{"id":1601,"date":"2026-05-21T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/?p=1601"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:15:00","slug":"people-along-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/blog-posts\/people-along-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"People along the way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 21, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Tom Ewing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In June 1928, Clara McGrew Lindgren rode her bicycle for 750 miles from her home in Nebraska to her parent\u2019s home in Wisconsin. This ride was covered by the Omaha World Herald on July 29 and in a longer article in the Lincoln Journal Star on October 28.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had planned to ride with some other girls, but they had dropped out, so she made the trip alone. Lindgren wore a khaki shirt and knickers with a visor for a hat. She carried a change of clothes, slicker, blanket, sweater, and camera: \u201cAnd oh yes, a volume of Shakespeare for light reading.\u201d After making her way through two plays, however, Lindgren decided \u201cit was more fun to have political discussions with people along the way,\u201d so she mailed the Shakespeare volume back home. Lindgren\u2019s biccle, named Cassandra, carried from 50 to 70 miles a day. She sought overnight accommodations in tourist camps or with friendly families along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindgren\u2019s difficulties were partially a product of conditions in the 1920s. She had to deal with muddy roads, which led her to catch a ride on a travelling \u201ccircus wagons\u201d for one stretch and to ride between railroad tracks for another section. In the final section, when the accumulation of gravel on her tires meant her wheels would no longer turn, she gratefully accepted a ride to reach her final destination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gender and age were important factors in the coverage of her ride. In Charles City, Iowa, she was suspected of \u201cbeing a runaway girl\u201d and was almost detained by local authorities, until the park superintendent insisted she come home with him and his wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After riding for 750 miles, \u201cpractically the first bicycle riding she had done for eight years,\u201d Lindgren abandoned her plan to ride home, shipped Cassandra, and took the train, reuniting with her husband, Lawrence Lindgren, a faculty member in the bacteriology department at the University of Nebraska. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost fifty years later, high school senior Nancy Duncan, of Berea, Ohio, also took a solo bicycle ride, although her trip covered more than 4000 miles from Oregon to Virginia. Duncan left Reedsport, Oregon, on June 11, and completed her ride in Yorktown, Virginia, on August 31, according to an article in the Cleveland Press, November 25, 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duncan echoed Lindgren in her declaration that \u201cthe neatest part of the whole trip was meeting the people along the way,\u201d who opened up their home and offered free lemonade to cyclists: \u201cthey seemed so interested in where we were from and what we were doing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI felt really lucky that I got to go,\u201d Duncan stated, as there were \u201cso few kids my age on the trip.\u201d Duncan carried 32 pounds of gear, including wearing apparel, eating utensils, sleeping bag, three pairs of earrings, and \u201csuntain oil,\u201d as \u201csunburn was the biggest problem with bikers on the road six to nine hours.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duncan offered these final thoughts on the trip: \u201cIt turned me into a kind of super-patriot\u2026The people were fantastic! They were really kind, friendly, and helpful the entire trip. It\u2019s an inexpensive and good way to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 21, 2026 by Tom Ewing In June 1928, Clara McGrew Lindgren rode her bicycle for 750 miles from her home in Nebraska to her parent\u2019s home in Wisconsin. This ride was covered by the Omaha World Herald on July 29 and in a longer article in the Lincoln Journal Star on October 28.   She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}