{"id":486723,"date":"2026-02-20T03:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486723\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T03:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:10:10","slug":"cycling-through-history-santa-monica-man-bikes-through-historic-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486723\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycling through history: Santa Monica man bikes through historic sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/lb104hn6gr14wlev.jpg\" alt=\"One man's cycling journey through history \" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">LOS ANGELES &#8211; A Santa Monica man is on a mission to\u00a0bike\u00a0through historical trails across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Erick Cede\u00f1o, known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bicycle_nomad\/?hl=en\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">&#8216;Bicycle Nomad&#8217;<\/a> on social media, uses his platform to educate people.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Cede\u00f1o has\u00a0biked along a portion of the Underground Railroad, retracing the path of people seeking freedom.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTTV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;I always say I can&#8217;t compare what they went through and my experience. I&#8217;ve always been fascinated with the resilience of the people that travelled the underground railroad,&#8221; said Cede\u00f1o.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">\u00a0It was after that trip that he discovered his life&#8217;s mission.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;I came across this particular photo of 20 black soldiers going from Missoula, Montana to St. Louis, Missouri. 1900 miles,&#8221; said Cede\u00f1o.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">The men were Buffalo Soldiers, an all-black unit of the U.S. Army after the Civil War.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">They were among the first to experiment with cycling as a means of military transportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Learning about them opened Cede\u00f1o&#8217;s eyes to a rich history of black bicyclists.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;To see people that look like me, my skin tone traveling by\u00a0bike\u00a0in 1897 I was like &#8216;wow.&#8217; I just became fascinated because I was like &#8216;wow that could have been my grandpa or my great grandfather,&#8221; said Cede\u00f1o.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">In 2022, he pedaled through a portion of the exact route those soldiers took.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Cede\u00f1o said it&#8217;s not lost on him that the freedoms he enjoys now were the dreams of those very men.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Cede\u00f1o&#8217;s been able to identify nine of the 20 soldiers and says he will spend his life working to identify the other 11 and teaching people about them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information for this story came from an interview with Erick Cede\u00f1o.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/black-history-month\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Black History Month<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/tag\/us\/ca\/los-angeles-county\/santa-monica\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Santa Monica<\/a> <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES &#8211; A Santa Monica man is on a mission to\u00a0bike\u00a0through historical trails across the country.\u00a0 Erick&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[166061,49,48,635,44960,44,30037,82,182],"class_list":{"0":"post-486723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-black-history-month","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-los-angeles-county","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-santa-monica","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486723","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=486723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}