5 Life Lessons From my Bike Ride Across America

In June of 2017, I was thrown into a job at a bike camp running their Across America trip. With little to no previous long-distance biking experience, I co-led a group of 5 teenagers from Oregon to New York on our bicycles. I don’t know where to begin to relay all of the feelings I have about this fifty-six day journey, but I think a good place to start is with five of the life lessons I learned on the road. So here they are.

We live with way more material than we need. On this trip, we lived with almost nothing. Our clothing was a few t-shirts and a pair of shorts. Our shelter was our tents and sleeping bags. I had a toothbrush, and a sweatshirt that doubled as a pillow. I had a few tools and spare tubes, and I had a water bottle. And that’s about it. Living with so few belongings for almost two months made me realize that almost everything we own is extra. Even average people who live with limited to moderate luxury have way more than is necessary, and it really took living with the bare necessities for me to see that. In addition to this realization, owning and keeping track of so few things during this time have me a sense of simplicity and relief. In having to keep track of fewer belongings, I found that I was able to put more energy into non-material things, like the people I was with and the journey itself.

I think that having a house and everything that comes with it is really nice, don’t let me fool you. Throughout the trip I would make my mom text me pictures of my bed at home awaiting my return. So while I’m not saying we should all sell our houses and live in tents forever, what I am saying is that there is a peacefulness that comes along with a minimalistic lifestyle. I had less to worry about, less to maintain. Everything felt simple, as long as I could keep track of my toothbrush and like one t-shirt (which usually wasn’t very hard).

If living with a little more than nothing for a few months made me feel so good, maybe there is also a benefit to decreasing the number of things we own, even just slightly. For tips on how to de-clutter your material life, see my article I Once Went Twelve Day’s Without Showering.

You can become close with anyone if you stay on a bike trip with them for long enough. This might come off as an insult to the people I biked with, but I don’t mean it that way at all. We were an unlikely group. Our age range was ten years. We were teenaged boys, hungry for adventure. We were teenaged girls headed to MIT at the summer’s completion. We were class clowns, bipolar depression, serious cyclists, and we were newbs. Often, we didn’t get along. I’m not sure if the kids from the trip still keep in touch with each other. But I can tell you one thing, and that’s that we were really, really close.

You can become close to any body if you live with them long enough to break through your initial judgement and see their humanity. I learned this as my own relationships with my bike-mates grew, but also by observing my bike-mates own interactions with each other.

We seven biked alongside one another from sun up to sun down. We ate three meals a day together. I saw every person on that trip cry. I saw a few of them puke (gross, I know, but true). I laughed with them, I fought with them, I slept under the stars with them. Together we completed the 3,800-mile trek, and that is something we will always share, no matter how far apart we grow.

My experience with these people showed me that deep down, seemingly very different individuals are actually not very different at all. Everyone has good and bad parts to them, but if you give people your patience, they will inevitably show you their best sides.

Creativity is totally underrated. About twelve hours into this summer journey, I found myself at a hostel in Seaside, Oregon with 7 unassembled bikes that needed to be put together. It was around midnight. My co-counselor had stayed back at the airport to retrieve a camper who missed her flight, and I had sent the rest of the campers to bed. I was emotionally drained from the stress of getting everyone to Oregon safely, and I was jet-lagged. And I only had a vague idea of how I was going to assemble these bikes all on my own. And it was dark. Like really dark.

A stranger who worked at the hostel and knew a thing or two about bike mechanics showed me an enormous amount of kindness and helped me put together each and every bike until the early morning hours. As we talked and got to know each other over the time it took us to do so, one thing he said to me really stuck: “You’re gonna have to be resilient out there. Shit’s gonna go wrong. Never stop finding creative solutions.” His words rang true over and over again throughout the trip. Not only did shit go wrong (again and again and yet again), I really did have to use creativity to keep going. I had to find creative ways to motivate the group, or get them to get along, or distract them from a problem. I also had to be creative with the bikes. Logic and mechanical knowledge will only get you so far when you find yourself on the side of a deserted South Dakota road with a broken rack and limited repair kit. I was thankful for my ability to think outside of the box, and the need for creativity on this trip showed me just how important it is.

In a world where the value of STEM is constantly pushed on us, where we are told that we will have a smaller chance of living a prosperous life if we choose a humanitarian path over a scientific one, the left brain is extremely underrated. If you have a creative skill or interest (or for that matter any interest that is not necessarily valued by society), don’t give up on it. Foster it instead. Foster it because chances are, as society pushes against that thing, we will begin to need it even more, and when that trait is called on, you will be ready to let it shine.

There is still a whole lot of good left in the world. If I was starting to doubt the goodness of people and the world, this trip certainly restored my faith. The number of people who showed interest in our journey along the way was staggering. Strangers offered us anything they could to give us a boost: food, water, money, a bed for the night, bike mechanic help, car rides to repair shops, route advice, prayers and well wishes, high fives, etc. The list is endless.

Some of the people we encountered on this trip played a huge role in keeping us safe and quite literally saved our lives. One couple in particular kept in regular contact with me from the day we met them in Missoula, Montana to the day we pedaled up to the Atlantic Ocean.

It can be hard to continuously see the good in people in a world where there is also a lot of bad. I find myself getting upset inside when I smile at someone on the street and they scowl back like I’ve bothered them. But then I remember that though there are all kinds of people in this world, there are enough of the really awesome, really caring kind to make it into a place that can be quite alright. Be a contributor to the good, and the good that is already out there will find you, too.

Your body and mind are capable of more than you ever thought possible. I remember the phone call I got when my boss at the cycling camp asked me if I wanted to run the Across America trip. I was in total disbelief, and I asked him if he really thought that someone like me, who had very limited long-distance cycling experience, could do it. He told me that anyone who put their mind to it could. I wasn’t so sure of that, but I said yes anyway and was amazed to see how quickly my body adapted to the extreme amount of biking I was doing. After only a few 60 mile days, my booty wasn’t sore from the bike seat any more. Biking all day actually took on a dream-like quality. Not only was I seeing beautiful sites, I was actually immersed in them, and I forgot about the physical exertion I was going through because I knew I just had to keep on pedaling (even when I had a pedal break like 50 miles from the nearest bike shop, LOL).

There were definitely some very tough days. There were days when I thought there was no way my legs could take me another mile, let alone the fifteen we had to go to get to the next campsite, and there were days when I felt like I might breakdown because of the pressure and responsibility of leading the group, but I never did. I just kept pedaling. By the end of the journey, we were biking consistent eighty to one-hundred mile days (which made me hungry as a lion, BTW), and I did it with an ease I never imagined possible.

You can accomplish way more than you think (yes, you!). If you put yourself in a challenging situation and you have the desire to tackle it, you will be surprised at how your body and mind take action to do so. It comes naturally for us to try without thinking too much about it. Human beings are built to be pushed. Leaving the comfort zone is how we get better, and you will adapt to new and difficult endeavors. When I look back on the longest bike ride I ever took, I am still amazed by what I accomplished, but it reminds me that truly, anything is possible with a little determination.