Bicycling is and has always been a huge part of my life.
My grandfather bought me my first 10 speed when I was 15. Freedom!!!
That ten-speed was my only personal mode of transportation for the next 8 years — back and forth to high school, to my first high school job, and across my college campus. I don’t remember bringing the bicycle to law school, but I didn’t have a car until my third year.
I rode everywhere. Don’t tell my parents, but in high school, my then boyfriend and his buddy would ride by my house at 1 AM and call me out to go riding with them — I’d sneak out the window (you gotta love ranch houses) and we would ride for 2 hours through the back roads of NJ, then head home and get up in time for school the next day. To this day I can’t believe that I went racing down Long Hill Road in the dark with no helmet.
Meanwhile, my future husband was similarly dependent on his bicycle during his youth. He rode back and forth to the Jersey Shore from Cherry Hill, and while in college in MA, rode from Boston to Long Island and back. After grad school, he went biking throughout Europe with a number of classmates.
We independently developed a love of two wheeled adventures and continued them throughout our marriage — we regularly rode with the Morris Area Freewheelers in NJ and have been on several Backroads trips together, and I have done a few on my own. I’ve done the Five Boro bike tour a few times, and in 2013, I rode from England to Paris (taking the ferry, of course!); and together, we did the Ride Across Georgia in 2015. We ride now with Kickin’ Asphalt in and around the Bluffton area.
In 2011, we had the great fortune of riding tandem in the first Morristown Gran Fondo with two blind people (see video link here), which taught us more about working with others than you can imagine. We repeated that adventure in 2012, too.
So, with this history, and both now retired, what better way to celebrate this love than with a grand adventure across the country.
This blog will share with you our planning, training, and ultimate adventure. Ride along with us!
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