Preface
“What have we gotten ourselves into?”
It was a question I would ask myself countless times as we worked our way across the southern United States. My wife Bev and I, each sixty years old at the time and recreational cyclists at best, had finally committed ourselves to tackling our long-time goal of cycling across the country, joining seven other riders and two support guides for this once-in-a-lifetime journey. Though we were nervously excited as we departed on this incredible adventure, in many respects we had no business even attempting a challenge of this magnitude. In the first few days, there were times when I felt we were clearly in over our heads, and I genuinely questioned whether we would be successful in our quest to cycle from San Diego to Florida. At a roadside ice cream stand in rural Arizona, a woman asked me, “Are you riding all the way across the country?” I jokingly offered a response that belied a much deeper meaning, saying, “I hope so.” By that time, though we had crossed one state and were making steady progress across another, I still had my doubts that this grand adventure would ultimately end in success.
We did make it all the way to St. Augustine, progressively getting stronger as we increasingly enjoyed the greatest adventure of our lives. Virtually every day for one and a half months, we woke up early, pedaled for six to ten hours, had a couple of beers and a good (and typically huge) meal, got a good night’s sleep, and then did it all over again. We faced challenges even greater than we had anticipated, encountering mountains and deserts, large city parkways and isolated rural roads, bright sunshine and pouring rain, strong headwinds and even a sandstorm.
In the process, this amazing journey changed us, profoundly, and taught us some lessons about cycling that we realized could also deeply impact our daily lives.
Every few days throughout our trip, I sent members of our family a detailed account of where we had been and how we were doing. As we progressed across the country, I began to consider the viability of expanding these emails into a book-length manuscript. But I questioned whether what we had accomplished, as important as it seemed to us, was significant enough to justify the publication of our story. Then, near the end of our trip, another rider was involved in a tragic and life-altering accident, one he courageously overcame. This incident bound the team of riders and support guides even more tightly together, and it was at that point I realized that our story, and the critical lessons we learned in the process, was truly worthy of telling.
This is a story of pushing boundaries to fulfill a dream, of finding great joy in challenging circumstances, of seeing America from a most unique perspective, and of how a unique and eclectic group of individuals bonded together in ways we could never have anticipated. I am honored and excited to share that story with you.
Rob Leachman
July 2021
