COOS BAY — For Sgt. Robert Lounsbury of the Coos Bay Police Department, the fateful decision came two years ago — in a British pub.

Bicycling across the United States can be challenging. Deciding to make such a trip can be even harder.

Lounsbury was first bitten by the bicycling bug when a cadre of British constables paid a visit to the South Coast in 2005. They were cycling from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific Coast, and Lounsbury joined them on their trek from Florence to Coos Bay. He befriended several of the riders who offered their hospitality if he should ever decide to pass through their homeland.

The next year, Lounsbury and several other Coos Bay officers traveled across the Atlantic to cycle around the U.K.

The group passed by ancient cathedrals, cobblestone courtyards and Stonehenge. After one day’s ride, while sharing a couple of pints, the group’s conversation shifted to what might be next.

In the midst of the officers was Nick Furman, a Coos Bay resident who accompanied Lounsbury on a segment of the route between Florence and Coos Bay the year before. He told the group about his solo trip across the country in 2004 that started at Sunset Bay and wound up in Cape Cod, Mass.

That evening, the group came up with the idea of another cross-country trip.

“It was one of those things where they said, ‘Well, if you can do it, we can do it,” Furman recalled.

Two years of planning followed. Lounsbury found himself on the phone nearly every week with Neil Smith, one of the British constables.

Finally, as clouds hung low over the Coos Bay Boardwalk, Lounsbury, Furman and four British bicycling bobbies assembled Saturday for the start of their  Bobby on a Bike trip.

It wasn’t hard to pick out the real bobbies. They all were decked out in bright green shirts. And any question about where they were from was answered when they opened their mouths, producing a melodious, and for some confusing, English accent.

“One of the biggest challenges is going to be understanding them,” said Tammy Lounsbury, Robert’s wife, who is driving one of two motor homes that will be accompanying the group across the country.

What the bobbies were having trouble with was remembering why they were making the trip in the first place.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Jeff Cribb, who bicycled with Smith and another constable on the 2005 trip.

Joking aside, the trip is designed to raise money and awareness for several organizations, including a prostate cancer charity group and a violence prevention program.

The 4,295-mile route they have chosen will take them across Central  Oregon, Idaho and Montana before shifting south, to pass through Yellowstone. The goal is to arrive in Yorktown, Va., on June 27.

That averages out to about 150 miles a day, though the group will share the mileage by splitting into teams. One group will start bicycling at the start of the day, while another will drive about 100 miles ahead and start bicycling. Once the first group reaches the point where the second group started, they will clamber aboard an awaiting motor home and drive to that night’s stop.

The only days the team will ride together will be the first two days, the last two and when they cross the continental divide.

“We wanted to do the highest climb together,” Smith explained.

Cribb said an agency that customizes bicycle routes chose the destination, but he noted the city’s founding has some significance to the bobbies. One of the founders of Yorktown came from a community in their county, Woodbridge.

Cribb said the bobbies have been training every other day since Christmas to make it from Coos Bay to Yorktown. Lounsbury said he has been cycling six days a week for several months, going along East Bay Drive, Coos River Highway and Cape Arago Highway. During the last month and a half, he estimates he has gone 1,500 miles.

He has yet to bicycle 100 miles in a day, what cyclists term “doing a century.” That will change today, when Lounsbury bicycles his leg of the route from Eugene to Mitchell. Traveling the McKenzie Highway, one of his favorite scenic drives, is one of two days Lounsbury is looking forward to. The other is the trip through Yellowstone.

Asked what they were looking forward to seeing, the bobbies had a different response.

“Yorktown,” they said in unison.