Wide open roads and blue skies out west!

I’ve always wanted to bike across the USA. I think this is a shared bucketlist trip among many of us who ride bikes, and after years of talking about it and trying to make it work, I finally pressed GO on this adventure earlier this year.

Specifically, I committed to the money, time and effort of a 47-day adventure with Trek Travel, riding from Portland OR to Portland ME. Approximately 3700 miles, through 15 states, this would be unlike any ride or athletic pursuit I’ve ever attempted.

From early February on, this was the singular focus of my 2026 calendar and goals. I reoriented my life and made plans and also declined projects, events and invitations, all based around keeping this chunk of time free on my calendar, while making plans for my dogs while I was away, and attempting to ride and train enough to be prepared for the journey. For me it would be a pilgrimage —the hero’s journey— departing the upper world, traveling down into the lower/ non-ordinary world, confronting challenges along the way, meeting helpers, and hopefully returning back into the ordinary world at the conclusion with the “boon” or gifts - i.e. wisdom- as my prize.

My steadfast “group C” riding mates, Tim (MN) and Steffen (Germany).

Stepping into a container with 23 other people, all of whom are unknown to me, as well as 5 guides from Trek Travel taking care of us and helping us along the way, while sleeping in a different town and hotel each night, eating meals in all kinds of places, seeing many things, meeting many people and having experiences all along the way, both excited and scared me. And the riding itself felt unbelieveably intimidating. It is one thing to ride a century (100 miles) now and then, but it’s quite another to string those into back to back days, while going 10 days in a row between rest days.

Needless to say, I was facing the reality that all of my routines, schedules, optimization techniques, ways of doing life, (the narrow band in which I truly thrive), would be tossed out the window and I’d need to go with the flow, do things I don’t normally do, be around people I may or may not mesh with, all while progressing in a traveling circus type environment, while the fatigue would build cumulatively each day.

For me it wasn’t just about checking the box, riding the miles, doing the “thing.” I knew there would be some big growth opportunities in this for me, a deepening of my evolution and a sincere chance to meet myself at my mental, physical and emotional depths. Four years after surviving a serious collision with a motorist, overcoming injuries and impairments, and making my way through some really hard seasons in life since, this felt big and important.

As you might imagine, this was a HELL YES for me.

All of that brought me to Portland OR on August 20, where we began our adventure.

We officially started our ride that day in Astoria, OR, the westernmost point of our trip, where we dipped our tires in the Pacific ocean. From there we rode to Portland, and made our way east each day, enjoying several days in OR in the lush trees and forests, before the landscape switched to drier and higher terrain. We rode to Hood River (a cute progressive river town with lots of kite surfing), then to Condon (a tiny little town of 700), then to Hermiston, and on into WA where we made our way to Walla Walla — a really cute spot I enjoyed very much.

(You can read the entire trip day-by-day itinerary HERE).

From Walla Walla it was on to Lewiston, and then into Idaho at Kamiah, a tiny town with one motorlodge hotel, which we fully occupied. Coming into this area, we’d been riding in some smoky air due to wildfires and I think the motel may also have had a bit of mold in the carpeted rooms, as my throat began sounding the alarm (for me, my check engine light).

The following day was a big one: Kamiah to Lolo, up and over the pass; I knew if I pushed too hard I’d get properly sick, so this was a day off for me, spent in the van with our guide, George. I didn’t regret my decision for a second; after all this is a vacation and it’s a ride, not a race. As I like to say, there are no extra credit points for unnecessary suffering! While the goal was to “ride every inch” I also didn’t want to get myself so sick I’d miss an entire week.

From Lolo we had a nice easy and short, mostly downhill ride into the college town of Missoula. My first time here, I gleaned quickly that this is a town I could easily live in. It reminded me of my favorite places in Colorado, with the higher elevation, foothills, liberal progressive vibe of a college town and that day also, the first home game of the football season, so the vibes were extra special.

From Missoula we began making our way across the massive state of Montana, as we rode to Helena, then Three Forks and then to Bozeman. This was another short day, and we had a bit of extra time to explore. Bozeman reminded me of Golden CO, wanting to be the western kinda town that adds cowboy decor to a town of increasing wealth layered over college town demographics. It had a good feel to it and I enjoyed our time there very much.

