Cycling has surged in popularity during COVID-19 as Americans have increasingly turned to bicycles as a pandemic-friendly way to get around town, get out of the house, and get some exercise while maintaining a safe level of social distancing. Some folks have taken the freedom of two wheels and the open road to the extreme while completing cross-country rides of self-discovery, self care, and fundraising for diversity in science.
Theresa Mellas (ABC7 WKBW) 
The riders of @youthbikeamerica (Instagram) 
Scott Edwards (Michael Donoghue)
Theresa Mellas—Frontline Volunteer Turned Cross-Country Biker: Buffalo-based physician assistant Theresa Mellas volunteered for eight weeks in the ICU of a Bronx hospital during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. After her grueling, exhausting weeks at the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., Mellas needed to mentally decompress. So she bought a one-way ticket to Portland, Oregon, bought a bike on Craigslist, and started riding the next day. After almost 3,500 miles in 40 days, she rode into the ocean off Staten Island on July 15, completing her journey. Along the way, she was deeply moved by the kindness of strangers and felt blessed for her health and for the journey.
High School Graduates Bike America and Learn Lessons Along the Way: Recent high school graduates Dasha Yurkevich, Emmet Forde, and Julian Jordan finished their senior year in a graduation ceremony on Zoom and then prepared for the journey of a lifetime. Andy Padlo, a teacher from their school, made his own post-graduation cross-country trip in 1979 and was inspired to guide the trio through their own self-discovery. The four bikers began in San Francisco on July 1 and ended in Brighton Beach, New York for a total of 3,614.9 miles over 52 days. They gained 155,706 feet in elevation and almost two months of insights into the United States and its people—fierce independence, lingering racism, and what makes people the same everywhere: kindness and curiosity. @youthbikeamerica (Instagram)
Scott Edwards—Ornithology Professor Raised Funds for Diversity and Birdwatched Along the Way: Unable to conduct summertime research due to COVID-19 closures, Harvard professor and curator of ornithology Scott Edwards began a cross-country bike ride on June 6 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Only days earlier, Edwards was inspired by Black Birders Week and the racial justice protests to start his own Twitter account and participate in the conversation. By the end of his journey at Oregon’s Sunset Beach on August 20, Edwards had more than 11,000 Twitter followers and had traveled 3,800 miles while “birding by ear” and with a #BlackLivesMatter sign attached to his bike. He encountered some racism, but mostly kindness along the way. A GoFundMe organized on behalf of Society of Systematic Biologists was started to encourage Edwards along his journey and ultimately raised more than $57,000 to support diversity initiatives in evolutionary biology and biodiversity sciences. @ScottVEdwards1 (Twitter)