I've had this idea for a little bit now.  I want to go bicycle trip across the country to raise trans awareness/support.  Right now it's in the preliminary stages but a few of the cities I want to stop in include:

Pittsburgh, PA
Columbus, OH
Indianapolis, IN
St. Louis, MO
Kansas City, MO
Trinidad, CO
Flagstaff, AZ
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA

My grandiose vision is to have a chase car for each of the legs to have a place to keep some of my stuff and keep other cars from running me off the road.  In addition to that I'd also like to contact the local LGBT organizations and news stations of each place I'll be passing through.  If there are any of you interested in completing a leg of the journey with me that would be fantastic.  I'm looking for people to ride with me, chase cars, places to crash for the night, etc.  Like I said I'm in the preliminary stages of this but I figure the bigger it is the more coverage it will get.

Flagstaff, AZ
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA

Do it in the late fall/early winter - that route will kill you in high summer.

If I can I'd like to do it in October but I know I'm pushing it trying to get it done that early.  The reason I'm going down to LA is to see if I can get coverage for this on the Ellen Degeneres show--which is even more of an ambitious leap.

You need a PR person for that, some sort of press agent who is constantly trying to get through the layers of people she has surrounding her at this point.

Thats unfortunate.  I'd probably have to pay a PR person to make that happen which I can't really afford.  I bet Lance Armstrong has enough press people at his disposal to keep this from his attention as well (i figured he'd be a good one to get since he's into biking and such).  Maybe if I keep plugging away something is bound to stick.

The bike trip sounds like a great idea, if I were in much better shape and in the area I'd love to do something like that.

I bet Lance Armstrong has enough press people at his disposal to keep this from his attention as well

I think they are busy this week trying to fight the new charges of doping and drugging.


My far more modest goal is to get to the top of Annandale on the Burma Trail this year on my bike.  There are 4 ways over that hill ranging from pretty easy to fricking impossible.  If I can get up to Burma level I'll be happy and not feel obligated to try the 'rough go trail' which is pretty well named.

So, what kind of bike are you going to ride?  (Me, I have a 09 Marin HT Hydro frame, 27 gears and hydraulic disc breaks).

Mine is a custom job.  Its an old AMF roadmaster frame with Weinmann track wheels.  Its a fixed gear bike with a 44:16 chain ratio but I plan on getting a 14 tooth sprocket for the other side so I can swap gears for flatter sections. I'm don't want to make the journey across the US just to say I did it though.  The whole point of the ride is to get media coverage for trans issues such as getting transition covered under health care and just to educate people in general. 

Well you really need a press agent for that, so they can get every media outlet on the way, every newspaper in every small town.  But, even at that, hundreds of people do that trip every year (it takes about a month) so it's not really much of a novelty anymore.