Scooter riders on 9,000-mile tour make stop in Woonsocket
Yonatan Belik and Mike Reid are out to visit 48 states, set a new record
WOONSOCKET – Yonatan Belik and Mike Reid are on a journey to set a Guinness World Record for riding scooters across America and found themselves in the city this week during the early stages of their planned 9,000 mile journey.
The scooter riders made a stop at the Ravenous Brewing Co. headquarters at 840 Cumberland Hill Road on Tuesday afternoon to meet the owners and film a short video on the Rhode Island segment of their trip there.
“Our trip is about getting to know the lifestyles of the people in the United States,” Belik, 29, explained.
The riders, setting out on the trip Sept. 7 in Landsdale, Penn., hope to break the previous scooter journey record of about 8,800 miles and will be targeting stops in all 48 states in the continental U.S. over the next three months.
Belik and Reid, 31, are professional video producers by trade and will be shooting footage of their travels with Go Pro 7 cameras attached to their helmets, as well as still photography and footage taken by drones they brought along.
The two new Honda Ruckus 50cc scooters they are riding are fitted out with cargo bags for camping equipment, food, rain gear and clothing, as well as the camera and computer gear they will be using to put up details of their travel experiences on the internet through a website, projectcreate48.com and a Facebook page, Wheeling For the World.
The scooters also carry a spare wheel and a small spare container of gas just in case.
With their vehicles limited to speeds of about 30 miles per hour, Belik said the pair will be traveling about 150 miles a day, an average of eight hours of riding, to keep up with their trip schedule of reaching 9,000 miles over the course of 84 days, the amount of time Reid has before he has to return to a job as a glacier guide in Iceland.
Although they aim to set a new Guinness World Record, something both of them have done in the past, Belik said the trip is just as much about meeting people along the way and gaining an understanding of what the United States is really all about.
“We want to showcase the diversity within the United States,” Belik said while suggesting that effort will help to mitigate a view that the country has become increasingly polarized and politically divided.
Hailing from Australia and Is
rael, Belik said his background includes work as a camp counselor for Seeds of Peace, an international organization seeking to help young leaders from regions of conflict build new positive relationships and outlooks.
“The idea is to inspire and cultivate a new generation of leaders who will be able to transform conflict,” he said.
It was while he was finishing up his work with Seeds of Peace that its founder, Bobby Gottschalk, referred him to Reid, who was also an alum of the organization.
“She said ‘you have to meet Mike, you two are going to do extraordinary things,’” Belik said.
Reid’s prior Guinness challenge success includes a 1,500 mile journey on a pocket bike, and the two have also worked on a Wheeling for the World project to complete the most kick scooter miles in 24-hours during a team effort on an indoor course in Maine. The prior record had been 400 miles, Belik noted.
As their scooter ride continues,
Belik said the pair hope to produce a video on each state they travel through with a goal of showing the America that they encounter along the way.
Thus far those experiences have all been positive and Belik said the scooters appear to be a passport of sorts allowing them to cross the physical and psychological barriers that might traditionally separate people from different walks of life.
“They are inviting and engaging, and we have been able to experience what is unique in places where we stop. There is so much love and so much positivity,” Belik said.
Reid said his motivation for the trip is derived in part from his upbringing in the urban environment of Philadelphia where his family did not have a lot of money to send him off to a private school and he instead made his way through public schools where he didn’t always get a lot encouragement.
Having overcome the prevailing attitude of “you can’t” that he experienced in that environment,
Reid said he learned that it was important for a person to set goals for themselves and to work hard on achieving them.
And that is what his trip with
Belik is all about.
“I want to use the trip to demonstrate that we have grit and we have the ability to persevere at something when people tell you, you can’t,” Reid said.
The stop in Woonsocket allowed Belik and Reid to meet Dorian and Sarah Rave at the brewery along with Dorian’s co-owner, Patrick Reilly, and tap master, Kyle Girgan.
The video they shot will talk about Ravenous as a destination, and also the Rhode Island Brewers Guild and its work to add a new engine to Rhode Island’s economy.
They also got to sip a glass of Rhode Haze, a prop component of their talk with the Ravenous folk, but one Rave said he hoped they enjoyed.
“I loved their visit,” Rave said later. “I think it’s a great idea and it’s a pretty cool thing to do highlighting all the different aspects of life in America,” Dorian Rave said. “The fact that we can be a part of that is awesome,” he added.
After working on their gear and making sure the scooters were both properly packed and ready for the road, Belik and Reid headed out onto Cumberland Hill Road for a final scoot of the day to Boston.
They took a route through Wrentham that brought them past Gillette Stadium, for a possible landmark photo on their website, and then they headed on toward Boston where they planned to stay with a friend of Belik’s in the city.
Belik said they will also be heading up in to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont before making their way to New York and what lies after that on their trip. Before winter, they hope to make it through Minnesota and Nebraska, Kansas and the Dakotas before heading south.