Cycling across the U.S.A

Our Oldest Rider

Day 8, June 29
Thompson Falls, MT, to Missoula, MT
101 miles
Cumulative miles: 569

Scenic Clark Fork, with the Rocky Mountains in the background.

This was supposed to be a long century ride, but Montana is rebuilding a portion of US 93, so Adventure Cycling set up a shuttle service to get us past the portion impassable to bikes. For most riders, this meant an 87-mile ride. But once I hoisted the bike to the top of the van, I elected to take the last part by car. Even so, I had a fast, 66-mile ride along picturesque Clark Fork, which is rimmed by mountains with slivers of snowbanks still on their peaks. State Route 200 is a single-lane road with a 70 mph speed limit that is filled with trucks whose drivers do not believe that bikes belong. The glorious scenery more than made up for the sketchy road.

Our destination, Missoula, is a layover day. We're staying in college dorms, two to a room, a good chance to get to know another rider. My roommate for the night is Martin Berndt, the oldest rider on the trip. Martin, a tall, lean, delightful gentleman with a neatly trimmed white beard, will be 73 on July 29. He's an expert biker, with a steady fluid pace that takes him up hills a good deal faster than I can manage. He rides a beautiful, elderly Italian racing bike that he found in a dumpster several years ago and carefully restored to its original glory. "I'm grateful God gave me the health to be able to do this," he says. "I hope to finish without injury."

Martin's from Palo Alto, California, where he was for many years before retirement a staff engineer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the university's hard-working atom smasher. He stayed in good biking shape by riding to work every day. He still does some consulting for the accelerator center. Martin's family name and slight accent suggests that he's originally from Germany, but he's really from Argentina. His parents were German, he spoke German at home, then Spanish in school, and he learned English when he came to the U.S. at age 16. "English is still my foreign language," he says. For the World Cup match tomorrow between Argentina and Germany, he's torn, but "my gut tells me to root for Argentina."

Martin has been well-trained by his wife. Before we retired, he warned me that he sometimes snores loudly. If that happens, he said, "Just say, 'Martin, turn over,' which is always what my wife says." At 2 a.m., I heard mighty snorts from the opposite side of the room. I called, "Martin, turn over!" He didn't wake, but he muttered, "Thank you," turned, and that was the last I heard sound I heard. A true gentleman.

Martin Berndt, the oldest (and perhaps most polite) rider on the trip.

We reach Montana

Day 7
Sand Point, ID, to Thompson Falls, MT
88 miles

Every day, the scenery gets better. Today we peddled along Lake Pend Oreille (pon du RAY), ringed with mountains, for many miles. It's a large, lovely lake that, we learned, is more than 1000 feet deep in places. Geologists believe that it's all that remains of a gigantic lake that formed perhaps 12,000 years ago as the last of the glaciers melted. In a sudden, immense catastrophe, the lake burst its borders and flooded the entire region, reshaping the geography of the entire Pacific Northwest. Planetary scientists have studied evidence of this event to see if something similar might have happened on the planet Mars to scour its surface.

Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho.

Yesterday we took the mandatory photo of the "Entering Idaho" sign. Today we shot pictures in from of "Entering Montana."

In one side of the state...

...And out the other!

Montana is a beautiful state, but its drivers are another matter. Several of us were nearly brushed by malicious pickup drivers attempting to intimidate visiting bicyclists.

I have received a flood of email, and for that I thank you all. I hope you understand that I have extremely limited access to the Internet, so it will be a while before I can reply. This message is being transmitted by telephone line from the rear booth of Minnie's Montana Cafe in Thompson Falls. And to those who wondered why I didn't send any messages after my sad note of two days ago, there are two reasons. 1) I was exhausted when I reached Sand Point and could not summon the energy to write anything. 2) Evil persons of my acquaintance knew a place that sold excellent microbrewed beer.

Incident at Audrey's

Day 6, June 27
Spokane, WA to Sand Point, ID
76 miles

Today's ride was fast, hot and scenic. We headed north from Spokane after a layover day resting in the dorms at Gonzaga University, washing clothes and touring the city. It was the first day on the road after the tragic accident in which Phil Smith was killed, and everyone appeared to be extra-careful along the way. According to this morning's Spokane Spokesman-Review, officials are investigating the accident very carefully. The newspaper quoted a sizeable chunk of my blog account in its story. (Ed.'s note: We'd love to link you to the story, but the Spokesman-Review's Web site is on a subscription-only basis.)