One thing I REALLY enjoyed doing along the way, both to inform myself and to broadcast the good work of People for Bikes, was to check the City Rating of the towns we traveled through. Needless to say, some fared far better than others! Check out your city’s rating HERE!

An image I captured on my iphone of one of the full moons we experienced on the journey.

From Bozeman it was into Columbus MT on September 3. This was the day I got a text from the place where my dogs (Eli, Luna and Tommi) were staying, informing me that Eli and Tommi were both coughing. After several weeks of successfully pedaling and putting one day after the next on the trip, I was getting a call for help back home.

While kennel cough isn’t usually a big deal (kinda like when kids go back to school in the fall and get pesky headcolds), Mister Eli had nearly died from a cough- turned-respiratory infection -turned full blown emergency last summer. Watching him gasp for air and struggle to breathe had been very scary, and it resulted in him being admitted to the hospital and seeing doggie specialists (And a very large bill for me). Eli and Luna are both only 2 years old, and Miss Tommi is only about 9 months, so these aren’t elderly dogs -they’re young and healthy and in Columbus MT in a Super 8 hotel, I panicked.

I couldn’t sleep that night worrying about them, and started looking for flights. It turned out that Billings MT would be the closest airport on the trip for the next 5 days, until we reached Sioux Falls. And there was only one flight out of Billings back, with only one seat on it (no joke! I later remembered it was Labor Day weekend which explained the full flight). Seeing that as my clear sign to return to the dogs to ensure they got well, I left the trip the morning of Sept 4, got on the plane, went home, got the dogs, and unpacked. As far as I was concerned, my ride across the country was done. I unpacked fully, put everything away, told the company I was done, and I fully resumed normal life. I was sad, deeply sad, of course. It was not the ending to this epic adventure I’d pictured. But dog-mom-duties came first in my mind, and making sure the dogs got well was my top focus.

From afar, I watched on strava as the group made their way into WY, as they passed through Sheridan and Gillette, before entering my birthstate of SD, where they rode from Spearfish to Rapid City, to Kadoka, to Oacoma to Mitchell, to Sioux Falls. They got to enjoy the Badlands, which is a part of the trip I’d really been looking forward to, but they also battled SD’s notorious headwinds and more. (A part of the trip I’d honestly dreaded!). As they entered Sioux Falls, the city where I was raised until we moved when I was in 6th grade, I lived vicariously through their daily ride uploads and IG posts. It hurt, to watch the adventure unfolding without me, yet I still knew I’d done the right thing, and I was so glad to be with the dogs ensuring they were well.

As if to lessen the blow of coming home early, the day I landed back, I got this delightful email from Burley, maker of the kid and dog trailers. For years we’d used Burleys for towing my dogs by bike on joy rides, but with the addition of the 3rd dog back in July (Miss Tommi), the pack had outgrown the Burley that I owned, so we’d been limited in the rides we could do as one dog always needed to run alongside.

Well Burley was writing to tell me they wanted to partner with me as a collab/ambassador and they were sending their biggest dog carrier: the Bark Ranger XL. When it arrived I jumped for joy as all 3 dogs easily fit in it, and they were as excited as I was to resume our favorite thing: sunset joyrides. I pull them by ebike, they get to look around and see and smell all the sights, and people LOSE THEIR MINDS when they see the 3 dogs back there living their best lives ever. I call it the joy wagon: because we bring the smiles and it’s just awesome to see people’s faces light up when they see the pups riding back there. It’s my favorite thing in the entire world. You can see footage of this party-train on my IG feed if you care to see the videos of the puppy party on wheels!

I resumed work stuff and life stuff, got back into the swing of things, and would check in on the group as they rode from Sioux Falls into MN (Austin). As the dogs became totally healthy and finished their meds, I looked around at things, my calendar was still empty from the original trip plans, and I realized the group still had 17 more days to go. By any other standard, a 2-week trip is a super solid vacation and adventure! I’d paid for the entire thing, there would be no refunds or comp-backs, so why was I skipping it? I asked Trek if I could return to the trip. They confirmed they could get my hotel rooms booked again, and then said “yes c’mon back!” The dog place said “yes, now that they’ve quarantined for 2 weeks, bring em on back, we love having them here.”

