STEGALL

said longtime friend Christine Todd, who teaches kindergarten through fifth-grade art at Snowden School. “As children, we lived on Audubon across the street from each other and just loved each other then. But as adults, I loved her even more.”

Stegall said Metz began having back pain about four years ago, but they thought it was just a pulled muscle. It was cancer in her bones, which was stable for a while with treatment. Last fall, when the cancer invaded her soft tissue and aggressive treatment wasn’t working, “Margaret just came home,” her husband said. “And it was like living with the pope for a while, because people from all over the country would knock on the door and want to spend two minutes with her.” The choir from her church showed up one day to serenade her.

“She had the best attitude and was such an inspiration to all of us,” said Kathy Fish, a financial planner and member of a women’s book club Metz organized. “From what we saw, (she) never really was angry about her diagnosis, after beating it once and having it come back. She decided she was going to take an unconventional route and live every day to the fullest, and she absolutely did until the end.”

The couple had no children together. Stegall has a son from a previous marriage. They traveled extensively, even up until last October.

“We were very different,” Stegall said. “People would complain about litter, and I’d fire off letters to the editor and talk about things we need to do in this city to get rid of litter, and Margaret would go out on a walk and she’d come back with a handful of litter in her hand. She always responded to a problem. Her response was always direct, personal, loving.”

So Stegall is ready to have his own response.

“Really, all I’ve been doing for the last six months is weeping and staring at the bottom of Jack Daniel’s bottles, and I just decided that was not what Margaret would do,” he said. “Margaret’s response to something like that would be, again, direct and simple and loving and practical, and so I decided that I would do this.”

He’d heard of people doing similar long-distance rides. “Lots of people do it,” he said.

He’s relying on the Adventure Cycling Association, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Missoula, Mont., that aims to inspire and empower people to travel by bicycle by publishing a magazine and selling maps with updated service, lodging and route information. Stegall will combine the organization’s Western Express and TransAmerica routes.

Jim Sayer, executive director for the association that has about 47,000 members, said Stegall’s trip isn’t really such an unusual undertaking. “It’s something a lot of people do,” he said. “They do major trips to support various causes, but probably the No. 1 cause is medical research.”

“It doesn’t take a superhero to ride across the country,” said Sayer, who just finished a ride from Charleston, S.C., to Key West with his 14-year-old daughter. “He’ll know in a couple of weeks if he’s ready to do it. Most everybody, they get the hang of it, and it changes your life forever. It makes you realize that you can do much more than you ever thought possible.”

Stegall is hoping his ride changes not just his life, but other lives as well. Even before he starts the journey, he’s raised more than $2,000 from friends, family and folks who have read about his plans on his website, bikingbill. com. He will post the progress of his journey on the site, and he’s asking supporters to ride with him and to donate a penny a mile or more if they can. “It’s not big people writing big checks,” he said. “It’s a lot of little people writing little checks. That’s how you get change.”

Elaine Hare, executive director of the Memphis-MidSouth Affiliate of Susan G. Komen, said Stegall’s ride is a first for the local organization. “People certainly will come in and support the race, but for somebody to make this personal commitment is incredible,” she said. “We’ve never had this before. I’m impressed. It’s so obvious how very much he loved his wife.”

The Komen Memphis-MidSouth website, komenmemphis.org, has a link to Stegall’s website. “A lot of our people are interested, and also we can watch his journey.”

At a kickoff party Stegall hosted at his home on June 16, it was evident his great adventure is already drawing interest.

Peggy Adams, an occupational therapist for Shelby County Schools, doesn’t know Stegall, but a friend saw his story online and told her about it. “I’ve had a lot of family members affected by cancer,” she said, so she decided to attend to show her support.

Teresa Bullock, a 20-year breast cancer survivor and friend of Metz, stood on the deck applauding Stegall’s effort. “I think it’s great,” she said. “She was fabulous.”

Stegall said he will be “sitting on the dock of the bay” on Monday in San Francisco. He’ll snap a photo and pedal off through California, then into Nevada, Utah, Colorado and so on. Temperatures in some places on the route are already registering 100 degrees. On the fourth day out, he’ll face Carson Pass, some 8,000 feet up. Mostly, he plans to go it alone. His brother-in-law is planning to join him in Utah in mid-July.

“People think they have to wait until they have it all figured out,” Stegall said. “They have to wait until they have just the right equipment, just the right time and they’ve got everything figured out, and if you do all that, you never get out the door.”

His goal is to make it at least to the Mississippi River, and he has set his site on a town called Chester, Ill., the home of Elzie Segar, the creator of Popeye the Sailor Man. Stegall wants to stand next to the 6-foot bronze statue of Popeye.

That would be 2,600 miles. If he does 80 miles a day, he’s hoping to be there by Aug. 5. After that, he may push on to the Atlantic Coast. He’ll have to wait to see how the spirit moves him.