February 19, 2026
by Tom Ewing
The Bikecentennial ride in the summer of 1976 followed a long history of cyclists who rode across the American continent. One hundred years ago, in 1925, Dr. M. Plummer rode his bicycle from his home in Maine to San Francisco, where he visited a brother he reportedly had not seen in more than twenty years. On the ride, Plummer averaged a remarkable 90 miles a day, completing the entire journey in just 47 days. His longest day was 156 miles, and his shortest day was 50 miles, which included walking 14 miles.
According to an article in Los Angeles Daily News, October 16, 1925, Plummer has ridden more than 300,000 miles on a bicycle, using just one saddle and one pair of handle bars in more than thirty years of riding. Plummer completed his 1925 trip by taking the ocean liner, Mongolia, from California to New York. On the ship, “just to keep fit,” he rode ten miles each day around the deck. A retired oculist and landscape painter in Portland, Maine, Plummer was 71 years old when he completed the ride in the summer of 1925.
Asked his reason for beginning such long rides, Plummer responded: “I just got tired of being tied down.” After his return, he spoke to local audiences about the nearly 18,000 miles he travelled by bicycle and ship. According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, December 17, 1925, Plummer “prefers bicycle traveling to other modes…because of the opportunity it affords him for intimate contact with interesting types of people, whom otherwise he would have been unable to meet and know.” In a July 31, 1927 article in the Portland Press Herald, when asked why he rides a bicycle such long distances, Plummer responded: “I like the sensation I get from moving under my own power and the feeling of great strength it imparts to my whole body. I have the feeling that the sunrise, as well as the sunset, is especially for me, and the knowledge that I am close to the people, in very friendly contact even with the little children along the wayside.” These sentiments, as well as the accumulation of miles, anticipated the experience of many Bikecentennial rides in 1976.
Plummer’s commitment to long distance cycling continued in the years ahead. In 1928, he issued a challenge to race to the four corners of the United States: Portland, Maine; Miami, Florida; Seattle, Washington; and San Diego, California. Unable to find competitors (or companions) able to match his usual distance of 150 to 200 miles a day, Plummer began riding on his own on May 16, 1928. When Plummer died at age 79, his January 13, 1941 obituary in the Portland Press Herald stated that he has “traveled extensively” since his retirement — but made no mention of the estimated 300,000 miles ridden on a bicycle.
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