 It's hard to believe it. We finally made it here. All right. What do we have to do now? I think that we need to dip our tires in the ocean and Maybe dip our fingers in there too like Then make out and then make out. All right. Sounds good. Let's do it Saltwater is bad for bikes We have 3,000 miles ahead of us 3,000 miles of adventures and beauty and Open landscapes and starry skies and wonderful strangers that will become friends and It's gonna be amazing. I'm very very happy to be doing this with you. I'm so grateful for you Inviting me along. Yeah, this is a dream come true. This is one of those trips in life Which is an absolute dream come true to be able to do something like this with somebody you love Feeling very fortunate right now We are in Astoria, Oregon and this is where my favorite movie the entire world was filmed the Goonies Do you like the Goonies? Goonies that probably set me off on a life at adventure Goonies! New buddy John came out of nowhere. He's like, oh, you can stay at our place. We have a bike place. What was your name? Chris. This is amazing. You can tickle that right there. What is that thing? It's a microphone to make sure the audio is good. Well, I think part of it is just trying to figure each other out every single day. Yeah, you never get it figured out. You're like, okay, so this is seems to be a common trait with John How am I gonna deal with this for the rest of my life? How long have you been together? 27 years. Wow. What's the key? What's the made at that work? 27 years. That's it. I think I think it's just we share we share this common bond of creativity. So we're constantly bouncing ideas and stuff back and forth. You know, we use each other's brains quite effectively. You're really going to be able to see the United States. And you're so fortunate you have each other. You know, no noises from, you know, you're not enclosed in a little capsule in a vehicle. How do they be 100? What is that? Sex can be fun after 80, after 90, after 100, and after lunch. This is the kind of stuff I was hoping to find, you know, just small town weirdness. We found it on our first night. Look at that windmill. It's like we're in Sweden. Hey guys. You are such little tweakers. Good morning, beautiful alley. Good morning, Ryan. No flatties, no whammies, no crammies. We'll get on the same page here soon enough. The point is we're warding off evil spirits. Okay, I can do that. We're bringing in the good spirits to protect us on our bicycles. This right here is a very beautiful road. No cars, totally lush and green. The trees create like a tunnel, a foliage. What you got there? I got some flowers in my hair. I think that it's really good that if you ever have an opportunity to put flowers in your hair, you should do it. Take advantage. Look at that. It's hard to be anything other than blissful when you have flowers in your hair. And they're coming from right here. Should we pull over right here? What do you think of him? I think he wants food. Do you have any horse food? Unfortunately, I forgot my carrots. I'll give you scratches. I'll give you scratches. That's nice, right? Oh, yeah. Why don't we just dish the bikes and ride the horses the rest of the life? All right. See if they're into it. You want to go for a little ride? How do you feel your longest day ever? I feel great. Yeah. It was hard. It is the perfect time of evening to be enjoying these country roads. And these are the moments when I've done these bike tours and I've been alone. These are the moments where I'm like, God, I wish I could share this with somebody. And now I am and she's right back there. Hi, Ollie. What's up, boy? I'm so excited to camp in cuddle tonight. Wow. Ladies first. Look at her go. She's like a little monkey. Okay. Carry on. It is a good thing we are in the northern part of the United States because we needed all the light today available. It is 8.45. How was today? It was long. And so a lot more miles than maybe my body would want me to be doing all at once. I don't have the best knees. And so they've been pretty angry at me for probably the last 20 miles or so. So just trying to like take it really easy and pedal very gently. There is our house for the next couple of months. It's a great house. Oh, yeah. It's bean time. Yummy gourmet burrito made by the Burrito Master. I made you this burrito, Ollie. For me? This is for you. Cheers. Amazing day. Morning, Ollie. Time to eat beans. Oh, thank you, my darling. Let's do it. Onward. Sometimes the universe just provides what you need exactly when you need it. Case in point, we're riding our bikes along and all of a sudden we see this Mexican taco truck. What? And look at this. Jesus loves us. We have popped out in the Columbia River Gorge. There's the Columbia River. Hello, my friends. I just wanted to jump in here really quickly to say thank you for watching my videos. I put all of my heart and soul into my content with the goal of inspiring you to challenge yourself in some way, shape or form. And if you have the ability, please consider joining my Patreon. You'll get early access to videos, videos with no ads and you'll be supporting me and my ability to continue creating content for you. Okay, let's get back to this. Yeah, like this. And since we're riding our bikes across the country talking about love, we might as well be doing spinny, lovey things. This is what they do in the movies. Okay, all right, there we go. Whoa, you got to fall. I know it. You guys got a long way to go. No one breaking a toe. We're starting our day on a really lovely bike path that's coming out of Hood River and heading us eastward towards the Dells. On a glass of cold lemonade. Lemonade is that way. What's that? That way, where it's with the way you're going. There's nothing like a little bit of cold water to rejuvenate the soul. What are you eating for breakfast? I'm eating my lucky beans. Before we set off today, we're checking out the maps. We're essentially creating our route every day. We're not following some preset across America bike path. So every morning we navigate, we figure things out and we hope for the best, right? Yeah, it's cool. Our friends are giving us recommendations and so far they've been really good. No flaties, no crashies, no windies, no getting losties like yesterday's. Oops. We're going to put some sage here for protection while we ride. I love sage. That's for me? Thank you. You're welcome. I'm a big fan of small town America and having little picnics outside of small town American grocery stores. I've got an apple which is surprisingly delicious and fresh and crispy. Once you fill them