ON TWO WHEELS

In 2018, Susan and Clif cycled across America on a tandem bicycle — 2,833 miles along the Southern Tier route, from St Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California, straight into the prevailing wind. This page is the full story of that trip, post by post, state by state.

Florida

• Welcome To America — Two years after Sydney, the tandem returns in St Augustine, Florida — America’s oldest city, founded by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon — for the start of a 3-month, San Diego-bound crossing, with an unfixed clunking noise already nagging at the bike.
• Palatka Spoke Crisis — Seven rear wheel spokes break in quick succession within the first two days — including one just 200 metres into a stubborn second attempt to reach the bike shop — stranding them in Palatka to plan repairs over beer at Steamboat Willie’s.
• Once, Twice, Three Times Gainesville — Four nights stranded in Palatka with a broken rear wheel means two 40-mile Greyhound bus trips to Gainesville and back — and the moment the freshly rebuilt wheel goes back on the bike, a fresh puncture appears.
• Tallahassee Dog Days — A bus ride with a man openly discussing ‘robbin” and another writing a biography of Bass Reeves — the real-life Black Lone Ranger who arrested 3,000 felons — followed by a front-wheel spoke finally breaking and settling a week-long domestic dispute about whose weight was to blame.
• Rolling On In The Sun — A prisoner working a stop/go sign along a road crew inches further and further down the contraflow each time the guards look away — quietly, ingeniously escaping half a mile at a time.
• Worm Fiddlin’ — Caryville, Florida proudly declares itself the Worm Fiddlin’ Capital of the World — exactly the kind of only-in-America roadside sign you’d never see cycling anywhere else.
• The Panhandle Spoke Blues — A replacement spoke bought in Tallahassee turns out to be the wrong size, forcing 61 miles to the next bike shop on a wounded wheel — while Susan quietly hides Clif’s pizza and drinks more than her share of the beer to keep his weight down for the ride.

Alabama & Mississippi

• Oh Alabama — “Where the skies are so blue” — a quiet Alabama moment, marking the fifth state of the tandem crossing.
• The Sunbearable Gulf Shores — Racing downhill on a causeway bridge, Susan panics from a sleep-medication dream about being catapulted over the edge — and their fourth puncture strikes just three hundred yards past the exact spot where it could have made that dream real.
• Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi — Crossing into Mississippi — so good they named it thrice — with a failed attempt at a together-selfie, foiled by blinding sun, sweat, and biting flies.

Louisiana

• Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler — 55 miles into Louisiana, their fourth state, on a wounded front wheel with one broken spoke — arriving in New Orleans on the exact same day as their hotel’s grand opening party, invitation secured by the timeless bonding power of shared fried chicken.
• Our NOLA Arrival Party — A hotel’s grand-opening party turns into free oysters and endless champagne — including a batch from ‘Murder Point,’ named after a real 1927 baseball-bat killing over an oyster lease — followed by absinthe cocktails and a very early night.
• New Orleans City Of Music — New Orleans, once part of a $15 million Louisiana Purchase that funded Napoleon’s wars, delivers a fried chicken festival, live jazz on every corner, and an eerie bathroom warning spotted mid-absinthe on a full-moon night.
• Louisiana Roadlife — The same day brings their two most nerve-racking stretches of the entire tour: a hard-shoulderless causeway through swampland in poor rain visibility, then the Huey P Long bridge with wheel-swallowing gaps in the road — answered that night with a double measure of Tennessee whisky.

Texas – Gulf Coast to Austin

• Beginning of the Lone Star cycle — Crossing into Texas, the Lone Star State, named for the flag that flew over an independent Texan republic after the Alamo fell and Sam Houston’s army avenged it — marked, fittingly, by a tyre sidewall blowing clean out on the road.
• Landed in Space City — The 1936 Rainbow Bridge in driving rain: no hard shoulder, a two-foot barrier wall, 180 feet over water, and the tandem crawling at 4mph while trucks pass in the mist — their most frightening crossing yet.
• Houston — A visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center — the Mercury-Redstone rocket, the retired Shuttle, and the future Mars-bound Orion — ends with Susan half-seriously asking if the robot astronaut Robonaut can pedal, putting Clif’s job at risk.
• Where On Earth Are The Wallies Now? — 1,100 miles done, heading from Houston toward Austin and, ominously, some real hills — fair warning that a few tears from Susan may be documented along the way.
• The Oh No Rolling Hills of Texas — 82 miles and 2,500 feet of rolling hills baked at 42C with zero shade all day — the worst heat suffering of the whole trip, saved only by bananas, hydration, and a giant polystyrene cup of cola.
• Austin, Texas — A rest day in Austin brings Voodoo Donuts, a visit to Lance Armstrong’s bike shop, and the real Davy Crockett history behind the Capitol statue — then donuts and bourbon for dinner, the night before hill country begins.
• It’s Jello Time! — A cup of hot, sugar-free jello at bedtime for the aching knees — and a wink at their earlier wheel-spoke disaster, since nobody wants more sugar weighing anything down.

