Two hundred nineteen years ago, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark — better known as Lewis and Clark — completed their two-year, four-month and nine-day expedition from St. Louis, Missouri to Astoria, Oregon. By Oct. 18, math teacher Dave Deggeller had finished cycling the entire reverse route in just 62 days.
Throughout his life, Deggeller has been an avid long-distance biker. Previously, he has been on two bike trips in Europe: one from Vienna to Budapest and another from Belgium to Amsterdam. However, it wasn’t until he went on a 10-day biking trip with his father from Portland, Oregon to Palo Alto, California that the idea for a cross-country trip was sparked.
“I love the idea of road tripping (and) going from city to city,” he said. “And I enjoy challenges, including challenging my body.”
With some spare time and the support of his wife, Deggeller decided to pursue his lifelong dream of cross-country biking.
“The number one question I got on my tour (was not) ‘Why are you doing this?’” he said. “(Instead), they typically asked, ‘Are you crazy?’”
Deggeller started to plan his journey during COVID. Inspired by the novel “Undaunted Courage” by Lewis and Clark, he wanted to explore the famous trail named after the pair — The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail — a route of around 4,900 miles that commemorates their 1803 to 1806 expedition. His vision was to take an American road trip on two wheels while raising money for the Great Redwood Trail, which connects California’s San Francisco and Humboldt bays.
“I sort of rediscovered cycling, (and) I started realizing (that I’m) pretty good at it,” he said. “So, I started getting more serious, biking to work every day, doing more climbing, going up the hills and biking with people stronger than me. Then, during COVID, I had a lot of free time, so I said, ‘What if I did cross country? What would that look like? What would that have to take?’”
Deggeller was sure that he wanted to challenge himself with a long-distance trip in early February, so he took a sabbatical to begin organization. His family, friends and coworkers supported him, which helped the trip become a reality.
Deggeller began his adventure on July 22 in Portland, Oregon, passed through the Rockies and the Continental Divide in Montana, continued through the Dakotas and into St. Louis, Missouri. After that, he visited friends in Chicago, Michigan and Cleveland and finished in Washington, D.C.
When Deggeller biked through big cities, such as Kansas City and Chicago, he attended live jazz and rock and roll concerts and tried beer in breweries. In smaller towns, he stopped whenever anything piqued his interest.
“I definitely wanted to see parts of the country I hadn’t seen,” he said. “I’d never been to Kansas City, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, the Dakotas or Montana, so I really wanted to see the smaller towns (and) our whole country. Politicians sometimes talk about the middle of the country being the flyover place. (I wanted to) check it out to meet people different from me and reconnect with old friends.”
On one of the hardest days of the trip, a gas station attendant told him about a nearby powwow — a sacred celebration honoring ancestors through dance and song. At first, Deggeller was unsure of whether he would be welcome or not, but with more encouragement, he attended the event to connect with the locals.
“It was a pretty special day, and a lot of people talked to me and asked me questions,” he said. “It felt good to be welcomed.”
However, Deggeller’s trip wasn’t completely smooth-sailing. With unexpected circumstances such as mudslides, flat tires and wildfires, he had to learn to rapidly adapt to new conditions and situations. On Day Three, he caught a bus when fires in the northwest closed the tunnels he planned to bike through, and on Day Four, he took a boat across the Columbia River instead of riding on his preplanned route.
“If I took a wrong turn, I (would) just take a breath and (think), ‘Okay, where am I going to go?’ and just be willing to adapt,” he said. “(Even though) I planned out every single day with great detail, I had to give myself permission to deviate from that.”
By going solo on the trip, Deggeller was incentivized to converse with those around him. These interactions allowed him to meet a few unexpected individuals, such as the season five cast of the television series “Yellowstone” and the son of an immigrant from Venezuela.
“I would often just start conversations with people,” he said. “Maybe they were surprised, but they always wanted to engage with me. I think that’s probably one takeaway: We’re all on our phones, we’re all in our (own) world, but people still want (to make) connections.”
