Introduction

ACROSS AMERICA NORTH, 2004
Astoria, OR to Portsmouth, NH  50 DAYS/ 3650 MILES

Across America North is America by Bicycle’s northern route across the United States. This 50-day moderately paced tour averages 80+ miles per day and crosses through 10 states and just a bit of the Canadian province of Ontario. The 3650-mile route begins with a wheel dip in the Pacific Ocean in Astoria, Oregon and ends with a wheel dip in the Atlantic Ocean near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In between, meet the challenge of the Cascades, the Rockies, and the Appalachian Mountains. Experience the vistas of the high deserts, the rolling high plains, and upper Midwestern farmlands. Across America North is 45 riding days that will treat you to stunning vistas, epic climbs, and return you to “reality” with a whole new appreciation of cycling.

[This blog is being created 12 years after the event described so that I can share the experience with family and friends . . and perhaps re-live it myself when I am too old to cycle. Some of the photos on it are a bit blurry because they were originally compressed to put on Mike Munk's website, and I pulled them from the website.

Backstory: In 2004 I retired in May from Fire Protection Publications, a fire service publishing company on the campus of Oklahoma State University. The very next month I scrapped plans for cycling across Canada with the CCCTS, a group of retired Canadian cyclists, and began as staff for America by Bicycle, a bicycle touring company out of New Hampshire. How did this happen? Well, I had been told by my doctor that I needed hip replacement surgery and that there was "no way" I could cycle across Canada. (I did not get that surgery until July 2013, nine years later, BTW.) I was in a funk. Mike Munk read about my predicament in Wheel Issues, the Red Dirt Pedalers bike club newsletter I put together, and offered me a staff position with America by Bicycle, He successfully enticed me with the news that I could ride as little as I wanted if the hip acted up. He also wooed me with a note that read something like "Which would you prefer? Sleeping on the ground in a tent or sleeping in comfy a motel bed with a chocolate under your pillow?" . 

The bicycle tour described here was my first year to staff America by Bicycle's Across America North ride, which starts in Astoria, Oregon, and finishes in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 52 days and 3637 miles later. I saw the whole thing as a wonderful adventure and have included in this telling a pre-tour section that describes how I drove first from Oklahoma to Schenectady, NY, my "hometown;" then to NH and the ABB offices; and then drove with some of the other staff from NH to Astoria, OR, and the ride start.
                                                                                                                              Susan S. Walker, 2016