up, cheese. Oregon born and raised and made. Today has been a bit of a slog. Lots of headwind. As you can tell by the windmills, there's lots of wind in this area and quite a bit of uphill. I was talking to Ally and I was like, you know, the first two weeks of this ride are really going to train us for the rest of the ride. We didn't train all that much before coming out here. Now we're training, which is good. We're getting onsite training and we're hoping to get to a town called Condon and we really hope they have an awesome Mexican restaurant which I know is a pipe dream but you can always dream. I want some enchiladas. Give me some enchiladas. We made it. Oh my God. How are you feeling? I feel a little roughed up. Got some pretty serious menstrual cramps and it's a tough way to ride. Yeah. And we've been on our bikes for nine hours into lots of headwind, into quite a bit of hills, so you're a champ. Toughen it out. Thanks, babe. But the good thing is the sun came out, it's a beautiful evening. We're steps away from a town. We're going to eat some serious food, whatever that food is. Look at this place. This is so cool. The Condon Diners, is that it? We have a market closed. We've been dreaming about food all day and we thought we'd get here. There'd be some sort of a diner and they're all closed. This town's kind of shut down. It's a really cute town. Looks charming. But the hotel's even closed. So it's snicker bars for dinner. Yeah, I think it's probably a gas station. I'm sorry. What did you get? What did you do? All sorts of goodies. $30 worth of gas station food. That was kind of expensive. Really? That's 30 bucks, yeah. That's impressive. Since we're adults, we're allowed to eat ice cream, dessert first. Look at this gourmet dinner. We got green chips. Green chips, bean dip, queso, tortillas. There's still some leftover Nutella. We're camping at the county fairgrounds. This is only a town of like, what'd you say, 500 people? Tea little town. Here we go with our little romantic Monday evening picnic. So Ali, our goal was to find the hidden roads of America. What do you think? Oh, I think that so far we've succeeded. We are out here. Yeah, I am loving all the gravel and just long stretches of empty highway. It's really special out here. We need to find water. There's some sort of water behind the church. Hi there. Doing great. Is there a hose nearby? We can fill up some water bottles. Thanks for helping out. There's some good water here. Yeah, we come from Astoria. We're on our way to New York. Really? Yeah. We're rolling through town. We're making great time today. We stop up at the sky's house. He lets us fill up our water bottles and we're like, yeah, we're going to go to Monument. And he's like, you can't go that way to Monument. And we're like, yeah, the Google map says you can. And he's like, nope, the road is closed. I would never take my ATV up there. I wouldn't do it. He could, but I wouldn't do it. He's like, you got to go all the way up that big ass hill. Oh, boy. These are the perils of not having a root plant. Every day we're planting our root, and sometimes Google maps just throws you the wrong way. So we're going to eat lunch, cry a little bit, and figure things out. Yeah, this is a tough one. My deep inner self wants to just keep on going down this rough road that the guy's like, oh, you guys will never make it. I have a hard time turning around. Going back has never been one of my strong suits. But in the spirit of this adventure where we said that we were going to let other people direct our trail, direct our path, I feel like listening to our friend Paul going back and taking this other route makes a certain amount of sense. I'm feeling very torn about the issue. I like a good stuff. I like a good adventure, getting lost out there. And maybe we have to just sleep with the rattlesnakes and that's all right. So it's more appealing to me than just going back the way I came, especially because that was a big hill. We might be lost, but at least we're lost together. My friend Dana says you're never lost. You're just where you are. We're on planet Earth. Here we are. We know where we are. We're just not where we want to be, I should say. Slowly up the road. Almost there, almost there. Yeah, we're essentially like seven miles from where we started the day. This is a serious backtrack. It's just one of those days where we're just kind of spinning in circles and luckily it's really beautiful and the clouds are puffy and pretty. And that's surprisingly, this is called Lost Canyon Drive. It seems very appropriate. You probably don't see many cyclists getting lost on this road. I don't, it's kind of exciting. You see a couple of young people just doing their own thing. That's kind of neat. Yeah, it is. You know, you can't get through that area. You can't get through that area. I'll tell you what, I'm going to be Mr. Nice Guy and I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I don't have anything else to do. I'm retired every day for Saturday. Right up there is 4,200 feet elevation. Wow, okay. And I'm going to take your, I'm going to take you guys right up on top of that hill. Okay. And then you can go down to service corrects and say God damn fast and make your head spin. All right. What's your name? Dan Shaw. Dan, I'm Ryan. Nice to meet you, my friend. Allie. Allie, go ahead and meet Allie. We're a brand new couple. We met like three months ago. We met, fell madly in love. Oh, cool. And we thought it would be cool to go across the country and ask people for love advice. Do you have any advice? Dan Shaw? You know what? Behind every successful farmer is a wife with a good job in town. That's what they have to remember. And you're still together? Yeah. How long have you been married? We were 43 years last Saturday. Wow, congratulations. I mean 45, 45 last Saturday. 