Spokane's public park by the river is well worth a visit. Dozens of runner sculptures, cut and welded from steel plates, a wonderful piece of public art, are enough to justify a trip. The life-sized sculptures, which go around a corner of a sidewalk, include both sexes, young and old, and a person in a racing wheelchair. Nearby is the largest Radio Flyer child's red wagon I've seen. Children climb into the wagon and slide down the tongue.

A public art display of runners sculpted from metal.

A childhood favorite, supersized and enjoyed by a new generation.

Food is one of the necessities and joys of bike touring. With the hard work of riding, we need to eat at least 5,000 calories a day, and our menu should certainly include pie, ice cream, and other delights. About mid-morning, I started looking for someplace that might serve pie and spotted Audrey's Restaurant. As David Ramsey and I pulled up, we asked a man headed for the front door if the place served pie. He assured us there were several varieties available, and all were excellent, and he went  inside. It took us awhile to get organized, and then we entered. A half-dozen men in booths and along the counter glared at us intently. Moments passed, then one asked (a bit ominously, I thought, since we were in the heart of the Aryan Brotherhood country) "Are you having pie?" I exclaimed, "Yes, that's exactly what we're looking for." At that point, the place exploded in laughter. The customer ahead of us had bet the head waitress that the two cyclists outside would order pie, and she had taken the wrong side of the wager. Although Audrey's was out of strawberry-rhubard, the best biking pie, the apple was superb.

Death in the family

Day 4, June 25
Odessa to Spokane
75 miles

It is with tears and a heavy heart that I report that one of our little group of riders was killed today in an accident with a car. It happened on an open stretch of Washington State Highway 23 near Davenport, Washington, one of the safest-appearing sections of road we've traversed so far. The road was wide and lightly traveled. At one point I timed the interval between cars at 8 minutes. There was a wide bike lane on either side of the road. The weather was clear and hot.

Many details are not yet clear, and his name has not been released as police search for next of kin to deliver the sad news. We do know that he was struck in mid-day by a driver in her thirties who did not appear to be impaired by drugs or alcohol, police said. He was killed instantly by the impact.

I had ridden with the victim about an hour before the tragic accident, and we'd chatted about a son he was very proud of. A short time later, he was with a group of us at a water stop in a little town. When a local couple out on a walk came by, he engaged them. "Tell us about your town," he said, and we talked to the couple for pleasant several minutes until it was time to hit the road again.

Although I'd said in an earlier post there are three recumbent bikes and trikes on our cross-country ride, there were actually four. The victim was riding a Ryan Vanguard, one of the earliest commercial recumbent bikes available. It's an extremely long bike with the handlebar mounted under the seat. A rod connects the handlebar to the fork so the bike can be steered. He had purchased it directly from Dick Ryan, the builder, at least 15 years ago, he told me. Ryan later sold the company, and very few Vanguards are seen these days.

At a group meeting tonight, several riders wept as they told stories of our new friend, now gone forever. A sheriff's department chaplain brought some details of the accident and advice about how we can cope. The ride will go on. My wonderfully sensible wife told me on the phone that that some activities we really want to do merit taking clear risks. Otherwise, she said, "life's not worth living."

Agricultural Wonders

Day 3, June 24
Vantage to Odessa, Washington
81 miles

Max Corley and sister Judith Corley break camp to start Day 3.

Today we crossed the high desert of eastern Washington. The temperature rose well above 90 degrees. We had to watch our water supply very carefully. If we don't drink almost continuously, we quickly can become dehydrated--and confused and irritable and out of energy. I have a 70-ounce hydration bag carried inside a FastBack that mounts onto the back of my tall recumbent seat. The hose clips to my jersey, so I can sip at any time. I'm just getting used to the damned thing, and I often forget to clip on the hose. Riding buddy David Ramsey reminds me at every stop, but I still ride off about half the time dragging the hose on the pavement. I also carry two water bottles. Tomorrow when we continue riding to Spokane, I'm carrying a third filled bottle.

