This is excerpted from my book,  “How America Can Bike and Grow Rich, the National Bicycle Greenway in Action” which you can buy HERE for 99 cents!

All told, we were a colorful group indeed. Our short ride would take us back to the Ferry Building. From there, like Thomas Stevens did 125 years ago, we would travel across the San Francisco Bay to Oakland. When Stevens did his 1884 TransAmerica crossing,before he then went on to bike around the globe, the ferries that crossed the Bay burned wood for fuel, cars did not exist and horses were a common form of transportation. Nor did the Ferry Building that helped rebuild San Francisco after the Great Earthquake of 1906 even exist. It would not open for business until 1898.

My ride, first to the Oakland NBG Day celebration, and then across America, would also be different for a lot of other reasons.

Back when Stevens crossed the US, he walked a lot. In fact, according to the 1884 “Harpers Weekly” account of his journey, he walked more than one-third of the time. This was so because the roads, most of which were dirt, were far and few between. For that matter, his route all the way to Chicago was along the newly constructed transcontinental railroad tracks. From there, he used a mix of farm roads and rail paths to take him to Boston, a city which, at the time, was alive with the brand new excitement of bicycling.

A man of 30, Stevens left Oakland, not in summer, but in April, carrying socks, a spare shirt and a bedroll. During the 104 days it took him to cross America, he carried these items in the bag he had mounted to his handlebars and in the small knapsack on his back. By contrast, our ride, though it would take a little over half as long, would be done on far better roads and our bus would be carrying most of my ride necessities.

I knew that on many levels his accomplishment dwarfed what we had set out to do. This as the consciousness he expanded for what is possible is still felt even today. Stevens showed that man can use his own power to travel from one ocean to another. What before whole wagon trains and then locomotives had been needed for, Stevens proved could be accomplished by the individual.

Since Stevens astounded the world over a century ago, there have been nearly two- dozen documented HiWheel crossings and many hundreds of coast-to-coast regular bicycle treks. Outside of the two-wheel world, as man then went on to swim across large bodies of water, conquer the North and South Poles and reach the top of Mt. Everest, etc, these, and the many adventures that ensued, have all followed the lead Thomas Stevens long before had set.

It was my hope that our ride would endure in the same way. As America’s first coast to coast bicycle author tour, we were also hoping to expand consciousness. Using my book, I had written it hoping I could show our country that we can return to the purity and simplicity of a more innocent time by building a bikeway system that joggers, hikers, cyclists, skaters and the physically challenged all can use.

Hopefully people will see that we will only gain by retrofitting roads for human power as we interconnect them with Car-Free pathways. Soon greatly enriching our physical and mental health will become expected by products of such a network as whole new industries also emerge to help us lighten the footprint we leave on our planet. Industries that, as our ride unfolded, I would get a chance to talk about at the book signings and Mayors’ receptions that lay ahead of me.