Advice before Bicycling Across the USA

Stop and see Monticello along the way; 2007 journey.

DOUBLE CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE.

I’ve been contacted by several interested cyclists who want advice about pedaling across the country. So this post is for anyone inclined to try. 

First, if you’re like me and know parts of only five tunes to hum, learn some songs before you set sail. Otherwise, you’re in for some long days repeating a few bars of “Old Susanna” over and over again.  

Trust me, I know.

My first trip across the United States came at age 58, in 2007, the year before I retired from teaching—and took me west, from New Jersey to Oregon in 4,088 miles. 

This summer, my second journey began at Acadia National Park in Maine and ended on the streets of San Francisco, fifty-eight days and 4,600 miles later. On the first trip rain was minimal. This summer I got wet on twenty-two occasions and dumped on for five or six long days. I also had times where I boiled my brains in Indiana, entering South Dakota (heat index 118°) and pedaling across the Sevier Desert in Utah. Near the end of my ride I had a day where I climbed a total of 7,000 feet, crossed three mountain ranges and went up and over Tioga Pass into Yosemite National Park.

If this sounds like complaining, I don’t mean to scare anyone. A ride across America is a phenomenal adventure and a wonderful challenge. Check out some of the scenery in Yosemite, below, and you have some idea why it can be so enjoyable.

Vernal Falls, Yosemite, with rainbow: 2011.

To ride out of the valley in this direction you have to gain a couple of thousand feet in elevation.
The views are well worth the sweat you expend: older photo.

So what’s the toughest mile? Probably the first—realizing that you CAN pedal across America, even if it means working yourself into shape as you go. 

It’s not false modesty for me to say there are hundreds of thousands of men and women (young or old) who could do what I did. I’m not even an avid cyclist. I don’t do century rides back home in Ohio and ride about once a week during spring, summer and fall. I never ride in winter. I’m a wimp in the cold. 

You don’t have to be a two-wheeled kamikaze to consider this trip.

I work out once or twice at the gym every week; and for an older guy, I’m in decent shape; but I’m no physical specimen and my eating habits are abominable. When I set my mind to it, however, I know I can go. I believe I can. And so I can. Belief is the first step. More than anything, it’s a question of mentality. You have to be determined. As Eleanor Roosevelt once put it, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” 

Both my trips involved pedaling alone (most of my friends are lounge-chair riders, or perhaps wiser with age), and unsupported, which scares most riders.  I have found it to be liberating to go at my own pace and have flexibility to camp almost anywhere I desire. I also find that when locals see a bike loaded with gear they want to ask questions. It’s a great way to start a conversation, whether you’re passing through Geneva, N.Y. during a deluge or pondering a blown tire over breakfast in Gabbs, Nevada (population 349).

In fact, it might be wise to carry an extra tire. I did have one tire (an expensive one too) develop a hernia in Gabbs, when the nearest place to buy a new one was in Reno, nearly a hundred miles away.

I should note that my experience with people on both trips was ridiculously positive. Almost everyone wants to help. Bicycle shops (once you make it through their door) treat you like royalty. In the Gabbs case, Ray and Hazel Dummar, owners of the only operating cafe in town, and a geologist named Steven House who was passing through, conspired to get me to a sporting goods store that had everything a cross-country rider could desire.

Except slot machines, that is.

If you’re going to do this ride it helps to have a good machine and you should have yours checked thoroughly before setting out. (Not all riders do.) My bicycle is a Cannondale 700, with heavy-duty rims, which I purchased in 1999. I’ve never had to deal with broken spokes or a major mechanical failure while touring yet. Originally, the bike had 21 gears. A few years back my mechanic upgraded it to 27. 

Those extra six really help when you’re crossing the Middle Gap in Vermont, where grades are 15% and 18%.

I’ve seen plenty of riders, coming and going, during my trips and the question of what to carry and how to carry it always comes up. The only rule to follow for sure: Pack as lightly as possible. On my first ride I hauled six sets of clothes, t-shirts, socks and underwear, a pair of jeans, sweat pants, a fleece jacket and more. For my 2011 journey I decided to go with two bicycle jerseys, which could be alternated one day to the next, one black bathing suit, serving as shorts/underwear (washed out every night), one regular pair of black shorts, one regular t-shirt, three pairs of regulation underwear (I could have gotten by with one), and three pairs of socks. I skipped the jeans, which turned out to be a good call, and dispensed with sweat pants, as well, which turned out not to be wise. There were several times when camping in high altitudes at Yellowstone or Yosemite that a pair of sweats would have been welcome.

