Why Bristol

Okay, let me hit on “Why Bristol?’  It actually grew out of the USBRS project and also for me my Tennessee pioneer project.  I (and I assume Bruce did also) wanted to find a viable east-west route across Tennessee.  The North-South routes were easy.  Several already exist, such as the Harpeth Club’s RAT that Bruce mentioned and the underground railroad.  I searched along Tennessee’s eastern border and could not find a route on which I would want to lead a Conestoga wagon train or a bicycle club.  I was mapping how Scot-Irish migrated from the swamps along the coast in North Carolina to the Red River valley in Middle Tennessee along the border with Kentucky.

All feasible eastern routes into Tennessee seemed to flow through Bristol and the Cumberland Gap.  The topography of Eastern Tennessee follows the contours of Virginia and the Great Wagon Trails out of that area.  US 11W or Valley Pike is one of the earliest routes from New England to Louisiana.  I suspected it would be a very good candidate for a bike route.