So it came to be that 2 weeks to the day that I’d flown out of Billings MT (Sept 4), I returned to the trip in Madison WI (Sept 18), with several states, another 1000+ miles still to go, and the part of the trip I’d been MOST looking forward to, still to come: the east coast as the leaves changed!

I’ve always been a west coast girl, you won’t usually find me east of the Mississippi…. So from Wisconsin on east, it’s more or less all new to me. Not only that, but the fall weather is started to creep in and soon the leaves will be changing and I can’t wait to experience that! I’ve never been to most of the places we’ll be riding— and there is also a ferry ride involved, a FIRST for me! Plus, by flying back into Madison, I could join the group for the TREK HQ tour and dinner at their base in Waterloo, WI.

It is so nice to be back with the group and back into the swing of ride, eat, sleep, repeat! *This blog was written as I returned, with those 17 days ahead of me.

Normally I would not leave an adventure and then return. Normally if I am done, I am done. It helped that another rider had left the trip and was returning in Madison also. We definitely feel like outsiders as the group continued to bond and gel while we were away, but everyone has been very gracious and kind to receive us back so warmly.

This is one of my challenges in the hero’s journey: to navigate leaving a thing and to be ok having missed the middle 1/3 of the journey. Normally Megan would need to ride every mile of it for it to feel “successful.” Old Megan would have been trying to “win” the challenge. It would have needed to be a complete line across the USA, not one with a giant gap in the middle.

The truth as I already have the hindsight to look back and reflect on the first leg of the trip, is that I was out of right relationship (ANYI) with the journey. My ego was dominating, I was spending way too much time on Strava and IG and I’d let myself get sucked into some drama and gossip among a few of the riders. Plus, some riding dynamics with one rider had become so challenging and exhausting for me yet -I’d held my tongue and stuffed it down rather than saying what needed to be said. I’d started defaulting to making myself small to protect fragile egos … and I’d also become too rigid about many things, instead of allowing for more space, more unfolding, more organic revealing…

Much about the first part of the trip saw me reverting back to old ways, old coping patterns, old stories and beliefs — which is what we do when we’re scared or coming from a fight or flight space. As my mentor often says, “anyone can be a zen-master sitting in a quiet cave with no one around. How do we fare when we are out in the world, navigating real world challenges and other people? Are we able to hold our medicine then? Can we stay centered even as people/ places / things try to pull us off our center?”

This then, was the opportunity presented for me in this return or part 2 of the trip.

I look forward to sharing the second part of this hero’s journey as we make our way to Portland ME.

In the meantime, here are just a few of the photos from the first leg:

And for those who prefer video, HERE is my 2-minute recap of the first part of my journey! (or click image over here ——>)

ALSO:

I’ve partnered with CAPO cycling apparel both for this cross-country ride as well as my 2027 endeavors, and they are helping me, help you, in supporting People for Bikes, in 2 ways!

One, you can buy a pair of the “Bikes can Save Us” Socks that I designed with them, and all proceeds will go to PFB, or two, you can order some new cycling apparel on their website and use code HOTTMAN at checkout. You’ll save 10% and 10% of your order will be sent to PFB! Win win win! Many thanks to Capo for their support of my riding and my advocacy efforts! SHOP HERE.

AND— if you’d like to go on your own cross-country bike ride with Trek Travel, or go on any of their amazing trips, use the code “TTMegan” and get a $200 discount off of any trip booked before the end of 2026 (Could be booking a trip for 2027).

Here are the terms and conditions: $200 off a guest's first Trek Travel trip. Promotion available only to customers who have never taken a Trek Travel trip. Expires December 31, 2026. One discount per person. Coupon code has no cash value and is non-transferable. Excludes Race, Cross Country USA, private/custom, special edition trips, and bicycle rentals. May not be combined with other offers. May only be applied to new bookings, not valid toward existing bookings. Other exclusions may apply.