Edgewood graduate completes cross-country ride
BUTLER COUNTY — Hours before Earl McDaniel embarked on the challenge of a lifetime — a 3,642-mile bike ride across America — guilt and doubt filled his mind.
The 1985 Edgewood High School graduate and his wife, Kristine, had saved enough money to cover the monthly living expenses since he was going to miss weeks of work. But as McDaniel lay in bed, he thought about his wife, a chemistry teacher at Beavercreek High School, and how she was going to be alone and responsible for running their home.
It’s one thing for your wife to allow you to play a round of golf with your buddies. That’s four, maybe five hours. But to be away for weeks on a bike?
“It really weighed on me,” McDaniel said. “Leaving like that is not normal.”
That’s when McDaniel had second thoughts.
“This doesn’t seem right,” he told his wife.
He waited for her response. Maybe something like: “You’re right. Put that bike back in the garage.”
Instead, she encouraged him.
“Driving force” is how McDaniel referred to his wife.
“We always encourage each other,” she said from their Kettering home.
Her instructions to her husband: Ride as hard and as fast as you can, but save energy for the next day. Drink plenty of fluids, consume lots of calories. Then go to bed. Repeat. Again and again.
“Sounds easy,” McDaniel said.
It was anything but easy. But at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, McDaniel completed his three-part journey that took him from California to Dayton, then, weeks later, from Dayton to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.
On Sept. 3, McDaniel dipped his rear bicycle tire in the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica Pier, then arrived in Dayton, 2,600 miles later, at the end of September. McDaniel left Dayton on Oct. 22 for the last leg of his trek.
In between the rides, he worked at Leidos, a government contractor, long enough to retain his job and benefits.
The 51-year-old rode through deserts, mountains and villages with no gas stations in sight. He rode every day except one when a nor’easter hit Philadelphia.
There were days when the landscape was colorless, like the surface of the moon. Other days, there was more color than a mountain range in the fall.
Every morning, without fail, he took a picture of the glorious sunrise.
“Different every day,” McDaniel said when asked about the experiences. “There is a sense, a feeling of accomplishment.”
Throughout the ride, McDaniel’s father, Don, drove the support vehicle. Meanwhile, his mother, Mary, worried back home in Hamilton.
“Very proud of him,” she said.
Then she sounded even more like a mom: “Fearful too. There are a lot of dangers out there.”
While riding through Coolide, Kansas, his dad hit a deer and totaled the van that carried his gear. They rented a car, drove back to Colorado and bought another van. That probably wasn’t in the budget.
That email exchange with his wife must have been interesting.
Actually not.
“You can’t get mad at him about that,” his wife said.
A new vehicle was just one of the many expenses along the way. McDaniel said he spent thousands on the trip, mostly for food and lodging. They packed camping gear, but stayed in hotels every night. He averaged about 100 miles a day and estimates he burned 6,500 to 7,000 calories daily.
“Ate anything I wanted,” he said. “And as much as I wanted.”
McDaniel started riding his bike 15 miles to work after Hurricane Katrina when gas prices skyrocketed. He saved money and got his exercise at the same time. That hobby became a fascination.
Now that he’s back in Ohio, McDaniel plans to continue riding and volunteering to patrol Five Rivers Metro Parks. But he doesn’t have plans for another across-America ride.
For that, his mother is proud and thankful.
“We all have dreams,” she said. “But few of us turn them into reality.”