45 years. What's the key to longevity? Because we want to continue this relationship. Just be nice. That's all you have to do. Just be nice to one another. Yeah. I like it. It's kind of the golden rule. Simple. Yeah. Don't cheat on anyone. That's the worst thing there is. That's the only thing. If you start cheating on someone, you're cheating on yourself. That's what these kids don't realize anymore. Yeah. You know. Yeah, absolutely. It's amazing how quickly a day can go from we're totally lost. We're totally screwed. We're going to run out of water and food too. I'm sitting at a restaurant eating a banana fudge Sunday. Life is good. Life is so good. And look at Tater Top. It's deep quick. Bye, beautiful river. Thank you for a beautiful place to sleep. And the beautiful stars on the road again. We're slowly making our way on this beautiful byway. This is one of the least trafficked byways I've ever been on in my life. So I appreciate that Oregon. Good work. I sure did. We got married. We eloped and ran off to the beach. You just have to be open and listen and able to actually receive what they're saying because they are taking the time to be honest about it and you need to look at it from their point of view and not your own. It's important. I just don't think you can love somebody without being honest. One more. You guys are perfect. Raise your hand if you want to ride bikes. Okay, let's go. Old McDonald had a farm. There it is. Since it is mid-summer and I've been teaching Ali the small frog song in Swedish. Small grew, then I small grew, then I at least got Etsy. Small grew, then I small grew, then I at least got Etsy. Happy mid-summer. Happy solstice. Happy solstice. Breakfast of champions. Jelly, peanut butter, Nutella, beans, pineapples. Yeah. Sunscreen. Sunscreen. And I met four months ago and I wanted to ride across the country and collect love advice from people we met along the way. Love advice. Yeah, you got any advice for a beautiful relationship? Well, I'm going to tell you what. I've had not very good luck in mind. So, I can't give you very good advice. That's all right. The main thing is to keep God in your life. That's my advice. Keeps the heart strong. Exactly. Keep the heart strong. Keep God in your life. Advice to you, Advice to you. Just cuddle. Her advice is cuddle as much as you can. That's her advice for sure. How many people live in this area? Oh, unity. I think the population is about 72, 3, something like that. So, that's the last I heard anyway. I haven't counted. There's hardly no phone service, you know. Very little. I get internet because it comes by cable. So, yeah, pretty much everybody's farming, renting. Used to be a lot of logging. It's not there anymore. Some force service. Do you see people moving into the community much? Oh, not a lot. There's nothing here. It's just not too popular for young people. You know, young people like a little more lights and a little more whatever. Population, would you say it's strong since you moved here? Oh yeah, my yeah. Our school used to have about almost 200 kids. Now we've got about six. Wow. Yeah. This is something I definitely am enjoying about this ride is stopping and slowing down and just listening to things that I usually don't hear when you're in... Quiet! Listening to things I usually don't hear when you're in a car or something. Okay, carry on. What's up? We have just rolled into the town of Brogan which makes me smile because my brother's name is Logan and we are gonna stay tonight at this little RV camp lot. The soda machine is functioning. Look at that. Is it cold? Oh yeah, it is. Mmm. Guess what it's time for? And these are special ones. Spicy jalapeno. Hey buddy. Get across the snake. Go across the road. Go, go, go. Yeah, you made it. You're free. So it's pretty windy out here. All the plants are bent sideways. But today, that is a good thing because it is a tailwind and we are cruising so fast. It is very rare in the bike touring world where you have an exact tailwind and you barely need to do anything. The pedaling comes so effortlessly. Onions. Look at all them onions. We made it to a new state. Idaho! We conveniently mapped our last stop at an ice cream shop. Ali just rode 100 miles. How do you feel? I feel great. Super excited to eat this ice cream. It was surprisingly easy because mostly the wind just pushed us the whole way and I think it was a little bit downhill. But I'm gonna take it anyway. Hey Ali, guess what we get to do all day? Ride bikes. Awesome. Let's do it. We're leaving Boise heading kind of east but a little bit north first. Getting back up into the hills which is an adjustment from the flats of the farmlands but it's gonna be worth it because we hear those hot springs up here. Woo! How you like that? That's what you want to see the downward truck five miles downhill. So we just stopped off here in Horseshoe Bend at the small town and they have this really amazing rest stop. She says it's the best ice cream in the whole world. It's really good. How good is it? It's very good. It's a very big deal out here. Huckleberry only grows here in Idaho in Montana so it's not like a very easily grown berry. And it has to grow in the wild too and it's really really difficult to pick a lot of people do that and they can get a gallon of Huckleberry and it's like 50 bucks. Even though I spent my entire lunch budget on ice cream I think it was a good choice. We went in with the goal of trying to find as many back roads as we could and man I am pleasantly surprised by how successful we've been at that. We have just spent so much time on these old farm roads and forest service roads and we are getting everything we asked for. We're getting lost. We're meeting people that we would never meet anywhere else and god I'm just loving the quiet and the solitude and the peace we find out here too. It is definitely the way to go. We're going to jump in the river first and then go to the hot springs which is just steps away. Now we walk a few steps and jump into the little pool of hot water. These hot springs are fun because they come complete with new friends. How's it going? Good. There's almost a full moon behind us. This is pretty much the perfect situation. I'm so glad we came here. I mean we could have easily done east out of Boise and gotten across the state fast. Yeah. But instead we came up to hot spring heaven. This is the right decision. We've gone through one bottle of chelula. This lasted us, I don't know, 500-ish miles. Thank you chelula for spicing up our life. Chelula, please give us money. No flaties, no whammies. No slimmies, no crashes. No crashes. We're here with Matt and his daughter Anna. Matt, you've been married for 19 years. 