Get To Know The Duo
Because this blog is designed to keep our central Illinois family and friends abroad in the know about our travels, most of you already know who we are. However, what you may not know is how we came to the decision to spend countless hours on hard seats pedaling across the country. We also want to provide a resource for those who are looking into bike touring for the first time.
Brie and I love biking, adventure, and the outdoors. Both of us really enjoy experiencing nature by being active in it. We also love planning and organizing. We chose this trip because it encompasses all of these things. Still, the trip is a huge amount of biking. But for us, it's the best way to get around. I started biking as soon as I could learn. The training wheels came off at age 6 followed by my junior high years spent biking all over town as an after-school past time. I saved up a summer's earnings of detasseling to buy my current mountain bike, a Haro Escape 2; eleven years later it is still an amazing bike and I've enjoyed lots of time at Farmdale. After my first year of Northfield's church bike trip I bought my road bike, a Specialized Allez. Brie and I led the same bike trip in 2015 which was our 6th year going on the trip for each of us. Brie's first church bike trip was the same year as mine. At not much over 100 lbs her freshman year of high school it's impressive she had as much gusto as she did. Mighty Mouse has always been her theme. After her first church bike trip she bought 'Genevieve,' her Raleigh road bike. After we got married we bought a Haro mountain bike named 'Chester.' For Brie, biking is her favorite form of exercise. It goes without saying that Brie and I have done a lot of biking throughout our dating relationship and marriage. What most people don't know is that during the proposal I included a small condition in the fine print - "Will you marry me and bike across America? ... What actually took place occurred on a day in the Illinois State University library when I was brainstorming about my future career and ended up reading blogs about bicycle touring; funny how that works. Later at the dinner table I proposed the trip idea to Brie. Her answer, "I always knew you'd want to do that some day." ~ Josh |