Arrived!

We arrived in Washington DC yesterday afternoon after a 8 and a half hour flight from Heathrow. It's swelteringly hot here- is really going to make cycling long distances a bit trickier! Having got our bikes assembled last night (they survived the plane journey too!) we plan today on getting the metro to as near to the coast as we can, and then getting the obligatory photo of us as our start line! If all goes to plan we should be hitting Charlottesville, VA in a couple of days riding. Will post some more updates once we've actually got going, but keep checking back for updates!
Hal, Sam & Dave

All set for le grand depart....

After a year in the making, we finally leave for the States tomorrow! We fly from Heathrow to Washington Dulles tomorrow afternoon, and plan to stay the first night in a hostel just a few blocks from Capitol Hill - pretty good for sightseeing! From there, the plan becomes slightly hazy for a bit- we are now aiming to start from the Maryland coast just to the east of DC- this saves a lot of hassle trying to hire cars and the suchlike. The route will look something like this:

View TRANSUSA!!!! in a larger map

We will be travelling through 11 different states:
Maryland
District of Colombia
Virginia
Kentucky
Illinois
Missouri
Kansas
Colorado
Utah
Nevada
California

The route (assuming we don't get lost too much) should be a shade under 4000 miles (6500km) which we hope to cover in under two months - meaning an average of 80 mile days- allowing for a few rest days. Photos will be posted on http://picasaweb.google.com/halroberts87 and regular updates of how we're getting on will be on this very blog!

This last week has been a bit manic for all three of us, with trying to get everything organised- it turns out packing a bike and everything you need for two months into a box and two bags is pretty tricky! One highlight though was being interviewed on 10radio in Somerset on Friday morning- if anyone wants to listen to me doing my best to plug the trip, it can be heard again at the 10radio website.

One final note- our adventure is all for the purpose of raising money for the cause of CLIC Sargent. We aim to raise £3000 in order to ease the burden on families struggling with childhood cancer, and the good news is we are up to 70% of the way to this target! There is still a long way to go though- if you feel that you wish to donate anything to this worthy cause, please visit our fundraising page. Every penny goes straight to the charity, and every message we receive on there makes those miles a little bit less daunting; we really do appreciate your support!

I'd say that's a long enough entry to be getting on with, the next update should be from Washington DC- we'll be sure to say hello to Barack.

Thanks again for everyone's support and good wishes!

Hal, Sam & Dave

12 days and counting!

The rather exciting fact is that there is under two weeks until we fly Heathrow-Washington DC to start our adventure. It's all feeling pretty real now, and while the cycling is daunting and all, the organisation involved is pretty huge as well it turns out! While the original plan was to fly to Dulles airport and get the train down from Union Station, it turns out the time delay of faffing around waiting days for trains might be something we should avoid. I'm currently toying with the idea of hiring an SUV or something similar and driving down to the startling in Yorktown, VA-but this is also pretty complicated. All in all it's a bit frustrating running into issues before we've even started!

On a more positive note, our fundraising efforts really have taken off- with just £900 or so to go to reach our target of £3k, things really are looking up. If you want to support CLICSargent, as well as spurring us on, visit our fundraising page here

I'll post more details about the specifics of our route in the next couple of days, but in the meantime I had better get back to stressing out over transportation issues!

Some training photos so far

Click on the picture above to access some photos of our various training rides so far (ie Wales, the Lake District, the Peak District etc etc)

Just under four weeks to go!!!!