Texas Hill Country & The Big Bend

• Texas Hill Country Part 1 — A violent Texas thunderstorm forces 90 minutes’ shelter at a small-town fire station — the only building for miles — before a river ford soaks their feet anyway on the way into Johnson City, whose jailhouse still holds real inmates today.
• Texas Hill Country Part 2 – No Place For An Old Man — 74 hard miles to Del Rio: Clif bonks badly from underfueling, legs and arms turning to jelly, and Susan pulls him through — only for her to go dizzy in the heat with no water left in the last 15 miles, and Clif to return the favour.
• Weather Matters — A cold front drops temperatures from 115F to 37F in two weeks, flash flood warnings shut nearby roads, and a two-day Del Rio delay ends with an emergency Walmart run for fleece gloves before a freezing night of camping with no sleeping bags.
• That Hungry Feeling — Gas stations and grocery stores are scarce in far west Texas, the rain won’t let up, and the hills keep coming — sometimes all you can rely on is one dependable snack.
• Comstock to Camping — Judge Roy Bean named a whole remote Texas town after actress Lillie Langtry, whom he’d never met — she finally visited after his death. That night, camping in a flooded field with no sleeping bags, they make do with spam, a borrowed blanket, and Susan’s head sharing space with Clif’s damp socks.
• Footnote – Lily, The Judge and the Jack Of Hearts — Jersey Lily finally reaches the Texas town named after her, only to learn her admirer Judge Roy Bean had recently died — and fittingly draws the Jack of Hearts when asked to cut a deck of cards.
• Rimgate — Three punctures in one mile finally reveal the real culprit: heat-warped rim tape gone brittle and sharp — fixed with a DIY bodge job using masking tape from the local general store in the middle of nowhere.
• Closing In On El Paso — Sierra Blanca’s decaying State cinema — one of only two adobe cinemas in America — closed in the 1950s and still holds its original equipment and movie posters, pristine inside, crumbling outside.
• Where are the Wallies now? — 1,997 miles down — heading for Phoenix via New Mexico, skipping the official Southern Tier Route’s circuitous hill detours for a more direct path.

New Mexico

• Texas to New Mexico — A short, easy 48 miles into Las Cruces — real Billy the Kid country, where Pat Garrett shot him twice in the chest the moment he asked ‘quien es?’ in a darkened bedroom.
• All Terrain Tandem — Trusting Google Maps down a paved road that turns to sand, then desert track, then no track at all — the tandem goes down in a sand pit, water runs low, and Susan proposes cutting through a highway fence with a multi-tool that couldn’t cut paper.

Arizona

• Arriving in Arizona — A confession: the ‘arriving in New Mexico’ border sign photo was staged — they were actually leaving. Blog integrity restored as they properly, honestly arrive in Arizona for real, 2,250 miles in.
• Sgt Major Sunrise and the Apaches — 76 miles across the San Carlos Apache Reservation retraces the real history of Geronimo — the warrior who promised no bullet could kill him after Mexican soldiers murdered his family, and who fought for 30 years before formally surrendering.
• Globe to Apache Junction — A 20-mile, 7% climb on Highway 60 with no shoulder and blind corners forces them to cross to the opposite carriageway and walk at the worst bends — then the descent overheats the brakes so badly they smell burning and have to stop.
• Sleeping With The Avengers — An Avengers-themed motel room in the middle of the Arizona desert turns out to have a bar with karaoke night — cowboys, a wall-builder, a sassy barmaid, and a man overruled by his wife on singing ‘Jolene’ in a room full of trouble.

California

• California Dreamin — A windy highway bridge marks the crossing from Arizona into California — the last state of the whole tandem journey, with San Diego now firmly in sight.
• Oh Sandy — 89 miles through blind-summit hills toward the Algodones Dunes, where weekend ATV racers in oversized RVs pass at 60mph with inches to spare — roughly 500 violations of California’s 3-foot close-pass law in a single afternoon.
• Big Jessie in Ocotillo — A cockroach loose in the Ocotillo motel bathroom becomes two cockroaches loose in the bathroom, and Clif — dubbed ‘Big Jessie’ by Susan — wages a soup-carton battle of wits before both are finally trapped.
• They Call Me The Breeze, I Keep Blowin’ Down The Road — 60mph gusts pin the loaded tandem in a mountain wind tunnel on the very last day of the ride, pushing them forward inch by inch — followed by the most welcome McDonald’s breakfast of the entire trip.
• Beach Landing — 2,833 miles and 20 punctures later, the tandem finally reaches the Pacific at San Diego — no fireworks, just quiet tired satisfaction and a well-earned craft beer after months of Bud Light.