Seeing America - the slow way

#FG2024RAA - one pedal stroke at a time.

We celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago at Devil's Tower over in NE Wyoming. The last time I was there was 1979, and I had photos to show my family of the route that my friends and I climbed to the top forty-three years earlier. But the highlight of this trip was meeting a high school classmate of mine, Jim, who was cycling across the country along a route that went right by Devil's Tower. Though we've kept in touch, it'd been a long time since I saw Jim in person.

Jim was on a tight schedule, so we only got to visit for about fifteen minutes, but it was more than long enough to plant an idea in my head that's taken firm root. I've wanted to bicycle across the country since I first started bike touring in the '60s, followed by a bit of racing (ABL license, for those of you old enough to remember what that was) in the '70s.

My first job (outside of self-employment as a handyman) was working in a bicycle shop. Later I owned part of a business that sold mountain bikes. I've always liked bicycles and bicycling itself; but the uber-serious, lycra-clad, bike scene, not so much. That crowd was generally a pain-in-the-butt even back in the 70's. And from what I've learned lately, not much has changed in this regard. Leave it to humans to take a perfectly joyful activity, like riding a bicycle, and elevate it to elitism specifically for the opportunity to heap disdain the hoi polloi.

Jim's trip across the country is an awesome thing to behold. Like me he's 66, and also like me he's sporting some titanium/polyethylene hardware. But he's absolutely kicking butt – a century nearly every day! That's good stuff. I know that Jim has wanted to do this for a long time and I'm very happy that he's going to be able to tick off a bucket list item in a few days. Way to go!

As we were returning to our RV from meeting Jim, I turned to my wife, Megan, and said “I've always wanted to ride a bicycle across the country, myself – from all the way back when I was a kid.” Without any hesitation she said “Well, you should.”

With permission from the boss secured, planning, in earnest, has begun.

My plan is to set off from Southern California sometime during Spring 2024 and ride to Kentucky for my 50th high school reunion - and from there to the National Mall in DC. I'm going to attempt this on a ten-year old mountain bike that I'm converting to a multi-surface tourer. The plan is to ride about 75/25 pavement/dirt. The route I'm considering goes through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and DC. I'm in no particular hurry and am going to make my daily goal a modest 50 – 80 miles.

I'm having as much fun planning this as I think that I will have executing the plan in a bit less than two years. Route planning is a blast. I'm working with a shop over in Oregon (owned by a Tour of Idaho finisher) on building up a mountain bike that I already have for the trip. I'm working with a national charity to raise some money for a cause close very to my heart. I'll document the ride with several small cameras and a daily trip log here on Substack.

Adventures are, to me anyway, defined by the fact that there is no guarantee of success. The lower the odds of success, the greater the adventure - and the accomplishment if you are successful. It's not really an adventure if you stack everything up so that success is guaranteed, it's just a long, tedious haul toward some prize. Though years of unpleasant experience with the “I invested big in this so I'd better get what I want out of it” crowd has taught me that not everyone gets the concept, it's nonetheless clear to me. I am in no way impressed that a human being can eat a cheese sandwich. But hiking alone across the Antarctic – now you're talking.

To that end I'm planning a “bikepacking” style ride. I'll carry or purchase along the way everything that I need. I'm going to use back roads as much as possible. Platform pedals; MTB bars, cranks and gears; short-travel gravel fork; elastomer seat post and a single wheel trailer. About the most expensive thing on the entire bike will be a high tech seat (which costs about as much as a car payment). I'm going to go with about the same setup that I rode with the last time I did a long tour – a 1000 mile lap around Kentucky right after I graduated from high school. In fact I have some parts from that bike I'll be putting on the one I'm riding on this trip.

Even my training is low-tech. I'm riding daily, slowly working up the miles. But my training crew are my wife and kids who deliver encouragement from their ebikes. Currently the most joyful part of my day is climbing up the hill to our house and having them waiting in the driveway for me, hooting encouragement. It really just doesn't get any better.

There are still some details to be worked out, like which relatives we are going to get to help watch the kids while I'm gone, but it's becoming more of a reality with each passing day.

As soon as put the word out about this, reactions poured in. There was advice from well-meaning people who've never done anything like this before. I love you all, but I'm not going to spend $10K on a bike because you say that it's killer on your weekly group ride. Then there are the naysayers: “Yeah, good luck with that,” and “Platform pedals? When you learn to ride, you'll change your mind.”

Thanks for that. I reckon that we'll just have to see how things sort themselves out.

But finally, and most joyfully, I've had to start referring to this as the “Forrest Gump” ride because of the number of friends who've asked if they could ride a day or so with me along the way.

Hell yes.

Associated Press and Idaho Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His writing on Substack, “Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I” may be found at martinhackworth.substack.com