Originally Posted by
pdlamb
I think the steepest grade on the TransAm west of Kansas is only 6-8%; it's a lot steeper than that east of there. So in my book, the advantage to rails trails would be in the Ozarks and Appalachians.
Yep, Lots of steep climbs in the Ozrks and Appalachians on the TA and using the C&O and GAP avoid much of it. The Eastern Express is a popular option for doing that.
Note, too, that not all rail trails are built to modern standards. IIRC the climb to the Whitetop station on the Virginia Creeper hits 6%. (The train was way slow climbing that grade back in the day.) Of course, the Creeper trail illustrates part of the problem; it's about 50 miles of twisty roads, all different to connect Whitetop to Galax and the New River Trail. So Draper to Galax, 50 miles of rail-trail; Galax to Whitetop, 50 miles of mountain road; Whitetop to Abingdon, 30 miles of rail-trail. Then I don't know where you'd connect to from Abingdon.
I don't know much about the options there. I will say that we were going east bound on the TA and a portion of our route was on a section of the creeper trail. It was very pretty, but there were scores or riders coming the other way paying no attention to what was ahead of them. Many were on rented bikes and probably not ususlly cyclists. They were dropped off t the top of a long mostly downhill section and picked up at the bottom. Riding against the flow of them was way worse than riding in traffic on regular roads so we detoured to regulat roads that were almost as pretty.