Leaving Vantage this morning, we had a long climb on the east bank of the mighty Columbia River on Interstate 90 before turning east on secondary roads. Recent news reports said that truckers were hurling "pee bombs," large capped soda bottles used in place of rest stop facilities, onto the highway shoulders. I can confirm the news reports. The bombs were everywhere, and can I understand why the authorities are becoming, well, pissed.

Once headed east, we were treated to a fascinating display of high-tech irrigated agriculture alongside dry brown sagebrush-covered lands. "I've never seen terrain like this," marveled our only foreign biker, Matthew Stobbart, an arbolist (tree expert) from near York, England. First we saw large circular fields of potatoes, watered by enormous center-pivot irrigation systems. A huge collection of sprinklers rides on big tractor wheels around and around a pivot where the water is pumped in. Grant County, a sign proclaimed, produces more potatoes than any other county in the nation. A very large share of western potatoes become french fries for fast-food restaurants. The potatoes are washed, sliced, partially cooked and then frozen for shipment to restaurants in the U.S. and Asia. At the restaurant, it takes just a moment to finish cooking them.

A gigantic potato sprinkler waters the crops.

A cluster of us stopped to watch a yellow airplane spraying a field beside the highway. The agile bird dived over a field, sprayed a long plume, then climbed sharply, its turboprop engine roaring, pirouetted, and made a return pass. As we watched this graceful performance, David, a medical doctor, recited the symptons of Malathion poisoning. "It's SLUD," he said, "salivation, lacrimation (eyes watering excessily), urination, and defecation." 

Video: An aerial spectacle along the way

Soon after, we encountered extraordinary machines picking up bales of alfalfa hay. As the driver steered along a row of bales on the field, a device on the right front grabbed the bales and packed them neatly in a rack. When the rack was full, the driver sped off to slip his cargo into a neat stack. All this made my back hurt. Back in 1953, when I was 17, I spent a summer on my grandparents' large farm in North Dakota picking up similar hay bales and stacking them. We towed a lifter on the side of an old truck that picked up the bales and sent them up a moving track to the truck bed, but then we had to wrestle them in place by hand. At our destination we unstacked the truck by hand. That summer my then 14-year-old cousin, two hired men of American Indian descent, Reuben Little Dog and Tom Follows-the-Road, and I picked up and stacked 23,000 hay bales.

• Video of the hay bale machines

Irrigation makes these agricultural wonders possible. The water comes from big dams on the nearby Columbia and is distributed by an intricate series of canals. The dams also generate low-cost hydroelectric power. Low-cost water and low-cost electricity to pump it makes what would otherwise be low-value desert bloom profusely.

But the high point of the day came where the highway closely paralleled a Burlington Northern Santa Fe main line. An endless freight train of cars carrying containers approached, and I gave the engineer a big wave. He replied with a great blast of the engine's horn. What a thrill! I felt like a little boy again.

Settling In

Day 2
Easton to Vantage, Washington
71 miles

Fellow recumbent rider David Ramsey prepares for the day's ride.

Today's ride was much easier than yesterday's. We headed out of our state park campsite and turned east, running slightly downhill with another friendly tail wind. That meant that David Ramsey, on his recumbent tricycle, and I could race along at 18 to 20 miles per hour for long, wonderful stretches. There was one long climb toward the end, but that effort was rewarded with a great, last view of Mt. Rainier far to the west. We made the trip in 7.5 hours, with a rolling average of 12.8 mph.

We're settling in to the routine for the trip. Our luggage is carried on a truck, so we can travel light on our bikes. Before we leave, we pick up sandwiches and other goodies for lunch on the way. During the day, Adventure Cycling staff members patrol the route in a van. They make sure no one is having difficulties and that we all have enough water, a dire necessity as we drink continuously as we pedal. At the end of a day's ride, we pick up our luggage and set up our own tents. Dinner and breakfast are catered, and they've been excellent. This morning we dined on delicious pancakes, scrambled eggs, fruit, coffee, breads, all prepared perfectly. This afternoon in Vantage, most riders got in by mid-afternoon, showered, hit the nearby grocery store for ice and beer, and now they're reliving the day's adventures.

We Beat the Mountain

Day 1
Seattle to Easton, Washington
86 miles

Bill and his Dakota model recumbent bicycle, ready to hit the trail.

