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Reader Ryan Stamero is heading out on a quest to ride across the country from Philadelphia to San Francisco on his fixed gear, solo and unassisted. He plans on documenting the trip on 35 mm film, blogging throughout the way on his One Country, One Gear site. The entire trip is meant to bring awareness to Half United, a USA clothing company dedicated to giving away meals to needy children with every purchase—some 30,000 so far since the company founding in 2009. Ryan is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the trip if you’re interested in helping out.
$5 says he doesn’t even make it to Pittsburgh.
Agreed. Poor guy, he doesn’t even know it.
he’s gonna make it!
So he’s raising $5000 to ride across the country to “raise awareness for a charity. How much of that $5000 is actually going to land in the hands of the charity and how much of it is going to pay for burritos, Pabst, and knockoff Regal saddles?
hell yea he will!
I don’t mean to be a naysayer, but it seems there are a lot of details missing in this description to make this trip feasible. $5000 for a ride across the country? Is he camping? Staying in hotels? Riding with panniers holding all necessities and camera equipment? I’ve done a trip down my state on a fixed gear, but across the country is something else. I think I’d be more supportive with 1. more details and 2. knowing that the trip will aid in more FUNDS going to the group instead of just AWARENESS. The awareness has been accomplished through this video…up the ante.
In all seriousness, I hope it comes together and he makes it happen… I just find myself becoming more and more skeptical of these Kickstarter “Hey, fund my vacation!… for a good cause of course” projects.
Uhhh I don’t really see the point in this. Seems like he just wants to have a reason for people to give him money so he can travel across the country. Sounds nice, maybe I should try that.
To riders it looks like a gimmick, but to ordinary citizens these look like fantastic heroic quests. Done right it makes us all look good.
I met one of these at Peach Springs on the Hualapai Reservation along Arizona Rt 66 last June. He was riding from Ohio to Santa Monica for breast cancer or some such, on a carbon Trek race bike with as much gear as you could hold in your 2 hands – mainly a smartphone and a credit card.
Heading east on his back track I kept running into straights who were all amazement and admiration. I was rootin’-tootin’ right along with ‘em.
I don’t know if his website’s still active –
http://trekforthecause.com/
He did make it – across the Mojave in June with 40 mph headwinds – why I was headed east to Flagstaff and the cool tall timber with a potent tailwind. From there I took the night train to LA, heat and headwinds be damned.
Sounds like the guy could easily get away with an awesome scam with that wording.