ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH, Fla. — His journey started on the West Coast. Setting off from the Pacific Ocean, Dave Klein began a 3,300 mile journey by himself with just the gear attached to his bike and memories of a friend going through her own battles.
"My good friend Donna is going through chemo and colon cancer and COVID," Klein said. "And every other, week she's going through treatment, and if she can do that, I can ride a bike and put up with that for a few months."
Not to say that Klein wasn't without his own troubles while riding his bike across the United States.
"Like in New Mexico," Klein recalled, "some serious wind was going to happen around Christmas. So I put in my longest day at 109 miles because I had to beat these winds at 45-60 miles per hour."
He even encountered some truly scary moments while camping at night in between days filled with biking.
"Like when the pack of coyotes went careening past the tent in the middle of the Petrified National Forest," Klein said. "I dove for the bear spray, but that was just a minor life experience."
The major life experience was mental with a sense of gratitude.
"And so it was an opportunity to not look at what I did not have, but look at the opportunity of what I did have," Klein explained.
Mental fortitude during a grueling journey to set benchmarks along the way.
"There was something that happened psychologically, and literally I felt it as soon as I hit the state of Florida," Klein said. "It was cool to feel that transformation happen."
Even though the bike portion of his journey came to an end in St. Augustine, the life portion of his journey to bring awareness to colon cancer continues.
"I've already started networking with people on similar projects," Klein explained. "There's a way to get the message out there that a majority of us have a lot to give, a lot to offer and we just have to connect with each other."
But for now, Dave Klein will rest and reflect before setting out on his next journey.
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