Today was the day I had feared since last fall, when I first looked at the maps of our 3,300 trip from Seattle to wash, dc. We were riding 86 miles and climbing 3,000 feet over Snoqualmie Pass. My fears drove my training, and my training made the day one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever spent on a bicycle.

Majestic Snoqualmie Falls.

The weather, to begin with, was simply spectacular. First thing in the morning, we could see massive Mt. Rainier, standing tall against a deep blue sky dotted with puffy clouds. Temps were in the 70s down to 60s in the mountains, and we were favored with the biker’s best friend, a 12 mph tailwind.

Two other riders are aboard recumbents. I buddied up with David Ramsey, a 57-year-old family doctor from Mineral Wells, Texas. He’s riding a recumbent tricycle. It has two wheels forward that steer like automobile wheels, and one drive wheel in the back. The seat is barely a foot off the ground. We like the same pace, we are both interested in not divvying along the way, and, it turns out, we have bladders with similar durations. He’s also extremely helpful, as I found out when I blew a rear tire barely five minutes from the end of the day’s ride. He held up the bike while I removed the wheel, offered excellent suggestions, and he pumped up the tire.

I was not the only rider touched by the evil puncture fairy. A poll immediately after a delicious dinner of grilled salmon showed the day’s total of 18 flats. A malicious jerk who seeded a section of the highway shoulder with tacks was responsible for several of them.

The hardest part of the day was finding our way through rush hour Seattle traffic. Once out of town, we ran the gamut from lovely little roads running between towering Douglas firs to the I-90 interstate. Federal rules prohibit bikes on interstate highways -- unless there is no other way to go over a certain route. I-90 is the only way up a portion of the climb over the pass through the Cascades. We rode on the wide shoulder with 18-wheelers whizzing past our left shoulders. The noise was simply deafening.

The final climb up to the pass was on a little forest service road. In steep places we climbed slowly, barely 3.5 mph, in our bottom gear, not thinking about anything except keeping the pedals turning, 75 times a minute, watching the heart monitor ticking my heartbeat climb to 135 beats per minute, then stabilize. My goal was to use the least amount of energy; that meant climbing slowly, keeping my heart rate down, and relentlessly cranking, cranking.

Then we were over the top and back onto the interstate. We raced down the backside of the mountains, hitting nearly 40 mph on steeper stretches. We reached our camp in the woods just 10 hours after we started. My average rolling speed was 10.5 mph. We are happy with our pace. We made camp ahead of half of hte 40 riders on this exciting trip.

Bill and Ron Anderson, friends since high school.

Sleepless in Seattle

I usually rise about 6 a.m., and I woke this morning at that time. Problem was, it was 6 a.m. in Virginia but I'm in Seattle preparing to launch my trip across the country where it was 3 a.m. I stared at the ceiling for awhile thinking about hills ahead to climb, and that's not sleep-inducing.

One of life's joys is keeping up with old and dear friends. One of my oldest buddies, Ron Anderson, met me at the airport. He lives in Wilsonville, Oregon, near Portland. I'd Fedexed my bike to him, and it arrived in perfect shape. Ron and I were debate partners in high school, back when the earth was still cooling. I was best man at his wedding 44 years ago, he was my best man 39 years ago, and in February I made a DVD of his son's wedding. Tonight we're dining with friends from my class of '58 at the University of Oregon.

This morning early I took a 45-mile warm-up ride. I passed Boeing Company buildings where, years ago, I'd interviewed company officials. From a bike you can see that Seattle is a major industrial city. Boeing is ubiquitous, of course, but I passed factories for Kenworth trucks, and huge warehouses are everywhere. Microsoft is in nearby Redmond, and I think I spotted Bill Gates' house on Lake Washington.

Tomorrow the cross-country riders meet for the first time, there's a party tomorrow evening, and Thursday morning we finally begin. I can't wait.

Bill Cook: Who am I?

Coming originally from North Dakota, I can understand the subtleties of A Prairie Home Companion, and though I'm not Norwegian I know in my soul the meanings of "uff da" and "you betcha," phrases that will come in handy when we pass through South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. We moved to Oregon. I spent three years as a U.S. Air Force officer, earned a graduate degree at Stanford, where I met my wife, and secured an internship with Newsweek that lasted 23 years. I covered civil rights in the tumultuous South in the middle 1960s, the war in Vietnam, then moved to San Francisco to report on campus violence, the search, capture, and trial of Patty Hearst, and the development of oil in Alaska.

