![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/long-distance-cyclists-09-03.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/p>\n
News Photo by Reagan Voetberg
\n Six of the seven cyclists visiting Alpena are pictured, from left: John Schaefer, Chris Henry, also known as \u201cPapow,\u201d Dave Campbell, Beth Knight, Kitty McCartney, and Ray Henry.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/p>\n
ALPENA \u2014 A cross country road trip takes long enough in a motor vehicle \u2014 now try a bicycle!<\/p>\n
A group of seven cyclists made their way to Alpena on Wednesday, the 48th day of their 4,000-mile cross country bike tour from Burlington, Washington to Portland, Maine. Their route was approximately 40 miles Wednesday, from Rogers City to Alpena. They started at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at the Big Bear Lodge around noon, each cyclist going at their own pace.<\/p>\n
The cyclists have a weekly rotation for who drives the van, which provides rest for the driver that day and mid-ride relief in the form of snacks and drinks for the rest of the cyclists. John Schaefer was the van driver Wednesday. Schaefer is 69 years old and hails from Virginia.<\/p>\n
The oldest cyclist in the group is 80-year-old Gregg Gerber, who is blind in one eye.<\/p>\n
The youngest is 56-year-old Beth Knight from South Carolina. Kitty McCartney, 62, and Ray Henry, 65, are from Florida. Chris Henry, 74, is from California and 65-year-old Dave Campbell is from Texas.<\/p>\n
Ray Henry planned the tour along the Northern Tier bicycle route.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a fairly common route that people are riding across the northern part of the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The group met through different bicycle tours they\u2019ve done. Schaefer said this is his ninth bicycle tour. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I did my first one, I said, you know, I love it,\u201d he said. \u201cNow when you just slow things down, you get out of your car and you get on a bike \u2026 It\u2019s been a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trips that the cyclists have done include a ride around the Great Lakes, down the east coast, down the west coast, and across the southern tier, which stretches from San Diego, California to St. Augustine, Florida.<\/p>\n
The cyclists have averaged 65 miles a day on their Northern Tier bike tour. The longest stretch they will complete in one day is 98 miles. The 40-mile stretch on Wednesday was one of their shorter days, although Knight commented that it was more difficult than she expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 40 miles of a headwind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other important thing about this rain is this traveling circus goes whether it\u2019s nice or not,\u201d Chris Henry said, as it started to rain while three of the cyclists finished their ride. \u201cTomorrow, if it\u2019s raining, it won\u2019t matter. We\u2019ll still drive the van, we\u2019ll still get on our bikes, we\u2019re still riding.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 48 days, Knight said she had three flat tires, and Schaefer had one flat.<\/p>\n
When flats happen, they fix them right on the side of the road and keep going. The cyclists told a story of having seven flats in one morning in New Orleans on a past bike tour. They said that some states have dirty shoulders which cause flats to occur more frequently.<\/p>\n
Schaefer said he got interested in long distance cycling after adding it to his retirement bucket list. He joined his first one in 2018, and that\u2019s where he met Ray Henry and Chris Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we all start with kind of novices, and we learn as we go,\u201d Chris Henry said.<\/p>\n
Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Six of the seven cyclists visiting Alpena are pictured, from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,884,66147,66146,82],"class_list":["post-118642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-local-news","tag-long-distance-cyclists-make-pit-stop-in-alpena","tag-long-distance-cyclists-make-pit-stop-in-alpenanews","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}