Robert and Bliss Sawyer started riding bikes together about 30 years ago.
Occasional rides gave way to more regular and longer ones. They joined a cycling club and periodically pedaled in 60- to 100-mile supported events. Bliss set a goal to ride 50 miles in all 50 states.
It took almost a decade for the Saratoga Springs couple to get in sync with each other. She rode slow. He rode fast. He didn’t like getting passed, she didn’t mind. She eventually learned it’s fun to push your body. He learned that every ride isn’t a race.
“This is just to enjoy being together, enjoy the scenery, listen to music,” Robert said.
At first, they drove to nearby states to get their miles in. Then they started to fly, breaking down their bikes to travel. Robert assembled them in their hotel room and off they’d go. The trips started stretching further, including riding across five states in the Northeast for Bliss’ 50th birthday.
Bliss, 59, is a mortgage loan officer. Robert, 64, is a retired exercise physiology professor. He does the logistics, she handles the finances for their excursions.
On the first couple of road trips, they packed their clothes in panniers fitted on the rear wheels of their bikes as they rode from hotel to hotel. Credit card touring, as it’s called. At a cafe somewhere in Massachusetts, an older man asked if they were camping. They were not.
As he walked to his car, he turned to his wife and said, “Did you hear that? They’re staying in hotels,” and laughed. The Sawyers felt sufficiently shamed.
“I’m like, ‘I can camp,’” Bliss said. So they started carrying all their gear. Bikepacking, as it’s known.
The big idea
Robert had the notion to ride across the United States, a seemingly logical thing for bikepackers to do. Bliss wasn’t ready for such an arduous trek. So they went overseas instead. First, a six-week ride from the southern tip of England to the northern tip of Scotland in 2023. A year later, they biked 1,200 miles across Norway for six weeks. A week in Alaska last summer.
The Sawyers will be married 40 years on June 20. And that’s when their most daunting adventure begins, the one Bliss put off the past three years: They’re planning to ride from Bellingham, Washington — where they met — to Atlantic City, New Jersey, covering roughly 4,000 miles and 140,000 feet of elevation gain. They’re calling it Hope Across the USA.
“Well, if I’m going to do it, I need to do it for something, a good reason,” Bliss told Robert. “So when it gets hard, I don’t quit,” she added.
Pedaling with a purpose
Bliss, who has a deep belief in the power of stable housing, is riding to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. Robert is riding for Tabitha’s Way Local Food Pantry, where he is a volunteer. Initially, she set a goal of $50,000.
“I said, ‘That’s a lot of money.’ And then a week later, she said, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do it. Maybe we can’t get that much money.’ And then a week later, she said, ‘Let’s get $100,000,’” Robert explained.
One way they’re raising money is bike bingo. A minimum $25 donation buys a bingo card with squares representing possible things that can happen on the ride: tailwind all day, leaving something behind, gas station gourmet meal, blood, vomit. Sponsors provided gift cards for the weekly winners.
On June 20, their four children, four grandchildren, Bliss’ mom and dad and a man they randomly met who makes giant bubbles will give them a grand send-off at a park in Bellingham. Robert and Bliss will dip the tires in the Pacific Ocean and start pedaling their Cannondale touring bikes eastward.
“Seeing our own country from a bicycle . . . that’s kind of the magic of it, is you see things differently,” Bliss said. “You see things differently when you’re sitting on a bike, especially when you’re sitting on it all day long. Sunsets and sunrises and all of that.”
There will be three to three-and-half months of those sunrises and sunsets as they pedal to the Atlantic.
They’re following a northern route (Bliss doesn’t like the heat in the South) on steep roads over the Cascades and the northern Rockies. They will pedal through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan before dropping down to Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and then rolling into New Jersey.
Gearing up
Only eight states shy of the 50-miles-in-50-states goal, they’ll be able to knock off four or five more, adding to the collection of license plates tacked to their garage wall. In addition to camping, they plan to stay in hotels and use the app Warmshowers, a platform that connects touring cyclists with places to stay for free overnight. The Sawyers have hosted bikepackers passing through Utah the same way.
Their bikes will be loaded with a tent, sleeping bags, rain gear, water, a couple of days’ food, bug spray, a backpacking stove and a couple of “luxury” items: hammocks and ultralight camp chairs tucked into their panniers. Robert will carry about 40 pounds of gear; Bliss about 30.
“We don’t take a lot of clothes. We probably stink, but we don’t know,” Bliss said.
On his handlebars, Robert has the collar of their Shitzu-Maltese mix Kamo who died last year. A speaker mounted on the back of his bike will pump out hard rock for him, pop for her and some blues and indie folk they agree on.
Going along, getting along
Bliss made a list of 10 things that scare her about the ride: wildfire smoke, climbing, injury, illness, headwinds, bike problems, heat and humidity, finding places to camp, discouragement and too much time together.
Robert’s chief concern is whether he should cut the long blondish locks that flow out the back of his helmet like a mane when he rides. Bliss says yes. He says it’s his trademark.
Regardless of how much they love each other, the couple did get on each other’s nerves on their six-week rides. Knowing it will happen on the cross-country tour, they have talked about ways to deal with it. “You got to be open and honest, just say, ‘I’m starting to get annoyed,’” Robert said. “We have to be able to say, ‘I just need some time alone,’ and not take it personally.” Bliss suggested they could go to a movie and sit in different parts of the theater.
At the same time, they know if one of them is struggling physically or mentally on the bike, the other one is there to pick them up.
“We’re very, very different people but the biking has really been something over the years that, honestly, made us stay together,” Bliss said, turning to Robert and adding, “Sorry. Do you know this?” With a laugh, he said he did.
Robert has the entire route mapped out, as is his nature. But he’s open to playing it by ear, which is more Bliss’ style. They’re taking a livestream 360-degree camera and plan to regularly post the good, the bad and the ugly on social media.
The Sawyers aren’t sure how they will feel when they reach the end of the long road.
“I think it’s going to be a little anticlimactic, because no one will be there. But I have a feeling I’ll be a little teary,” Bliss said. “I actually think it will be some very interesting emotions at the end. I think it will be super happy and relieved. And ‘Oh, my goodness. We did that. We just did that.’
“Then we’ll have to plan our 50th.”