Cycling across America
A 74-day self-organised ride from the Oregon coast to Washington DC, living out of tents and turning one very large mission into a daily practice.
Achieved
Self-organised, Endurance, Improvisation
2017
Adventure
Can an absurdly large mission become manageable if you break it into one road, one campsite, and one problem at a time?
In 2017, I took a sabbatical and planned a ride across America with a friend. The route ran from the coast of Oregon to Washington DC, carrying everything we needed on road bikes and sleeping in tents along the way. Most days were just a matter of getting up, packing down, eating properly, checking the route, and finding a way to keep moving.
Over 74 days we crossed the continent, dipping our rear tyres in seawater on both sides. Some days included more than 100 miles before lunch. Others were dominated by equipment failures, punctures, forest-fire diversions, heavy rain, brutal heat, Kansas headwinds, wildlife, and gravel tracks that were not remotely ideal for loaded road bikes. Nevertheless, we made it, friendship mostly intact!
Big missions become survivable when you manage the day in front of you: food, weather, repairs, morale, and enough forward motion to get up and do it again.
Months on the road reaffirmed some very important lessons about stamina, nutrition, self-management, improvisation, and choosing a comfortable saddle. More than anything, the scale only became manageable when it turned into a daily operating rhythm: pack the tent, check the bikes, eat properly, ride the next section, find a campsite, fix what broke, then sleep. You do not complete a big mission all at once; you make the next decent decision, solve the next problem, and keep enough in reserve to do it again tomorrow.
