Jamie finished his tour in late 2010, coming home with a new partner, Cristina, who became his guest rider when another person cancelled in Argentina. Cristina, from Barcelona, was traveling through South America, and agreed to take a 16 km ride with Jamie. At the end of the day, she decided to stay on and cross into Paraguay with him.
“We just kept wanting to stay together,” Jamie says. A Chilean bike company, Oxford, donated a bike to Cristina so that she could continue while Jamie picked up new passengers. Several months later, Cristina became pregnant.
Jamie finished his tour with a ride down the California coast. Cristina and baby Luca came along, with Jamie’s mother—an everlasting support throughout his expedition—driving the camper along the route.
Settling into family life in Santa Cruz meant doing things differently. “For the first time in ten years I had to go get a job,” he tells. Jamie started working for a nutrition company not far from the Peace Pedalers office. It’s there that he can often be found, steadily churning the raw footage into polished episodes, preparing it all for distribution as a documentary series. Survivorman’s Les Stroud has come on as an executive producer, and Jamie and his team are gearing up for MIPDoc, the world’s largest factual programming convention, in Cannes in March.
Jamie is reaching out to investors and major networks across the globe, driven to share his experiences with the world. He also wants to be able to help others live big and give big too, and will do so through Community First Consulting by helping businesses increase their profits while finding ways to reduce recurring expenses and from that savings establish a steady stream of support to local charities.
This past December I met Jamie in Santa Cruz and had the opportunity to ride a few miles with him and his new family. I met the trio of touring veterans in downtown. I rode behind Jamie, watching him cruise through the calm coastal town with Luca in tow in a Burley trailer, while Cristina and I rode side by side chatting about how she ended up on the back of Jamie’s tandem, riding Paraguay, and being introduced to a new way of seeing the world.
“Traveling on a bike is pure magic,” she told me, as we pedaled along the ebbing cliffs of the Pacific. Across the smokey blue water Monterey jutted out through the fog, a silhouette beneath the afternoon sun. Hearing Jamie tell his story, I’d have to agree.
Read more about Peace Pedalers, and stay up to date with new developments regarding the documentary film, at www.peacepedalers.com