I had meant to mention in the last post about a couple of people we happened across on the long weekend of riding in New Hampshire. Our little group was taking it easy and lapping up some ice cream cones when we saw a couple of fully loaded riders come along. We waved hello and they joined us for a bit and told us a little about their saga. Dean and Laurie Twehues have been riding since June 3rd across the entire northern tier of the US all summer long. They were on their way to Bar Harbor and as of Sept 9th have completed their journey. Over 4000 miles! What an amazing ride that must have been. They seemed no worse for wear though and clearly seemed to be having fun with it. They gave us a card with their web site on it.

We ran into them on their way to Orford, NH. Our little group even gets a mention in their journal for that day’s ride. Page down in their pics for the day and you’ll find our Bike Vermont tour guide Wally and his van. No pics of the group though.

My picture here includes a shot of Dean to the left and Laurie’s bike to the right. Nice looking Seven with massive amounts of gear on it. I recall her saying something about it being well over 40 pounds. Don’t remember the details, but it was no doubt a load to haul up the hills. She’d fitted it with some very practical, wide and heavy duty looking tires. She had also surrounded the handlebars with a pipe insulation and then covered that with padded handlebar tape. Apparently she had to make the adjustment along the way ’cause her hands were otherwise just too sore.

Oddly perhaps, I marvel less about the physical ability to make such a trek and more about how they managed to apparently retire at such an early age and take off on such an adventure? Clearly I need to plan better. I’m only a few years behind them and there’s no way I can imagine retiring at 50 or close to it. Would be very cool to do so, but how many people can really manage to do it at their age? and with 3 kids? wow. Very impressive on many fronts.