19 years. This year. I've been with her for 23. That's the only advice I would have for you guys in 20 years when you're different. People remember you still love each other because your life will change and you will be different people. My wife and I talk about it all the time but the thing is we're happy and we can still laugh and we recognize that life just changes. We just made a commitment to stay with each other. It's the best part of life is being a father and a husband. Happiness is when you look at your children and you realize that they are better people than you. Yeah. You know, we have the headsets so we can talk to each other and you get out in the middle of the desert and there's nothing. So, we'll talk and get some of them things out of the way that you're too busy at home to... You know, it just gets pushed off. That is such a special thing to have. It's essentially like taking a hot shower. It's perfect. Camp. Hot spring. Alley. It really does not get any better than this. Cheers to our hot beans. Hot beans and hot springs. It feels like we're cheating. Like it's too nice. Oh, man. This is day 14 right here. Alley! Why don't you start us off? How's it been going? It has been a wild adventure and it has been surprising and exciting and really challenging in a lot of ways. The first week was tough. I would say that, yeah, it was even tougher than I had imagined. I didn't know completely what I was getting myself into. Definitely, you know, this is my first tour and it was hard. Yeah. But you've been a good sport. Emotionally, mentally. Yeah, I mean, I would say we definitely like... You and I kind of butted heads in the beginning. We did. And the first week was... We knocked heads more than... I mean, we're only into four months into our relationship and our little argument fights were the first time we really have ever had any drama. And so... For me, I kind of panic in those moments. I'm like, oh my God, the ride just started and she already hates me. Is this it? Is it over? Is this the way it's going to be for the rest of the trip? I don't know. But, you know, we've gotten through it and we've learned a lot. We had this fight actually the night before we left. Yeah. That was... And then we had a big fight... I wouldn't call these fights. Fights is a very aggressive word. Okay. We've had some arguments. We've definitely... We're not raising our voices. We're not screaming at each other. We're not calling each other names. But we're definitely... There's some moments where we're we're butting heads. And... Very frustrated with each other. And a lot of it is just, I think, with A, getting to know each other and part of it was PMS. I mean, ladies, I don't know about you, but when it's that time of month, I kind of at least mildly dislike most people around me. I don't want you to take all the blame. Obviously I can be very bullheaded and stubborn and I've done a lot of bike tours and I do them in the way that I do them. And it's been a learning experience for me too to have you along and be like, okay, I can't do it the way I've always been doing it. Because you're with me. And obviously you have different needs and wants. And so that, I think, we've just kind of... We just had a couple... We had it out a couple times, but not nothing bad. It's stressful. I mean, the beginning of a trip is always stressful. Yeah. But we got over that. The last week has been wonderful. And let's talk about the people we've met. Yeah. That has certainly been one of the treasures. We came out here, we came on this trip hoping to meet lots of wonderful people along the way and have intimate conversations with them. And that has just blown me away how well that's unfolded, how beautifully that's unfolded. And how randomly it's all happened. You know? Sometimes we'll be at a cafe and meet some people who are eating next to us and they start asking us questions about what we're doing. It develops into this full-on conversation that lasts two hours, you know? And then sometimes an old farmer pulls up on his ATV and starts talking to us. And then sometimes it's the conversations we have with our friends and watching, I don't know, them talk about love with each other and having them allow us into that space with them. It's really special. And one thing that I didn't expect before going into this trip is that we're giving people an opportunity to talk about love in a way they probably haven't shared with their partner in a long time. The vulnerability that we've witnessed, I mean, just, you know, the motorcyclists we were talking with today, you know, tearing up while we were talking about love with him and he was sharing the story of his 20-year relationship and, yeah, those moments are just really remind you of everything that is beautiful about humanity. Some of the people we meet, you know, they're like tough-looking Harley bikers with leather and they're all gnarled out and you could very quickly judge the book by its cover. But once you open up a conversation with these people, they're just like you. Just because they look different doesn't mean they are different, right? And I can say there are certainly, have also been times when that love advice that they've given us has been put to immediate use. That's true. But we've been spending 24 hours a day every single day in a fairly, I don't want to call it stressful environment but there's a lot of decisions to be made. We're, you know, we're riding tons of mileage, we're navigating, we're getting food, she's gluten-free. Some of the stores in the middle of nowhere don't have any options for her so there's a ton going on. And on top of all that, we're trying to have a relationship and get to know each other better and, wow, it's been a ride. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't hesitate to say it's a stressful environment. Like, we are, I mean, the physical stress even just of cycling 50 to, you know, up to 100 miles a day, that's a lot. It takes it out of you and at the end of the day you're exhausted. Especially, I mean, maybe I will speak for myself because this is new to me and I'm pushing my body, pushing my body pretty hard. I'm pretty happy with this situation. I couldn't be more grateful. Yeah, it's amazing. I'm super grateful in fact, I wake up every day and I'm just I'm just so grateful that you invited me along on this trip and I'm here with you. Seriously, even on the harder days at the beginning of the trip, I'd still wake up and be like, this is amazing. There are only two reasons why Allie stops on the side of the road. One of them is to pee the other is to pick flowers to put in her hair. I'll push you. Okay. I'll give you a little boost. Yeah. You're off. We've been climbing and climbing and climbing and climbing for like 11 miles and the sign back there says 7,200 feet. This is the highest we've been on the ride so far. I think it's called Banner Pass. We're heading down into Stanley now. This is the best water because it's cold. Straight from the mountain. Ah, it tastes so good and cold and my feet are numb because I've been standing in it. No one's saying that this campsite's the best site but this one really might be the best site. Look at that. That is insane. Allie, we scored once again every single day. Good morning. Good morning. I'm working on it. That's