Five days and 450 miles to Washington D.C.

Five days, 450 miles, on bicycles, from Alliance, Ohio, to Washington, D.C.

“No politics for a week was wonderful,” Robert Ordway mentioned right after finishing the multi-condition odyssey.

This is really a confession for Ordway, a 37-calendar year-outdated Northwest Indiana native who works as a coverage advisor for U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Indiana) in Washington, D.C.

“It was the finest portion,” mentioned Ordway, who usually peddles politics with out breaking a sweat.

He made the daring bike trek with a few good friends, Ben Hobbs, Andrew Cooper, and Brady Howell, who made a 100-mile tailor made route from Alliance to Pittsburgh, through the Appalachia area. Ordway described that very first-day stretch as “brutal.” From there, they took the Good Allegheny Passage to Cumberland, Maryland, in which they jumped onto the C&O Canal Towpath all the way to D.C.

Why? Since they could.

“We did not educate at all for this,” Ordway mentioned. “However, my quads had been sore for seven days straight just after the actuality.”

The 4 men documented their trek with hundreds of impressive shots and films, illustrating their resolve, endurance, and adventurous spirit. They pedaled by means of water, about hills, all around national landmarks, and into the life of day to day People who reminded them that, in spite of our political discrepancies, we are united states of friendliness.

“We talked to locals and bought a authentic very good feeling for other pieces of the state,” Ordway instructed me.

He moved to D.C. five decades in the past to keep on his sprawling political ambitions after growing up in an 864-square-foot property in Lake Station, raised in a conservative Democrat, union-supporting, doing work-course loved ones.

“While I did not have much expanding up, my mom and dad instilled the values — really hard function, willpower and patience — that are necessary to access the American dream,” the River Forest Higher University graduate advised me 10 decades in the past for a column pertaining to the Republican National Conference.

Mainly because he now performs for a Republican lawmaker from Indiana, Ordway is even now legally a Valparaiso resident while he lives in the Navy Property community of Washington D.C.

He credits the pandemic for the rediscovery of his enthusiasm for biking.

“When COVID popped, I utilized my stimulus look at to buy my very first $1,000 bicycle. The rest is heritage,” Ordway said.

His biking background is not so very simple, or pain-free.

Like several youngsters in the 1990s, Ordway was a BMXer who very significantly lived on his bicycles. They had been element of his identification. And then, at 16, he obtained his driver’s license, followed by his initially girlfriend. His neglected bicycle started off dating cobwebs.

Immediately after relocating to D.C. in 2017, Ordway marketed his automobile and began bicycling once again in the bicycle-friendly general public regions of our nation’s capital. Regrettably he was in two bicycle accidents, ending up in his to start with stitches and traumatic brain accidents.

It didn’t prevent him.

Last slide, Ordway finished the Seagull Century 100-mile race in Maryland. Considering that then, he commenced considering about a bicycle-packing vacation, prompted by memories of tenting with his late father, who died when Ordway was a teen.

Just after their the latest 450-mile bike-packing excursion, Ordway and his mates are distributing their exceptional route to Bikepacking.com, a well known site warehouse for fanatics.

“It’s about venturing further into spots considerably less traveled, equally in close proximity to and much, by way of singletrack trails, gravel, and forgotten grime roads, carrying the necessary equipment, and not much more,” the internet site states. “Simply set, bikepacking is the synthesis of all-terrain cycling and self-supported backpacking. It evokes the flexibility of multi-day backcountry mountaineering and travel off the overwhelmed route, but with the array and thrill of using a nimble bicycle.”

Ordway’s bike-packing journey also bundled the use of four kilos of gummy bears, which aren’t mentioned on that web-site.

“Since the coronary heart price is elevated for prolonged intervals of time, easy sugars like gummy bears are crucial to preserve transferring,” he spelled out.

“The critical takeaway is that biking is incredibly distinct than functioning, and 1 does not want to be in wonderful shape to go extensive distances owing to the mechanical benefit of remaining ready to alter gears,” he extra.

He and his biking buds altered a whole lot of gears on their trek, mostly along dust, gravel, fields, and wooded mountains, with out several paved streets to make it less complicated.

“The Pittsburgh Hole to D.C. is a typical straightforward-to-ride route, but a mate required bragging legal rights to say he rode to D.C. from his home, so we started off a further 100 miles out from his Ohio farm,” Ordway said, noting they camped outside and stayed in hotels.

For any individual who’s intrigued in earning a very similar multi-state cycling excursion, the four adult males suggest initial creating a prepared route, such as wherever to keep, when to try to eat, and what to do if matters go sideways.

Judging by the hundreds of photographs they shared with me, they appeared to bicycle sideways at occasions to get via tunnels, creeks, and floods. (Perspective extra pics on my Facebook page.)

I requested Ordway if he options on ever returning to Northwest Indiana.

“I will transfer household when I can bicycle it,” he replied.

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