The socks got a little stiff too, since I rinsed them out at night by hand, using a little shampoo from those hotel bottles; but you can quickly toughen up your feet and don’t need socks every day.

Fewer and fewer people do self-supported rides but I never found it a problem, even at my ripe age. I’ve had great luck with a Therm-A-Rest sleeping pad and even discovered this summer that it’s possible to close a leak caused by a thorn with a bicycle patch (at least with the pad I had). I also got by with a cheap ($19.95) kid’s tent from Bass Pro Shops. It fit perfectly atop the back deck on my bike, along with the sleeping pad and a lightweight sleeping bag, all held down with bungee cords. 

The virtue of carrying your own gear is that you may stop anywhere you like and that often means camping for free. In parts of the east I was finding campgrounds, like one nice mom and pop place in Maine, and every KOA across the land, charging $28 or $31 to put up a tent. So I started looking for “free” accommodations along the edges of cornfields (perfect in late July when crops are high), behind lines of bushes, even behind rises in hills alongside the roads. 

When I hit Eureka, Nevada, for example, I found myself running out of daylight after suffering a tricky flat. I checked with the only motel that had a vacancy sign lighted: a Best Western that offered one of four suites remaining for $120. A quick bit of adding and subtracting convinced me to keep pedaling, and two miles past town, just off the main road, I found a perfect stand of juniper trees to screen my presence and settled in for a free night.

I slept soundly and used part of my savings to pedal back to Eureka the next morning and enjoy a huge breakfast.

Speaking of flats, I don’t know what the average rider knows. I didn’t know, myself, until Gene Meyers, another rider I met in Idaho in 2007, told me, that tire debris—the wires in radial tire fragments—cause about half of all flats. I also found that day near Eureka that a pair of tweezers would have been handy.  A tiny bit of wire had punctured my tire and tube but I couldn’t seem to grip it with fingers or regular pliers. Eventually, a nice older woman (older than me?) I met on the street lent me a pair of tweezers she carried in her purse.

In Iowa a tiny fragment of glass caused three flats, three days in succession. I’d get the flat, disassemble the tire, feel for any offending wire, tack or staple, and find nothing. The tiny shard would eventually be pushed through the tire again the next day and Id’ end up riding on my rim. Only when I stopped at a bicycle shop, was a mechanic able to find the problem by running his hand along the outside of the tire and he found the shard at once. It was a valuable lesson and from then on I checked inside and out on my tire if there was any doubt about the source of a flat.

It’s worth a word of warning to say that in 2007, I started off with three extra tubes but no patching kit. I figured three tubes would be plenty. In the middle of Kansas I ran into a cross-country rider heading east who told me he’d experienced five flats in one day. I bought a patching kit at Emporia, the next town, and highly recommend carrying plenty of patches at all times. My worst day ever was four flats, riding in Idaho during that trip; and this summer I ran over a large staple as I was crossing the Missouri River. That mishap left me with three separate holes in my rear tube.

Heading west across Kansas in 2007.

I made up my own routes for both rides and found this to be a pleasure. I often ended up riding through small towns where most people had never seen a distance cyclist and so loved to talk and this made my trips more interesting. You do get off the beaten track—and this past summer I went two weeks at one stretch without seeing a McDonalds. That meant eating at mom and pop joints where owners still cared if the food they served tasted like food and arrived warm on the plate. I had excellent breakfasts almost every morning, simply by following this rule: Look for the place where the locals go. 

Google Maps on my phone proved helpful, especially a version that highlighted the best routes for bicyclers in green. And if you’ve never pedaled out West, I assure you that most roads have wide breakdown lanes and traffic is sparse.

Wyoming has five people per square mile—so you can imagine why.

In fact, you can legally ride the interstate there and feel perfectly safe, and the same is true in South Dakota, Montana and parts of Oregon.

