Facts about my ride
- Q: When do I start this ride? A: Shooting for mid June 2014 from Seattle, WA
- Q: When do you expect to finish? A: Hopefully nine weeks later around Aug 16th in Long Beach Island, NJ
- Q: Where will you stay at night? A: Combination of camping, motels, and warmshowers.com locations (people that open their homes to cyclists traveling by)
- Q: How many miles a day do you plan to ride? A: I plan to ride 70 miles a day, 6 days a week. 70 miles a day at 12 mph an hour, with breaks for meals, takes about 8-10 hrs. I think one of my biggest challenges will be to start my ride at a slower pace and build my daily mileage over time.
- Q: Do you have your route mapped out? A: Adventure Cycling is a not for profit cyclist advocacy organization that publishes many routes around the country. I will be using their Northern Tier route for the first 20% of my journey. I leave their route in North Dakota so that I can visit Mt. Rushmore. The rest of the trip is mine to develop
- Q: Have you ever attempted this before? A:When I was 24 I completed a solo ride down rte 1 from San Francisco to LA. And last summer I did a test one week 480 mile ride from my home in Westchester NY to Canada.
- Q: What will you do for meals? A:I plan to have snacks with me and stop for all meals along the way. During my 2013 one week trip to Canada I had a camping stove to cook dinner with. But I was usually very exhausted from riding and didn’t have the energy to cook. And after speaking to people that have done this solo ride, they recommend not carrying stove, pots, and fuel. They would just grab food in towns as they rode thru.
- Q: Why are you going from West to East? A: As many previous cyclists have learned, and some learned the hard way, the trade wins blow west to east!
- Q: Where will you cross the Rockies? A: Cascade Mtns in WA and ID. But I have been warned that the Appalachian Mtns in PA are also difficult. Both physically and psychologically (you think you are home and then someone put these mtns in your way!)
- Q: What technology will you have with you? A: I will have my IPad, IPhone, Garmin, and a battery backup to charge these devises.
- Q: How are you able to take off 2 months from work? A: July and August are my slowest months. But more importantly, I am very fortunate to have a business partner and an amazing staff that can handle my work when I am gone. A matter of fact, I think many of them are looking forward to me being out of their hair!
- Q: How many total miles? A: I estimate around 3,500 miles
- Q: Why are you doing the Northern Tier route? A: Three reasons: 1) I have never been in that part of the country 2) I think it will be beautiful and 3) One of my closest friend from college, David Sielewicz, was killed in an Air Force C-141 training exercise over Harlem MT. on 11/30/92. I have always wanted to see the memorial
Good luck Ken! Have a wonderful and safe trip.
best wishes from your B-school buddies,
Karen and Sean Trebach
I am Peter Andersen’s old, old sister in Seattle.
I signed up for your updates per his instructions. Didn’t realize you were starting out here.
I was gonna offer you a hot shower at the end of your ride.
I live on Vashon Island. An great hilly bike destination if you need a side trip which seems unlikely.
Any how if you need any tips about the Seattle area let me know.
My friend Kathleen owns a bike store in Fremont (very swell Seattle Neighborhood), Free Range Cycles, if you need any last minute supplies. Tell her i sent you and she may give you a deal or she may charge you extra. hard to say. Good luck with your trip
All the best Ken. We are all pulling for you.
I work with Art Tucker at Travelers. We met at the Habitat For Humanity site in Yonkers. Good Luck and don’t forget to enjoy the journey and live in the moment. Take care!
Made our day stopping to take a picture of the moose and getting to talk with you for a few minutes! Good luck and Safe Travels!! We will be following along with the blog and look forward to hearing about your adventures along the way!
Hi Ken, Loving the blog and tracking your adventure. What a great idea…. photos and stories each day are fantastic. Keep it up and enjoy.
Sounds like you are doing great Ken. Keep it up.
Congrats Ken! Awesome! Would love to see your route map.
Ken, what an amazing physical and personal journey! Congrats – you’re in the home stretch. Stay safe, enjoy and your Hartford team looks forward to hearing about this great adventure.