Author: Larry Newlin
Publisher: Llumina Press
Published: 2009-08
Total Pages: 238
ISBN-13: 9781605943237
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →
Coast to Coast on the Big O is an entertaining and informative look at what it's like to ride a tandem bicycle across the United States. Beginning on the Oregon coast and finishing in Ocean City, Maryland, this is a tale of two people working together to complete a lifelong dream. Larry and Laura Newlin have traveled extensively around the country, but seeing the small towns and back roads from the seat of a bicycle built for two brought an entirely new perspective. Along the way, they encountered people from all walks of life and spent time in places not normally known as tourist stops. Together, they battled cold winds, searing heat and humidity, Appalachian coal trucks, and at times, each other. With a pleasant blend of the present and the past, the story contains a history of the route as well as encounters with a wide variety of characters, from jaded cowboys in Wyoming to backwoods families feuding in rural Kentucky. Told from the perspective of two people who thought they knew each other rather well (after all, they'd been married thirty-two years), Coast to Coast on the Big O shows how four months on a bicycle makes for a sometimes hilarious, sometimes serious tale of an evolving relationship. In the end, they each discover surprising qualities inside themselves. Newlin goes beyond the romantic notions of a bicycle trip across the country to offer a realistic view of the work it takes to create a team on a tandem bicycle. For anyone considering the "experience of a lifetime," this book is a must read. Larry Newlin lives and writes in Colorado. Born and raised in the state, he has climbed every fourteen-thousand-foot peak in Colorado and bicycled extensively in the Rocky Mountains as well as the Alps. Retired from a successful career as an air traffic controller, Larry enjoys traveling the world on a bicycle. With two children and one grandson living on the east coast, Larry and his wife Laura may be making several more trips across the country on their tandem. This is his first book, but not the last. He is currently pedaling his bicycle solo across the southern United States, interviewing extraordinary characters in out-of-the-way small towns while working on the next book.
