The Route So Far - Google Maps


View X-America by Bicycle in a larger map

Why?

We are doing this ride to raise money for Research Autism. We are aiming to raise £20,000.
We are supporting Research Autism because my cousin Jamie is severely affected by the disease, and I have seen its effects not only on him but on the whole family." He is 13yrs old, but cannot yet talk.
Just take a moment to imagine not being able to talk.
Imagine understanding everything going on around you, but not being able to comment.
Imagine having to be dressed every morning in clothes you don't choose, and then hurting your parents as you try to tell them you wanted the blue shirt today.
Imagine being swamped by having to hear everything that everyone is saying around you, and not being able to listen to just one thing at once. Jamie loves being in a swimming pool, just floating, legs held motionless by the weight of the water, while he keeps his ears underwater to just relax, hearing nothing.
He understands everything - he appears to have a photographic memory - but can’t get his thoughts out.
Frustration leads to despair, and anger, which is just one of the many things that his family has to deal with.
He has extremely specific eating requirements and requires round the clock supervision. Jamie is at the severe end of the autistic spectrum, but given that one in 100 people suffer from the disease (with varying severity), and that everyone has some autistic traits, it is shocking that so little is known about it'.
Click here to support our cause and donate to Research Autism.
Read the "Meet Jamie" post - the only post in February, for more information about Jamie, and a poem - painstakingly slow for Jamie to type, but ultimately incredible.

Photo Video - New York to St Louis

June 22, 2010

Silver Springs, NV

Day 58 - Middlegate station to Silver Springs - 80 miles, total 5789kms

A day that starts with Pancakes, eggs and bacon is a good day. We were done with our breakfast by7.30, but hung around until 8.30 slowly packingup. We were thinking today about how this felt like a relaxed late start - whereas in the first three weeks, 8.30 was our earliest start by quite a way.

We were headed to Fallon for lunch - 50 miles away and our last long stretch with no services in between. Although it was mostly the same as the rest of Nevada (up and down, dry with spindly, wiry plants and salt plains) we did see a couple of more interesting things: sand mountain - a massive sand dune covered in quad bikes cruising up and down, and also a couple of the target area's for the "Top Gun" fighter pilots. Then we cruised through a large salt pan, where people have written their names into the barren landscape by rearranging rocks.

Along the way we passed a whole bunch (about 25) of people, cycling supported to Washington DC, but they didn't stop to chat - they cruised past us in long lines on fancy road bikes. We did talk to a random couple of other cross country cyclists, one old man cycling home to minnesota having retired from work and having finished with San Francisco, and another guy who had quit his job and was seeing america from the relative comfort of a recumbent bicycle.

In Fallon, we relaxed in Taco Bell for a couple of hours - great place - as much as it takes to fill us up, in Taco Bell it costs only $5, including a refillable soda. We moved on just before 4, after slaloming through Safeway's car park to find some more suncream - the heat in Utah meant that we finished our second bottle.

We took it easy and reached Silver springs at 6, after a long chat with Will Macdonald, another cyclist, 5 days in to his cross-country mission. I will remember Will for his comment on my Icebreaker cycling shirt: "Awesome, Icebreaker! (dramatic pause) - proof that man was meant to enslave sheep!" We had good pizza and pasta and then headed to a campsite by the Lahontan reservoir.
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