push us into traffic. At times we were leaning into the wind, just to ride straight, and in Yates Center, where we had lunch, we met a few ladies who wanted to know what we were doing. They decided that we should hold hands. They prayed for us and asked God to bless us and our travels. It was very genuine and personal.

May 13th Rest Day in Iola
We are resting and recovering for the next stages.
May 14th Iola - La Cygne
Today, we cycled for the first time on one of these many rail-to-trail trails, the Prairie Spirit Trail. It was a beautiful trail between trees! No traffic, no wind, and no sun - it wasn't shining a lot anyway 😉. It was a dirt surface, so it took some more effort, but you can't have it all, right? At Garnet, about halfway, we turned East, off this trail onto side roads towards La Cygne. These winds were crazy! And part of the route was a rough dirt road, where we had to cycle pretty slowly. So we treated ourselves to a really big meal in a sports bar & grill. For Swiss people: it's the kind of place you see in a movie, with a dark interior, Budweiser neon signs, a stage, and an Honor Wall for all the fallen local heroes.
May 15th La Cygne KS - Clinton MO
Today was a special day in many ways. It was the last day of stage 2! We are definitely leaving Kansas, it's getting hilly and wetter, and we met an old friend for dinner.

There was a lot less wind today, but shortly after crossing the state line into Missouri, the roads began to change! A constant up and down, from lowest gear to highest, and back again. It was almost as exhausting as riding into constant headwinds. So in the evening we ended up climbing 800 meters and almost at the same elevation as in the morning.

We finally made it to Clinton, the beginning of the KATY Trail, where we met Christy. We met during phase 1 of our TransAmerica, somewhere on a pass, as we were fighting mosquitoes, and she helped us with a bug spray. We have stayed in touch, and she even visited us in Switzerland when she was cycling in Europe! Her sister lives in Kansas City, and so she decided to visit her sister and us from Minneapolis.
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Stage 3: Clinton MO - Alton IL (415km)

The KATY Trail
Stage 3 - In Clinton MO we get onto the famous KATY Trail (Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad - MKT = KATY). With about 240miles /385km, it is the longest established Rail Trail in the US. That means NO traffic but hikers and fellow cyclists for several days. It means very moderate grade and lots of trees along the trail. However, it also means no paved road and possible floodings as we will follow the Missouri river. Of course we hope for the best and accept the rest. The KATY trail ends in Machens near St. Charles and a few miles from the Mississippi river.
​(Distance: 254 miles / 415km; Up: 2'825ft / Down:  3'150ft)
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We had met Kristy years ago during phase 1 and she visited us in Switzerland. We met for dinner in Clinton and she joined us for the first 30 kilometers of today's trip. She is definitely a world cyclist!
May 16th Clinton - Boonville
Today, we crossed the Missouri River! That's a huge milestone for us. We came all the way from the Rockies through the prairie!
It was a long day today: 130 km (83 mi) exclusively on gravel! It was a nice ride, too: all on the KATY Trail: a lot of shade under the trees, a pretty even gravel road (a bit soft at places from the rain at night), gentle ups and downs, and a lot of wild animals: squirrels, rabbits, birds, especially the red cardinals and some really shiny blue ones! We also saw more turtles including big ones, and finally an opossum that just looked at us, saying, "That's my trail, just so you know!"
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Alton IL - Indianapolis IN (430km)

​Crossing the Mississippi River
Stage 4 - Right at the end of the KATY Trail, near St. Charles, we cross the mighty Mississippi into Alton, Illinois. We are definitely no longer in the Western United States. We will pass St. Louis to the north and work our way around the city. Unfortunately we no longer have a rail-to trail to follow, but standard roads until we reach Indianapolis.  We are now officially on the 'Eastern Connector' of the Adventure Cycling Association's trail system. This connector is part of a speedier coast-to-coast trail than the TransAmerica. It connects the western part of the Transamerica Trail from Colorado with the 'Chicago to New York' Route. We will follow that connector to Indianapolis.
​(Distance: 266 miles / 430 km; Up: 4'900ft / Down: 4'675ft)
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Stage 5: Indianapolis IN - Pittsburgh PA (662km)

​The Home of Bike Touring and Flight
Stage 5 - ​This stage leads us through three states and a region with numerous bicycle trails. Particularly Ohio is a state where you could bounce around dozens of trails all summer long. Ohio is where the famous Wright Brothers had a bicycle store (Dayton) when they developed their 'flying machines' and flew them in North Carolina. Ohio is also the home of Charlie Pace, who was one of the 'founders' of the Bikecentennial in the 70s and later the Adventure Cycling Association. We are also looking forward to the wooded regions of Pennsylvania before we reach Pittsburgh.
​​​​(411 miles / 662 km; Up: 14'325ft / Down: 14'200ft)
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Stage 6: Pittsburgh PA​ - Yorktown VA (794km)

Crossing the Appalachian to the East Coast
​Stage 6 - The last stage will lead us from Pittsburgh through the Great Allegheny Passage, a bike trail  that was originally a train track between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, that crosses the first part of the Appalachian Mountains, the mountain range more or less parallel to the East coast. After Cumberland, the bike trail continues directly onto the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O Canal), an artificial waterway with 74 locks that was built between 1828 and 1850 to transport goods (mostly coal) between the Allegheny Mountains and the east coast. The canal ends at Washington D.C. 
Our journey continues along the Atlantic coast trail on to Yorktown VA, and the 'Victory Pillar' that celebrates the Siege/Battle of Yorktown in 1781 that eventually ended the Revolutionary War and gave the United States its independence. It is also the official end of the original TransAmerica bicycle trail. 
​(Distance: 493 miles / 794 km; Up: 16'325ft / Down: 17'125)​
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