Oil took me to Washington during the Carter Administration to cover energy and the environment. My wife, by this time a practicing attorney and mother of our two boys, became a lawyer for the federal government and then an administrative law judge. I spent the last 13 years of my journalism career writing science and business stories at U.S. News & World Report. During this time our boys grew up. Our older son is a technical developer for The New York Times Online and the younger is an alternative energy expert with Tiax, a research firm, and married to the best daughter-in-law imaginable. They're going to make us grandparents in September.

About 1991 I had one of those strange life-changing events. I was reading Popular Science magazine in my U.S. News office when I came across an article about recumbent bicycles made by a little company called Easy Racers in California. I'd always loved bikes but could never come to terms with their tiny, uncomfortable seats. The bike I saw in the pictures had a big, laid-back seat that looked like it might be easy on my backside. I promptly called the owner who told me that he sold both complete bikes and plans. I sent Gardner Martin $35 for those plans, a neighbor who owned a welder and I built the bike, and I was hooked.

Soon I was doodling bike designs in the margins of news stories I was supposed to be working on. I bought a computer-aided design program, took welding lessons, purchased a second-hand welder, and set about trying to learn how to design and build recumbent bicycles. I had only set the house on fire once with my new torch by the time I had made a serviceable bike of my own design. I began riding with WHIRL, Washington's Happily Independent Recumbent Lovers, the world's oldest continuous recumbent bike riding group. There I met another incipient bike designer, Mark Colliton. We teamed up to make a bike that ultimately became the Dakota model I'm riding across the USA. I gave up the news in 1999, retired, and started a tiny bike company, Barcroft Cycles. Mark teamed up with friends and relatives to start Bacchetta Bicycles, today a premier manufacturer of recumbent bikes.

Fear and Trepidation

It is with a certain amount of trepidation that I start this blog. It's about my soon-to-begin bike trip from Seattle to Washington, DC. I have an awful fear that I won't be able to complete the seven-week, 3300-mile trip. The first day is 86 miles long and involves a 3000-foot climb over the Cascade mountain range. After that are more mountains, howling winds, fierce rainstorms, scorching sun, and miles and miles of pavement. My fear is doubled by the knowledge that if I do drop out everyone will know about it. A long-time friend, hearing of my trip, sent me an anecdote that resonates in my head. A man competed every year in a long and risky swim in the English Channel. When asked why he did it, he replied, "because it requires no intelligence and there is a lot of pain."

Even so, I've dreamed of riding across the country for years. On week-long rides in the vacant West I've experienced the joy of speeding along a deserted highway in air so clear I'm sure I could see a hundred miles. I've made new friends along the way, felt the warmth of rural Americans, and exercised muscles long disused. Since I turned 70 in January, I figured better go soon if I'm to go at all. Ann, my wonderful wife of 39 years, bless her heart, encouraged me.

Several of my friends have peddled themselves across the USA, but this ride is special. It commemorates the transcontinental bike trips made in 1976 to celebrate the nation's 200th birthday. BikeCentennial was so successful that it continued as Adventure Cycling and became the nation's largest bike membership organization. I've read their magazine for years and salivated over the tours offered. But there was one big drawback, in my view. Participants on most Adventure Cycling tours carry their own tent, clothing, food, and cookware. This trip, however, is "supported." A van will carry our gear. We'll still have to set up our own tents, but our bikes won't be burdened and, better yet, we won't have to cook. I signed up about two minutes after the tour list opened. Almost immediately the 40 slots available were filled and a long waiting list developed.

So far, I've met only the four others from the Washington, DC, area, and we do represent the region: Two lawyers, a physicist doing research on homeland security, an association official, and me, a retired newsmagazine journalist. If the rest of the members are as delightful as these new friends, it's going to be a wonderful ride. At last count, there were 12 women, average age 48, and 28 men, average age 55. The oldest rider, I'm told, is 73. Our tour leader is a high school teacher in his 20s from New Hampshire.