Well I am writing you this from a hotel in Savannah, GA a little over a week after completion of my cross-country journey. We rode into Savannah last Saturday and onto Tybee Island to dip our wheels in the Atlantic Ocean. Family members and loved ones were there to meet us amid the chaos. On the beach we all looked a bit out of place as we shed our cycling shoes, socks, helmets and walked our bikes down to the shore across the hot sand. The beach was very busy as it was a hot Saturday at around 2:00 in the afternoon. As we were celebrating our accomplishment a number of beachgoers asked curious questions about our group and what we were doing. The look of astonishment on their faces when they learned of what we had undertaken was priceless. "You rode how far in how many days?","All the way on a bicycle?", "Are you crazy?" were some of the many questions we fielded. Some riders even had their family bring some champagne to the beach for us to toast our feat. This was somewhat interesting as we were not supposed to take glass onto the beach! We then had a celebratory banquet complete with speeches and sad goodbyes later that night.
I then went with my family down to Disney World for a week. Talk about a change of pace. The weirdest thing was driving a car for the first time in 4 weeks! It took almost and hour to get used to the speed and to not point at tire debris or rocks for my fellow drivers to avoid. As I get ready to start back into my real life I will leave you with some stats from the ride: ~3004 miles in 27 days (includes 2 rest days with recovery rides), total ride time of 160:58 for an average speed of around 18.6 mph, ~95850 feet of climbing with the biggest day being ~10,000 feet on the ride into Cottonwood, AZ., 7 flats (but none in the last 2 weeks!), 4 Vittoria Rubino Pro tires, and one cracked Ksyrium rear rim.
Anyway thanks for following along and for your moral support. You should also know that to date I have raised over $17,000 for Parkinson’s Research at KUMC! Thanks to all who helped out. If any one has questions about America by Bicycle please e-mail me at cyclesleeper@cox.net for details. This company is extremely well run and the routes are laid out well with easy to read route sheets down to the tenth of a mile. The food is good and plentiful and they can accommodate different diets if need be. All in all a great experience! Jeff Unruh