My post for today. Back on the road tomorrow.
I have to say Jared is one of my favorite people. Always so upbeat and positive, has a great sense of humor, and has lived an interesting life.
He started in high school with the army reserves and became a medic. Once out of the army, he took several different courses thinking he might want a field in medicine.
He did earn a degree in Kinesiology from Univ of MN with a minor in swim coaching. He also got an Ace Certification as a personal trainer.
Not sure what he really wanted to do, he earned a Computer Programming Certificate in visual basic from a computer and business school. He never used that in the work force but his general knowledge of computers has come in handy over time. He said he would have loved to be a professional student because he just loved learning things, eventually trying to find his niche.
He worked for an aquatic center in the Lafayette Country Club for 21 years where he taught swimming, was a personal trainer and coached a swim team.
Around 2010, he started biking to work and became hooked on cycling. He decided to bike a century on a mountain bike not realizing just what that entailed. It took him 13.5 hrs but that did not dampen his love for cycling.
He then decided to ride the Southern tier, solo – self supported. He took a bicycle maintenance class, built his own bike with help from a friend, and hit the road. He made it to Phoenix but was hit by a car and stayed in a hotel for a couple days. Since he only had 5 wks to complete his ride, he had to quit because he didn’t have time to finish.
Not wanting to give up, he checked into Adventure Cycling’s leadership classes to become a leader of organized trips. Of course, he passed and was offered a leadership position while riding on another of his solo rides. His second solo ride was to take him from MN to ME down the Atlantic Sea board and across the Southern tier to LA. But another bike accident in Philadelphia kept him from finishing this trip. Before starting out on this trip, he gave his boss 9 month’s notice, sold his car, got rid of all excess stuff, and stored the rest at his parent’s place.
After receiving notice of acceptance for the adventure cycling job, he went home and got his doc’s ok and accepted the southern tier leader job for the fall of 2015 and then the job for the trans am tour in 2016. Adventure cycling liked him so well that after that second tour, he got to pick a tour of his choice and chose rte 66 for this year. Are we ever lucky.
Between his two leader jobs, he had about 12 months to do something and always thought driving a semi would be fun. So he enrolled in Prime’s CDL license course, passed and did two months training and then ‘drove truck’ for 10 months, racking up 134,000 miles while living off diner food. Consequently, he can back the adventure cycling trailer into any spot required. I am impressed.
He has no regrets of his life choices. He has done a lot of things and most importantly learned from touring that people are fabulous and most are envious of what we do.
He now wants to spend some time doing things for himself. He wants to go back to athletic club and train for an Iron man triathlon, get back into bikini shape, and build up his savings. He has a goal to ride 50 miles in all 50 states before he turns 50 and had already done 32. He is 43 years old and will surely accomplish that. Adventure Cycling his lucky to have Jared as a leader. So Glad he is on this trip.
“Nowhere. I found the middle of it”
BikerAl Across America 2018 