Sea to Shining Sea |
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n 2012 Cross Country: San Francisco, CA to Virginia Beach, VA |
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n 2010 Cross Country: San Francisco, CA to Virginia Beach, VA |
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Riding a bicycle, hand cycle or recumbent across North America is not an easy task. From coast to coast, sea to shining sea, a rider is greatly challenged by the continent’ s natural terrain of mountains, deserts, grasslands, woodlands and prairies, but benefits by seeing America at the leisurely pace of ten miles an hour.
On July 28, 2012, a team of 14 disabled veterans reached the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach, Virginia, having set off two months earlier from the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco. With their two pilots for the participating blind cyclists, the team had persevered through some of the hottest summer weather the Great Plains and Midwest had experienced in half a century. They had climbed to the chilly heights of the Continental Divide in Colorado, crossed windy deserts in Nevada and Utah, and rode through driving rain in Pennsylvania and Maryland. They succeeded in their journey by working together, supporting each other and by putting their minds to completing each day.
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Their remarkable journey was not the first by disabled veterans and World T. E. A. M. Sports. In 2010, a group of 18 disabled veterans rode a similar route across the nation. Like the 2012 ride, State Farm and a number of leading corporate and individual sponsors and supporters funded the cross-country ride. Meeting with disabled organizations and veterans groups in small towns and large cities, the riders helped inspire Americans that disabilities sustained through war or by illness do not mean a person’ s life is over.
Lengthy bicycle rides for the disabled like the Sea to Shining Sea have been directed by World T. E. A. M. Sports for more than 20 years. In 2000, the inaugural Face of America ride saw two teams of riders depart simultaneously from Boston and San Francisco. The teams met at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, each having ridden half the continent. Nearly 100 full time and stage riders participated in the journey, including athletes as young as seven years, and as old as 77 years.
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Sea to Shining Sea disabled veterans rode nearly 4,000 miles through 13 states and the District of Columbia in 2012. |
Photos:( Previous page) Marc Esposito in the 2010 Sea to Shining Sea ride.( Top) Disabled veteran Stuart Contant and other team members meet and greet the media on their 2010 Sea to Shining Sea ride.( Right) Jonathan Snodgrass celebrates the 2012 ride’ s conclusion in Virginia Beach.( Bottom) Riders give each other a helping hand to climb a steep hill. |
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Photographs by Parker Feierbach( Right) and Austin Smithard( All other photos) |