By combining the work our NBG Scouts did from 1998 to 2010, with the GPS input that came our way when we had interactive maps at our site (2007-2009) and then the crowd sourced bike route data that Google now has on line, in 2014, we put the San Francisco to Washington, DC connection we developed on the landing page of BikeRoute.com. 

To strengthen our push to turn it into a greenway, safe for cyclists, in mirroring what Carl Fisher did with the Lincoln Highway of 1914, America’s first coast-to-coast car road described HERE, in 2018 we moved our operation to where the Lincoln was begun – Indianapolis! By moving to Indianapolis, the Birthplace of the Automobile industry, which has come full circle to it now being the Greenway Capitol of the World with also the most Bikeable Downtown on the Planet (see Indianapolis Cultural Trail), with great authority, we are able to show the precedent the Lincoln has set for our effort, America’s first coast-to-coast bicycle road.

In showing the colossal impact the Crossroads of America, Indianapolis, once the Railroad City of the West and wealthiest city in the USA, has had on the rest of this Nation with the Lincoln Hwy, with its car manufacturing, with the Indy 500 (still the largest spectator event in the world), with the now deceased largest inter-urban train system in the country, with the first car headlight and  all of its other breakthrough industries, etc, our Director, Martin Krieg, wrote the book “How Indianapolis Built America”.

In going forward, in light of the fact that almost half of the USA is uninhabited, with most of that being west of the Mississippi, instead of making San Francisco or Washington, DC our destination, reaching Indianapolis has become the goal we have set for cyclists riding our route. Here’s our rationale.

There are 1.78 million sq. miles where no one lives in America. These lands are made up of  large wilderness areas, filled with uninhabitable mountains, endless deserts and off-limits nature reserves. There are also endless miles of farmland and military installations, etc.  With little in the way of traffic, it is in this open space where the bike routes we have specced out will have little change.

As such then, we  have switched our focus to the 20 NBG Anchor Cities that hold our route from San Francisco to Washington DC together. Having completed the job of fleshing out the biking magic in the City of Indianapolis, in going forward from 2022, we need for the Indy example to be implemented all over America.

By showing off the biking infrastructure here, Indianapolis will become a Mecca that will draw cyclists from all over the nation and all around the globe. And when it becomes a destination for cyclists coming from both coasts and all over America, bike riders will take the example we set here back to their own communities.

Now that our Indianapolis web work is complete, we will be using it as a template for the rest of our Anchor Cities that can be found at this  link. All the information there, will all be updated and reformatted to appear in the icons that will appear on the central map we develop for each of them. Here, for example, is the Indianapolis Central Map. In the end, this will make all the cities along our route familiar to cyclists. When they are not seen as blackbox/population centers to be avoided, they will all become attractive destinations to those on a pedal machine.

When people see that you can ride a bicycle in the big cities on our route and do so safely, it will bring the notion of crossing the country on a bicycle into one’s possibility consciousness. They will realize they can do a TransAm ride across America at their own pace, in sections. And as they do, they will also get to enjoy all the culture and history that make each city in these United States different from one another.