From Washington to Maine, MH native bikes across continent
For Morgan Hill native Eric Reichmuth, it’s back to looking for a job. It’s back to finding a way to make money.
Back to the mundane. Back to the day-to-day grind.
“Now I’ve got find out what the heck I’m going to do,” he said.
But for 71 days and 71 nights, Reichmuth had no such worries. For more than two months, the 28-year-old trekked the backroads of America with his girlfriend, Randi Smith, and her father, Jeff.
The journey began June 29 in Anacortes, Wash., 60 miles northwest of Seattle. Two provinces, 15 states and 4500 miles later, it ended Sept. 7 in Bay Harbor, Maine.
“I’d done some traveling, but never anything like this,” Reichmuth said. “It was definitely my biggest adventure.”
While going to school in Italy a few years ago, the Live Oak High grad had backpacked in Europe for a month. But Reichmuth’s interest in biking didn’t come until he started dating Smith a year and a half ago while both were attending Evergreen State College in Washington.
For years, the 22-year-old Smith and her father, 49, have used bikes as their primary transportation. Smith, who’s never owned a car, once rode her bicycle 3000 miles throughout New Zealand.
So when the pair of Oregon natives invited Reichmuth along on their cross-country adventure, he was understandably a little apprehensive.
It had been less than a year since he took an interest in biking.
“The biggest thing I had done was take a three-day trip down to San Luis Obispo ,” Reichmuth said. “So I was going into it kind of blind.”
The first five days of the trip entailed “riding straight up-and-down” through the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest. At the beginning, the items he carried in the six bags attached to his bike included cooking supplies, two changes of clothes, a tent, a sleeping bag, a camera and his beloved ukulele.
The group also faithfully carried a map from the Adventure Cycling company that provided directions for the rural roads of America.
On one of those roads – after the cyclists crossed back into Montana after a short diversion to Alberta – the group met a friendly man with a strange accent riding a tractor.
When they took him up on an offer to visit his home, the trio went up a hill and “discovered a huge colony of people,” Reichmuth recalled.
In this self-sufficient colony of Hudderites, women and men sleep, eat and worship in separate areas, Reichmuth said.
The 250 or so people own state-of-the-art farming equipment, but the children speak German until the age of 6 and televisions are strictly prohibited.
“All the men were short and had the Abe Lincoln beard going,” Reichmuth said. “But they were really nice. They even gave us some rhubarb wine.”
Indeed, all along the way the group was met with genuine hospitality.
They averaged eight hours and 60 to 70 miles a day, riding every day but one. Only occasionally did they stay in hotels or bike through big cities – Minneapolis and Cincinnati being the exceptions.
Instead, the group almost always camped out or stayed on the farms of strangers willing to open up their homes.
At gas stations and restaurants, they would meet these farmers, fascinated by the group’s adventure.
“People were curious,” Reichmuth said. “They’d say, ‘Where are you heading?’
“When we said Maine, they’d think about it for a second and say, ‘What, like the state?'”
The places these people lived weren’t always exciting, Reichmuth conceded. In particular, he recalled the seemingly never-ending trek through Midwestern states like Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
“Once we got past the Rockies, it’s dry, it’s wheat, it’s road kill,” Reichmuth said. “It could get pretty boring … just soybeans and cornfields as far as you could see.”
But the locals were “so courteous and kind,” he added. “It was nice to meet all those people along the trip.”
The only thing he missed was “decent food,” said Reichmuth, a strict vegetarian.
“I don’t think they know what that word means in most of the places we went,” he said with a laugh. “So it was all onion rings and doughnuts for me.
“All the riding balanced things out. My legs got stronger, but my gut stayed about the same.”
In the end, Reichmuth said he spent a lot more money than he originally planned for – around $2500, mainly from food and camping expenses.
But it’s an experience he said he’d “gladly do again.” In fact, he’s already setting his sights on a trek from southern Italy to northern Switzerland in a few years.
“It was the first time I’d accomplished a big journey like that, so there’s definitely a sense of satisfaction,” he said.
“But I’m also already ready to get back out there and do it again.”