right. We're in no hurry. You just enjoy that sleeping bag. No crashes. No flatties. No whammies. No whammies. We're following the Salmon River through a beautiful canyon. Mountains on the left, river on the right and it's Thursday. Happy Thursday everybody! Woo! We just stopped off in this tiny town of Clayton where the sign proudly says there are seven people who live here and it sounds like it used to be an old silver mining town. Silver smelter actually. They've got a couple old buildings and old mercantile. I like it. It's got a good feel to it. And there's this cool town park right here with a baseball diamond lots of green grass being cut by a dude with a tiny lawn mower and I asked the guy in the store who's the poor guy that has to mow the lawn with a tiny lawn mower and he's like, we got him a riding lawn mower. He just likes to use the push mower because this town doesn't have a gym. Hello horses. New York is that way. Keep going. We just reached another summit 7100 feet and I can say that while we didn't choose the flattest route across this country it's definitely making up for it with incredible scenery mountainscapes, diversity of landscapes and I would say worth it. We're looking for the real biker show today. Yeah, we're looking for a biker rally. You're here man! What's this all about? We're a non-profit group the Idaho Motorcycle Rodeo Association We're a non-profit. We raise money this way for veterans group 4-H clubs and food banks. So what happens at a motorcycle rodeo? You know what we do? Listen, the shirts say it the best. Cowboys use horses bikers use horse power. I never been to one. You'll remember it the rest of your life. We've been doing this for over 20 years. This is our friend Roy. Just met him. How's it going man? We're going to see some of the that raw untamed spirit of America and so these are guys out here that will get on their motorcycles out in a dirt arena and run events that they're not necessarily modeled after a true rodeo in the sense of horses and what not but kind of the same thing. It harkens back to the days of the old bikers if you will and them going out to a field somewhere and that outlaw mentality of not necessarily wanting to be gangsters or nothing but kind of wanting to buck the system a little bit. I don't know the name of this one but it looks pretty sexual they're like greasing up a hot dog with mustard and they drive by and try to bite it. This event is goofy and crazy and they make it really seriously and it's fun to be part of this. These people are super cool. The various events are very creative and ridiculous. The crowd is hilarious and they do all sorts of like songs and chants and stuff. My favorite part is how we've been embraced by this community so quickly. We rolled in yesterday and they're like you have two wheels, you're in you're part of the gang. And the backdrop the mountains this location I don't think we could have picked a better motorcycle rodeo to drop in on. What kind of love advice do you think she'd give us? She'd probably get real serious and tell you to drink heavily and hump a lot. Because it's kind of got to be a team effort. Because you can't hump a lot unless the other side thinks that's part of the happiness, right? I think this is great advice. I pretty much worked for a damn near anything. There's always going to be somebody who's prettier or somebody who's wealthier or somebody who has you think the grass might be greener on the other side but it's not. It really isn't. It is all about the two of you. What you guys are doing right now on the road is perfect because you don't have anybody else to fall back on. It's just the two of you. You fall back on each other. That right there is a great start to relationship. Biker lifestyle is as you said it's not gang related. Never has been. There's clubs and it's a brotherhood and it's one of the thing models I go by is you get what you give and if you give respect you get it. Bikers are one of the truest people that will ever you can get off the street or pull it on a bike ride and they will take you in to meet you. Make sure you're happy to give you whatever you need. It's tough to combine Native ways and the motorcycle world. That was our goal to make sure that we could still combine the both of them and be focussetic with the motorcycle world and still Indian ways. And that's what makes us unique. Sorry to give you this good luck to it. I want to see these rooms going down the road. It really feels like they've just opened their hearts up to us and welcomed us in like family. It's been super special to learn about where they come from. There are various histories and backgrounds. You have a lot of vets here. We talked with the Native club. We talked with people from immigrants from Portugal Mexico all over the place and coming together with a common heart but very different histories and it's been really, really an honor to get to peek into their lives and their stories and have them share so openly with us. A little gas station clean off. It's 5.45 in the morning and the airplane just buzzed our tent pretty much. He's right at the field next door spraying the farm. Man, those guys get close. Almost immediately this morning we could see these jagged things way off in the distance and I was like are those mountains? Is that a weird cloud? And as we get closer I've realized that those are the Tetons. Before setting out on this trip, Ali and I had a goal of celebrating the 4th of July in small town America. And here we are Victor, Idaho. It's fun to run through fireworks. Yeah, whoa, this is high. Ladies and gentlemen, we are high in the sky. We are leaving the farm lands and heading into Targi National Forest and right away we see a sign that says be bear aware. Food storage required. Those bears are not going to steal our Nutella crepes. And if they try Ryan's going to spray them in the face with bear spray. Or Ali's going to slap them around. We are riding our last 2 miles in Idaho. We want to just give a shout out to Idaho. Idaho, we love you! And we are looking forward to Wyoming. We are in Wyoming. A new state, a new state can you believe it. Bum bum bum bum. Ah, it makes some motorcycle noises. Yeah, spin around in it. Be cool. Thank you, Earth, for another beautiful day. What are we doing today? We're going to head up over Togedy Pass and the Continental Divide. So this is going to be our last big climb of the trip. Continental Divide in the house. We're at the Continental Divide, which is really exciting, because this is where the watershed splits. Yeah, this is like the spine of the United States. Now we're