Just don’t assume this is true in Utah. Luckily, I checked with the Utah Highway Patrol before pedaling up the ramp and onto I-80, because when I hit Salt Lake City I was ready to head due west, across the Great Salt Desert. Can’t ride the interstate in Mormon country, it turns out.

It’s also very important to carry extra food. Some of my favorites include Nature Valley energy bars, raisins, dried cranberries and even cheese and crackers. When you like you can eat your lunch beside the road. I had four water bottles filled at all times in the morning. On hot days or crossing dry, empty stretches, like the day I pedaled out of Delta, Utah headed for Nevada (92 miles without services) I had as many as eight. That included two liters of bottled water and two 32-oz. Gatoraide containers. Even that was barely enough and when I finally rolled into the Border Motel (where the owner takes care of riders and lets you tent for $5.00 a night) my throat was so dry I could barely talk.

I pedaled both times to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. My youngest daughter, Emily, has been a type-1 diabetic since age fourteen and trying to help the cause makes riding feel special. I constantly run into people who want to assist, some with words of encouragement, donations large and small, free cinnamon rolls at breakfast, or discount motel rooms at night.

You’ll quickly find you can eat like Porky Pig during this kind of ride and still lose weight. I shed twenty-five pounds this past summer, which shows again, you don’t have to be the picture of fitness to set sail across the United States. When I pedaled up to the only restaurant in Cold Springs, Nevada, in late July 2011, I was able to sit down at a table and figure I had burned a quarter million calories to reach that point. Cold Springs is marked as a “town” on the Nevada map, by the way, but it’s nothing more than a bar/restaurant/motel complex, standing alone, with nothing else in sight for miles. 

The food was excellent, however, and Laura, the waitress, was a beauty, petite, blonde and 23, already the mother of three.

What else can I say in the way of helpful advice? Um: don’t believe the ratings on sleeping bags. Mine was rated “good” down to temperatures of twenty degrees. That must have been the point at which the occupant froze to death. So I wished I’d packed a stocking cap and mittens. I met one long distance rider who carried his own pillow; but I tried to get by with a rolled up towel instead. Matches would be nice. I failed to bring them. Flashlight, for sure. A bit of duct tape, a few extra nuts and bolts (this actually helped me reattach a loose rack for my panniers), maybe a piece of twine.  

If you’re a bibliophile, like me, carry a book.

That’s pretty much all I can say. But I’d like to emphasize one point. You can do this if you think you can.  

I don't mean it’s easy every day. Still, it boils down in large degree to attitude. It’s a matter of perseverance.

You just get up every day, hop on your bicycle, and set off in the direction you have chosen to go.

  

I eat plenty of crap to get ready for my rides. 
You don't have to be some super hero to do this kind of ride.

Near the summit of Tioga Pass, which leads into Yosemite; 2011 ride.

That, folks, is the branch of a sequoia tree; older photo; 1978.

Ran into this young lady, Sarah Brigham, near Jeff City, Wyoming in 2007. 
She was out for a thousand-mile ride, heading in the opposite direction.
(She told me she made the tutu, herself.)

Yellowstone River, note people on observation deck, right; 2011.

My home for the 2011 trip. Here I am camping again near the road, for free; 2011.

You have to cross the Sevier Desert between Delta, Utah and the Nevada border.
It's a landscape that looks a little like the moon; 2011.

A huge bonus to any ride:  Here's a "before" picture
taken a few days before I headed to Maine to start my second trip; 2011

Bicycle across this great country and you can't help getting in better shape; 2011.

Pedaling up the Arkansas River Valley in Colorado; 2007.

A favorite stealth camping spot beside a mountain stream, Leadville, Colorado; 2007.

Oxbow Bend, Yellowstone National Park; 2007.

Barren stretch in Wyoming, camped on hill from which photo was taken; 2007.

A Brief Tribute to the American People: Photos Included

I managed to erase this post earlier.  So it may sound the same if you already read it; and it may sound different, too.  In any case, it's mostly pictures.

What I said on September 11, when this was first posted, was that the American people are greater than they often know and a bicycle trip across this country is a good way to be reminded.  You have an abundance of time to yourself to do some thinking when you're pedaling alone; and I started mulling over the subject of stereotypes one day.  I had heard one man complain about "tree-huggers" who made it impossible to open a refinery and create jobs.  And another asked me if I was having trouble with "rednecks" trying to run me off the road.

