Traveling cyclists visit Washington

    Washington was recently paid a visit by a couple of traveling cyclists. To say they were out-of-towners is an understatement. Brian Gottlieb and his wife Rachel Timmons are riding their bicycles across the country from Oregon to their home in Washington, D.C., and just happened to make a stop at the farmers market Thursday evening. The couple spent the night in town and planned to hop back on their bikes Friday morning to continue their journey.

    Gottlieb and Timmons left Oregon May 13 and plan to arrive in the District of Columbia in early August. Gottlieb said he and Timmons are not traveling in a straight line from but rather in a zig-zaggy pattern. He estimated the length of their trip to be 4,300 miles.

    The couple flew from the District to Oregon?s coast and were soon followed by their bicycles, which arrived separately. They have traversed Idaho and Montana and also made a jaunt to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. Then they went through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

    Gottlieb opined, ?It?s difficult and time consuming to go up those hills.?

    ?You can?t train enough for these trips,? said Timmons. ?You basically bike yourself into better shape. When we started, we thought that we?d be lucky to get across Oregon.?

    The pair will soon make their way to Wisconsin and later to Lake Erie. They plan to cycle through Michigan and Pennsylvania before arriving home. 

    Timmons said that nearly 400 people a year do what she and her husband do ? cycle across the country.

    ?This is a great way to see parts of the country we?ve never seen,? said Timmons.

    Gottlieb added, ?Living in Maryland, you don?t actually hear that much about Iowa, believe it or not. But the towns in Iowa have to be the best. If you?re going through Wyoming, eastern Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, the interstate comes near the town and the towns? main streets are boarded up. Most of the towns in Iowa are different. We come to farmers markets and town squares. We see life.?

    Timmons and Gottlieb ride recumbent bicycles, which place the rider in a laid-back position. They have windshields on their bikes, which Gottlieb says make the bikes go faster by reducing its wind resistance.

    ?If the wind comes behind you, which is rare because it?s almost always a cross wind, you can go shockingly fast,? said Gottlieb, whose fastest speed on the bike is 47 mph, going downhill. ?We had one day with a perfect tailwind, and on flat ground we were going about 25 mph. We also had a day in Wyoming with a perfect headwind, and we averaged 5.5 mph the whole day. It took us eight hours to go just over 40 miles.?

For more, see our July 9 print edition.