heading east. Yep. All rivers flow to the Atlantic with us. And all bikers head to New York, at least Ryan and Ally. Good job. No crashes, no whammies, no flatties, no bears. You know, I've never been to this part of Wyoming. And it looks a lot like Utah. And Utah, the Canyonlands area, is one of my favorite landscapes in the world. And this is just bringing me right back to that area. We found this canal, I'm going to call it. But it's water and it's wet. And it's 93 degrees out today. So I'm going to swim in it. It's not glamorous, but it's doing the job. Definitely cooling me off. Are you getting cleaner, do you think? I do think I'm getting cleaner. Moderately, so at least? Yeah, this water's not dirty. Oh, crap, the sprinkler's right next to our tent. Ally! We've just been scrambling around stomping on sprinklers. This one's going to go off next. And there has to be another one down there. Oh, yeah, look, you made a little caran stop on that one. Oh, boy, adventures in bike touring. Ah! Yeah, we need some really big rocks. Turns out our plan didn't work. The water is just all under where the tent was. We've retreated. Sprinklers one, humans zero. Time to ride bikes! No flaties. No whammies. Ally has found new flowers on the side of the road. Looking good. What do we have here? We have a cartoon theater. We've never heard of one of those. This town has like three businesses, gas station, pizza place, and a cartoon theater. This place is fascinating. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into at all from the outside. It just looks like an old warehouse. It feels like we've walked into somebody's dream. It does. And they just spent years gathering this stuff, collecting it, and then creating this. The owner of this facility and my boss is an artist. He has collected a lot of these things from yard sales and auctions that he has attended. I absolutely love places like this. Ever since I watched Pee Wee's Big Adventure, when I was a little kid, I wanted to have a house with all sorts of weird trinkets and fun stuff. Ally's going in to the brain scrambler. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Whoa, where did we just go? Where did we just go? Now we're back on the streets of Shoshone. There's nothing in this town, like nothing in this town. This is pretty much all of Shoshone. And most of the businesses are all boarded up. And there's just not much going on here. And today it's like 100 degrees. There's nobody on the streets. And then there's this house of wonder. Yes, I'm so glad we came here. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. We're going out into the middle of nowhere. I think we're going to find some cool, weird stuff out there. I'm excited. I'm excited to get Desert Crazy. It's going to be Desert Crazy. And it's going to be Desert Crazy Hot. I think like 99 is in the forecast. Hi there. We've just taken a little detour off the highway. We saw a sign that said Hell's Half Acre. And here it is. It's some mini Grand Canyon looking thing. And now I'm looking at the sky. And it's threatening, to say the least. The rain is coming. Here it comes. Come on, Mother Nature. Are you excited? Yeah. As long as we don't get nailed, we have like six inches of coverage here. Totally. We're good to go. Ali, I think we dodged a bit of a storm bullet. Storm is seeming to go that way. I call this nature's television. Yeah. That is true. HD 4K. How are you doing? Good, Jack. Yeah, Jack, how are you doing? You're so happy, Jack. Ali, who is this lovely lady? This is my mother. Hey, group hug. How happy are you on a scale of 1 to 10? 18. 18. Cheers to a beautiful life and to a beautiful mom and food and Wyoming. Are you looting your mom's food supply, Ali? That is exactly what I'm doing. Thank you for joining our journey. I love you. I love you too. Take care of yourself. I will take good care of my baby. I will, I promise. And don't you ever make her cry. Oh. How was it to have mom here? Oh, it's always the best. Moms are the best support. We are rolling into Casper on this awesome bike path along the river. Ole, ole, ole. Look at this place. Look at this. Oh, look at this. There's our hot tub. We're going to test this place out. Oh, yeah. It looks like a waterbed or something. Oh, yeah. Roadside lunchtime. Huckleberry honey. Things other than lemonade if you guys want something else. This is when you want a lemonade stand. Ali and I actually ran out of water today, so we're super thirsty. And this is just perfect. We have so many people intercepting us today. At least Dad just showed up. Cheers, cheers, cheers. Casper, cheers. PBR, cheers. We're all here. I'm going to use this lemonade stand to stay warm. Is that okay, Bob? That's not offensive. That's not right with me. What offensive is it? How are you doing today, Bob? I'm doing good. Are you excited to ride bikes? No. I am so not excited to ride bikes. So Bob says he's not excited to ride bikes. Are you excited to ride bikes? I'm always excited to ride bikes. Okay, good. At least somebody is. Your wife wants to ride bikes. How are you feeling, Ali? I'm cold. I slept about three hours last night. But I'm going to hang out with Dad. We started out looking for love. The right chip of love between the two of you. But you moved on into the general nature of love. You had people that are entirely outside of your sphere. And you found this common humanity. And that's something that this country really needs right now. That's all kinds of love. It's human love and it's love for humanity. It's love for our country and the whole world. Group high, go! Bob met me when I rode my cruiser bike across the country in 2009. Bob and Michelle met me. And we rode for a couple of days together. And it was beautiful and we had some great happy dances. And we're in luck today because we're going to cross the border and go to Nebraska. And we're going to relive the happiness. No crashes, no whammies, no flaties. All roads lead to Nebraska. Missalicious, first leg. First leg, first place. Who's up next? Bobalicious. Bobalicious. That way is New York. Start pedaling. I'm only going to Nebraska. Oh, okay. The bike feels good. You guys are so nice to go nice and slow for me. It's good to be out here. I think we're getting close to a new state. Nebraska! Hey guys, look there's some blue sky. I really think the key to long lasting love is wanting to be together. I think it's really the only key. Yeah. You either do what you need to do to find something that works for both of you so you can stay together or you don't. It's really simple. What do you do during the hard times? You know what you do