Since we’ve come home and settled into the “real” world, we’ve been hankering for that other life of sleeping in a tent, cooking our dinners on a beer can stove, reveling in the kindness of strangers, and…simplicity. On our six-month journey from Maine to Georgia, our love for adventure was confirmed. “In 2006, we hiked the Appalachian Trail. So in 2009 they set out to ride the TransAm Trail. It was an adventure that got them thinking about bicycling across America. Joel and Jessica Koontz of Greenville, South Carolina hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2006. This has been an amazing journey of self-discovery and adventure! We hope to discover the beauty of America through stories of the people that we meet along the way.” Four Kidneys, Two Bikes, One Country We definitely felt the burn going over the mountains.

We’re finally doin’ it! This is our first major bike tour and we didn’t train. When they were in Missoula Renee explained, “We’re sisters who have talked about riding across the U.S. Renee Rocheleau and Maya Honeyman of Chico, California, rode from Arcata, California to Bar Harbor, Maine in 2009.

Saturday, April 3, began riding east up the Columbia River gorge!” Sisterrific! Wednesday, March 31, arrival in Portland.

Tuesday, March 30, boarded Amtrak to Oregon. However, the transition from work to ride was quick: “Monday, March 29, quit my job. Twenty-six-year-old David Lawson of Santa Cruz, California, bicycled out of Portland, Oregon, after two years of saving and planning. Their 1900-mile, 40-day journey was undertaken to determine if the bicycle could serve a useful purpose in the military. More than 100 years ago a group of twenty black soldiers of the 25 th Infantry based at Fort Missoula in Missoula, Montana, bicycled from Missoula to St. He set out from New York City on May 2, 2010, with Seattle, Washington as the goal. Though only 21 years old, Thomas Hassig of Switzerland chose an ambitious route for a first ever bicycle tour. After the trip, Dan and Lesli began to dream about doing the tour again only this time, with the whole family on two wheels. However, only Dan was riding while the family followed in a motor home. In 2002, Dan Halvorson, his wife Lesli, three of their children, and a yellow lab visited our office on their way across the U.S. 36 years later, in 2012, a 25-year-old McKinley and her friend Patrice Nora followed John (inset photo) along the same route and had some adventures of their own. I’ve grown up hearing all about his great adventures from his ride across America,” McKinley Bryson (on the right) told us. “My uncle John rode the Transam Trail the first year it opened (1976), when he was 25 years old. When they arrived in New York City and set out on their journey to Portland, Oregon, their only training had been cycling the four-mile commute to and from college, and their route was put together using Google Earth and handwritten directions. Newlyweds Johannes and Rebecca Bulfin of Birr, Ireland, didn’t do things by half when they decided to combine their first trip to the U.S. We decided it was now or never,” Christine said.

The years sped by and suddenly we realized our oldest daughter would be leaving home in two short years, embarking on a life of her own. Kym and Christine’s daughters, Wensday and Carly, and their nephew Jordan had grown up seeing a wall of photos memorializing a cross-country journey the couple had taken in 1984. “As our children grew and looked at those pictures every day, we would tell them stories of our bicycle adventure and kid them that we would be doing that same journey with them some day. We stayed with station masters, people who put us up for the night.” Sacrificing North Dakota Kevin remembers, “We only camped out about three days in total. In 2011, Suepinda Keith and her husband, Kevin Hicks, brought together a group of high-potential, lower-resourced teens and struck off along Adventure Cycling’s Underground Railroad Bicycle Route from Mobile, Alabama, to Niagara Falls, New York. By Madeline McKiddy Photograph by Greg Siple

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