What I discovered--and what we often forget if we watch the cable or evening news--is that almost everyone in this great country wants to help, wants to do good and do right, and wants to protect freedom (theirs and their neighbor's both), and there just aren't that many jerks.

I got yelled at by ONE carload of guys (in Indiana) but ten thousand cars passed me by in safety, and usually showing great respect for my safety. 

I got donations from every ethnic group, from people across the political spectrum, young and old alike. 

And plenty of people who weren't in a position to donate money helped with kind words or provided places to stay or fixed my bike or breakfast for free.

So:  ten years after the terrible attacks (and eight days after I posted a similar entry) we still live in a great nation.  We still have the right to complain about government and "vote the bums out" if we choose.  And we're still a thousand times better off and a better people than the fanatics who tried to bring the United States to its knees on 9-11.

Thanks to the countless people who helped me along the way.  Special thanks to my wife who let me pedal away for two months without complaint.  And to diabetics everywhere, remember this:  there are countless good people out there willing to help.  The research advances.

A cure is coming some day.

If you would like to donate to help find a cure for type-1 diabetes please click HERE!

(This single click takes you to my fund-raising page. There, click again on "donate to this event." Then click "Biking and Painting for Diabetes."

I got to ride in some fabulous places.
Grand Teton National Park, Whoming.

I finally figured out how to rotate this great picture of Sidney and Sam Staebler.
Sidney, 8, is a type-1 diabetic.  She and Sam, 4, live in Bozeman, Montana.
Their parents, Dan and Rebecca, put me up at their place for a night and fed me well.

Bill and Shirlee Wyman, newlyweds (yep!) in Garden City, Utah.
Bill has been diabetic for 46 years, but stays fit and healthy.
Unfortunately, he lost his daughter to this disease when she was only 31.

Notice the boats at lower left.
Jackson Lake, Grand Tetons, Wyoming.

You can't take a bad picture at the Owbow Bend in Grand Tetons even if you try.



Bottled water in it's "natural habitat."
Not sure why anyone throws these out:  especially in national parks.



The pensive 62-year-old rider after climbing an eight-mile long pass.
(Wondering if a heart attack is imminent?)

Sun sets over a campground in Logan Canyon, Utah.

This isn't fattening! 
On a bicycle trip it's fueling.

Bear Lake, Utah.

The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City.

Pictures from a Bicycle Odyssey

If you would like to donate to help find a cure for type-1 diabetes please click HERE!

(This single click takes you to my fund-raising page. There, click again on "donate to this event." Then click "Biking and Painting for Diabetes."

If you've never seen Tioga Pass, this is it:  twelve miles and a gain of 3,100 feet in elevation.
Note large RV at center left (above bicycle handlebars) for scale.

One of my first views of Yosemite at the top of Tioga Pass.
Worth pedaling to see.

I try to climb onto a rock in Mirror Lake, Yosemite.  I fail.

Young couple at Vernal Falls.

Sunburned hand:  an occupational hazard.

Clear mountain stream in Yosemite back country.

Cooling the feet that propel the rider to and through Yosemite.

Home sweet home:  I used a kid's tent on my trip because it was easier to carry.

Stealth camping site behind a line of bushes near Austin, Nevada.

Nevada:  sagebrush coming.

Nevada:  sagebrush going.

San Francisco: No More Pedaling Required

My last day of the ride ended in the dark, at the beach in San Francisco.

If only I could stay this thin.

By the time I pedaled into California,
I was down 25 pounds over my starting weight.

Tim, my older brother kept me company for a couple of days,
once I hit California.

He can pedal pretty well, himself!

I’m happy to report that after 4,615 miles, I completed my ride last night in the dark at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It was too dark to take any good “celebratory” pictures so my two brothers, Tim and Ned, and I, skipped carrying my bicycle down to the Pacific and dipping the tire (tradition for cross-country riders is to dip the back tire in the ocean where they begin and front tire in the ocean where they end) and headed for dinner instead.

