About

I’ve been doing self-supported bike tours on and off since the ‘70s, first as a counselor on a teen trip in New England, then with my fiancé and now wife Barb on single bikes, and later on our tandem. 

Our tandem tours together included California, Nova Scotia, and Glacier National Park (riding the Going to the Sun Highway).  She pedaled with me across the Continental Divide but swears she’s done with that.  (Fortunately, she’s not done with me.)  We had our two daughters not long after that trip.  We raised them riding in a Burley trailer, and one of them has done long-distance touring with her fiancé, now husband.  (They tote our grandkids around now in a fancy electric cargo bike!)

I discovered recumbents while commuting 14 miles each way to work in DC from our home in MD.  I got the classic “recumbent grin” on my first test ride and haven’t lost it yet.  (Barb and I have also ridden the GAP trail twice – on Kettwiesel recumbent trikes.)

I commuted with an electric assist in the rear wheel of that bike for years, but I removed it to ride the classic TransAm route across the US in 2016.  (My mother didn’t let me go in 1976.) 

I met an older rider towing a trailer with his trike somewhere in the middle of the country on my 2016 trip.  I was fretting about whether I’d be able to finish in the time I had off from work.  He was very clear: “The first thing you need to do is be retired.”

It took me a little while, but I took his advice.  I retired from making maps and doing spatial analysis in time for my 2019 trip down the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route on an Azub 6 fully suspended recumbent.

I’ve proven I can ride gravel, but it turns out that I like pavement better.  I sold the Azub I bought for that ride.  It also turns out that I like recumbents way better than ordinary bikes, so I sold my upright touring bike, too.

I write this the day before setting out on my 2026 ride across the US.  I’ll expect I’ll be 70 before I reach the Pacific – and that I’ll still have that recumbent grin.