Cyclists stop in West Concord on the hottest day of the year

It was one of the hottest and most humid days of the summer when the group of nearly 40 bicyclists pedaled into West Concord.

They arrived at Veterans Park about noon where they stopped briefly to rehydrate and grab a snack from the van accompanying them while several headed to Ginny’s Drive-In or Casey’s for more substantial fare before heading off to their destination for the day in Rochester. The group had left Mankato early that morning but this was no one-day bicycle trip.

Thirty-one days earlier they had left Astoria, Ore., on a cross-country trek that would take them through the mountains, high plains, Black Hills, the upper Midwest, into Canada, back into the United States and then to Portsmouth, N.H., where they would disband and head to their homes.

The riders and their three support vans were taking part in the annual Across America North bicycle tour. In all it would take 50 days and cover 3,650 miles.

The cyclists average about 80 miles a day, said Liz Chambers, one of the support crew, though the Mankato to Rochester trip was one of the longer days. As one of the six crew members on the trip, Chambers said, she would alternate between cycling and driving the van. One van traveled ahead of the group with water, snacks and other items the cyclists might need when they reached pre-planned rest stops, one would carry luggage and supplies and a third van would travel with the cyclists providing mechanical support when needed.

The cross-country tour actually includes five segments, she said, and cyclists can choose to complete one segment, a couple of segments or go the entire route. The tour started with 40 riders in Oregon, she said, and most of them were continuing on for the full trip.

She described the group as a “League of Nations” as about a half-dozen of the riders were not from the United States and several had come specifically for the bike trip. Riders included three from Australia and others from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and Israel.

There was also a mix of ages, she said, although the average age of the riders was in the mid-50s. Riders in Ride Across America’s tours also come for a variety of reasons, she