As usual, I had worked up a healthy appetite, pedaling 82 miles, from Stockton to Oakland, then being carried across the Bay Bridge by brother Tim, and finishing my ride by heading down Market Street and up Haight (of Haight and Asbury fame) to the park and down to the shore. It was foggy at 7:30 p.m. and got progressively thicker and the skies darker the last seven miles. At one point, in the dark, with only a mile to go, I managed to ride close to the curb and get slapped in the face by a series of branches.

It would have been ironic to get unseated in the joust with victory nearly in view.

Tim helped at the end (as he did when I rode coast-to-coast in 2007) in various ways. Coming out of Yosemite, four days ago, he met me at the western entrance and rode with me fifty miles for company. (We agreed, as did Ned later, that our late mother would have loved to see us in action, since she infused us all with an adventurous spirit when we took western vacations when we were young.) Trust me: if you haven’t seen Yosemite, you should. I had to climb 3,100 feet over Tioga Pass to get into the park and another 2,600 feet out of the main valley to leave; but the scenery made every revolution of my pedals worthwhile. By September most of the snow in the mountains is gone and the waterfalls that give the park so much allure are slowed, some almost to vanishing. That allowed me to climb the lower half of Yosemite Falls and swim in a beautiful, icy pool at the base.

Pool at the base of Yosemite Falls.

Clear stream from a hike.

I’m proud to say that only three people, when I was there, were willing to brave the chill waters: two boys, probably aged about 11 to 13, and one slightly older cyclist.

Namely me.

Or does that show lack of judgment?

The main campgrounds in Yosemite are jammed with tourists all summer long, but I was able to get a spot at “the famed Camp Four,” as National Geographic describes it. This is the place where serious rock climbers set up shop before challenging the sheer faces of El Capitan and other great walls in the valley and I was able to talk at length with two men from Boston who were going to climb the great stone barrier in the next few days. They thought my bicycle ride was impressive. One glance at that granite wall looming above, 3,500 feet, convinced me that their adventure was by far the greater.

It was interesting, too, if you’ve seen the park before but haven’t visited recently, how the Park Service is clearing roads in the valley by limiting traffic to buses and shuttles or walkers and cyclists. I took a trail up to Mirror Lake, which I had never seen, and another to the top of Vernal Falls, which requires a truly healthy hike with a climb of more than a thousand vertical feet in a little more than a mile.

I left the park, as I mentioned, four days ago. Tim and I reached his home in Stockton in two days and his wife Sue had a great dinner ready, as she always seems to do, and I was happy to see Ned, my two nieces Amy and Jenny, Amy’s children, Hunter, 11, and Jessica, 6, and Drew, Jenny’s husband and their one-year-old son, Jack. Jack is perfecting the art of walking, is already adept at throwing toys, and has a shock of curly brown hair. Drew tells me being a parent is “fantastic” and Jenny agrees. Hunter is tall for his age, adept in math (let’s hope he's like Uncle Ned), in advanced classes at school, but not at all sure he’s going to like sixth grade. Jessica is shy at first but charming and funny when you get her going, and my nieces are always a pleasure to see.

Yesterday, Tim was kind enough to trail me from Stockton to San Francisco in his Dodge Durango, lights flashing, a sign reading:  “Bicyclist on the Road” in the rear window. It made even the narrow curves feel safer and I went up and over the incredibly steep Oakland Hills without mishap and the journey was soon ended. (An additional note: San Francisco is taking real steps toward making city streets bicycle-friendly, and Market, a main route through the center of town is dominated by riding lanes and two-wheeled transportation.)

That’s my post for now. I’ll try to thank a few more people before I’m done, including all the kind people who helped me along the way, who donated or simply offered kind and much-appreciated words of encouragement.

I’m pretty sure, when totals are in, that I reached my goal to raise $10,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

In any case, I spent my teaching career trying to convince teens they could do more with their talents than they realized. I still say that’s true today – three years after I retired. Biking across America, or trying rock-climbing, or hiking in the mountains, or developing our minds by sitting down with a good book, losing weight, even being a better parent or person. It often comes down to setting our minds on doing it and foregoing all the usual excuses.

The hard part isn’t really pedaling UP a pass like Tioga. It’s coming to understand that we can DO IT. 

It’s just going to be HARD.

Looking back down Tioga Pass.

The white dot on the road (above my handlebars) is a big camper.