when you're pissed at him? You go up to him and he's not wearing glasses. Someone hold those. And you grab him and you don't let go until he hugs back. Touch is really important. Yeah. When I'm really angry at him, I just reach over and touch his arm or his hand because then I remember how much I love him. Bob's a pretty funny guy. Talk about humor in the role of love. You gotta have humor and laughter. Michelle says it better. She's like, you know, even after, so we've been married for nine, we've been together for 12, it's the little things that make her giggle. And it's more important to have someone that makes you happy in your life and makes you giggle. Then... Just do it anything else. About it, yeah. Because they're going to make you happy and someone makes you happy. I mean, you're winning. You want to be with them. Yeah. And then you'll do whatever it takes to figure out how to be together. It's really a nice little circle, isn't it? Yeah. And on a personal note, something that Michelle taught me. I'm just adding this in there. When they have one or two bites of food on their plate, that's not for you. They're saving the best bites for themselves for last. Oh, you guys. Love cycle. Lucky Penny. Yes. Woohoo. James is going to show us the best place to get into the water. There's a creek right here. There he goes. I like our little friend. Look at him go. Are you guys going to get all the way in? Yeah, we're going to get all the way in. Promise. Deep enough. If I was your father, I'd say that's a bad idea. But since I'm not, go for it. Yeah, there you go. Can you see my face in there? Yeah. Hi. We have a new cameraman today named James. You going to film the picture table? Oh, there's Allie. Yeah. Okay. I feel like I'm back in Honduras in the Peace Corps playing with my kids. This is what we did a lot. Just playing. And I am a master at the merry-go-round. I've hurt many a kid. So this here is Main Street, Maryman. The sign coming in says like 115 people. It's a very small town. But most of these old buildings are all boarded up. They don't look like they're in business. This is kind of what small town America looks like these days. Getting ready for another day on the road in Nebraska. Today is an exciting day because we have 60 miles until we get to the town of Valentine where the Cowboy Rail Trail officially starts. And we'll be on that for 200 miles pretty much all the way across Nebraska. And also we have two very special guests joining us this evening to ride for a couple days. And I'm really excited for you to see them and meet them. They are wonderful people. And if you've been following my channel for the past two years, you know these people. You love these people. We're so excited you're here. This is going to be so special. We're so happy. Love Cycle Train. One of the most important things to me is family. You're going to cry. I know because that's how much I love you. And we have such shared values of like love and community. And if you can find someone that like shares those values and has that passion. Like I am just like just like hold on with all your might. We made a conscious decision. I mean every single day. I would say I choose you today. Like I want to be here today. And we did that. And so we really do choose each other every day. And I think that keeps it. It makes all that other stuff fall into place. Like you got to be kind. You got to be patient. You got to be all those things. But if you every day make a choice like I choose this person today. And so the love comes more easily. The forgiveness comes more easily. The patience, all that stuff. We're not one. We're two very separate people. But we are together. And we're in it. And I never have a question about it. And having that feeling that I never have to question is such an awesome feeling. I hope you can find it. Awesome. Let's bring it for a little. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you for being part of the mission. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. I love you. All right. Love you guys so much. All right. Let's go to New York. I don't have these in Colorado. Oh, you got to jump high to get some. Maybe we don't need to go shopping today. There is nothing as delicious as food that you find yourself out in the wilderness. One of the things I like about the Midwest and Nebraska is they let you camp in city parks. And that's what we're doing tonight. What are you eating? I don't know. Mm, it's just cold water with instant oatmeal. It's not very good. Yummy. First of all, I would like Ally to show her shirt. Look at this. Oh, yeah. Look at that. She's so strong. She's like the Hulk. She's ripping through her shirt. I mean, I would say that it has been more beautiful and heart-wrenching and transformative than I had imagined. And it's also been more challenging than I had imagined. There has been, there have been moments where I've been like, oh my God, can we actually do this? Can I do this physically? Can we do this as a couple? And then there have been moments where I'm like, wow, this is, it really is like just a dream come true. Like these things are almost, we couldn't have written this out. We couldn't have scripted this. So let's say, yeah. Yeah. And to go along with that point, we couldn't have scripted this. We're always exactly where we're supposed to be. Like we might think, oh, we're not making enough mileage, but we end up being where we're supposed to be. And we're having the experiences that we're having because of the speed we're going. And at times I can get uptight about, oh, we need to be doing more mileage or whatever. But if we had been on my schedule, we would miss some things. So it's really fun to think about it that way. Cause you're like, wow, this is where we're supposed to be, with the people we're supposed to be with. And we're having the road magic that we're having because of the speed that we're going. And that's just amazing. When you have a little argument, you can't run away from it like in real life. You're like, I'm leaving for an hour. I'm gonna go hang out with my guy friends. That doesn't happen. You have to deal with it right then and there. So we've learned problem solving skills that have been very useful. And we've learned them very quick. I think we're living a lot of relationship in a very short amount of time. It's only been six weeks we've been on this trip, but it feels like this has been a year crash course in relationship 101. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that we are definitely going through at least a year of relationship in this two and a half months. And there's been times where I'm like, whoa, maybe this was too much too fast. Like maybe we don't have the base. And really the trust, trust is something that it takes time to develop. Maybe we don't have that going in. We don't know each other well enough to be taking this on. But in the end, I think it totally is worth it. And I think it totally was the right decision. You and I both go hard when we do things and we tend to like go all in. And I don't know, like, I'm not like trying to mess around here. Like I think it's good to figure things out. All right, we're going to just have a nice night in this little town park here in Nebraska. We're headed to Iowa tomorrow for Rack Bride. All right, cool. Here, do you want the money? Yeah. Cool. What do you tell him? Thank you. Cheers, Allie. Mmm. Did you make the lemonade? Yeah. Cool. There's the Missouri River. But now we're in Iowa. Woo! Look at that, fields of opportunities. The people of Iowa welcome us. Thank you, people of Iowa. We're happy to be here. We don't know who you are, but we are excited to be here. I'm starting to feel it. I'm starting to get pumped up. It's Rack Bride time. There are many, many thousands of people that participate in Rack Bride. I've heard numbers up to 20,000. And the towns, the host cities every night are pretty small. There's definitely not 20,000 hotel rooms. So they put up what we call tent cities. And that pretty much means any piece of green grass in the town is taken over by tents. Allie, why are you doing this? Because if you do a hopscotch, you get free beer. All right, do it. Did I do it right? I haven't had hopscotch since I was like eight years old. You earned a beer. Oh, look at Allie taking a shot of fireball. In your honor. In my honor. Thank you. Wow, we just walked into this party and it's totally distracting. They're like, take a shot, come here, get food, do this, do that. They just opened their house and their hearts and just welcomed us in. Come on in. They've sent us all sorts of delicious food. Yep. Sat us down. Talked us about life and love. I am amongst my people, the bicycle people, and the pie eating people. Ah, it's gonna be a great day out here at Rack Bride. Sebastian found this butterfly, it got hit by a car, and he's nourishing it back to health. He's also been teaching it tricks. Whoa, it can stand upside down. We've been biking by corn for what seems like an eternity and it's just endless sea of corn. They're adorable. It's our first water slide of Rack Bride and well, it's time to get wet. You know, we rolled in last night to town and we're pretty much immediately welcome into a family home, treated like we were family, given a big plate of food, and man, it really set the stage for what this event is. You know, people keep on saying the world would be a better place if life was always like Rack Bride and I'm starting to see what they mean. There's a sense of community here and generosity in real hometown pride. I've been both surprised and impressed by the diversity of cyclists out here. Young, old, people from all over the world, different ethnicities, and really impressed by how much fun everyone's having. People are out here and they're dressed up in costumes and they're playing music and they are just having a blast. I'm also gonna say I'm quite impressed by the drinking power. They start early and they go hard. We're walking in the United Methodist Church for spaghetti, dinner time. I've been waiting for this all day. So Allie has just traded her ripped shirt to this dude and she got this shirt. We've known each other for like 26 years and we've only been married for five but we went through everything together and then we were like, why the hell are we not married at this point? And we were like, all right, let's do it and then it was like everything got tested because from that point forward, everything went wrong. I had a house go down with a tornado, forces into Texas, I got in Texas for a while and then my disorder popped up. You want a woman that's gonna stay with you when you're completely paralyzed into bed and you can't move for like two days and she's still there? Shit, dude, you're golden, but at this point, there's nothing that can break us apart and that's just, it's awesome. And she told me one morning, I'll never forget it, she said, look, as long as you get it from morning and love me and I know that we're gonna be okay. And she said, that takes on a different definition every day, being okay. But as long as I know that we're gonna be okay, I will always love you. And I thought, you know what? I can go through anything that comes across my path as long as I know that that woman's gonna love me regardless of what I'm going through. January 15th, 2017, I was in the doctor's office. Something was going out of my heart and the doctor told me, he was like, listen, if you're done, and I was like, what do you mean I'm done? And he said, you got two choices. You're either gonna change your ways or you're gonna die very young. I was 544 pounds and I left there that day and I started a diet and I set goals for myself and I lost 44 pounds in the first month and 74 pounds by the end of the second month. And then I started swimming for a little while but then I got on a bike and I started riding. And that's where I found you on YouTube is I was just constantly YouTubeing different stuff trying to learn about it and just your positive nature and how positive you were about everything. And I realized, I developed kind of a funk where I was real pessimist and I was constantly really negative. And I thought, I need to be like that guy. I need to constantly just be smiling and happy and learn how to be that kind of excited and I think it'll be part of it, has to do with the fact that you ride a bike everywhere and you're just, you're more in touch with, I mean, the world with life. So I decided I was gonna live a less car-centric life and I stopped driving. We owned two cars. Everybody was like, dude, what happened to your car? I was like, no, I got a car, but I gotta lose this weight. So combined with a very strict diet and a whole lot of bike riding, I rode everywhere from that point forward. I never drove a car unless I was taking my wife somewhere or taking something bigger than I could take on a bike, which was very seldom because I had bikes with big racks and everything. So I lost 245 pounds in 16 months and I've been in a process across the last year training to be here at Rag Bride. And so I did the first day yesterday, I'm doing pretty good, taking off today, everything seems to be going great and I'm just trying to take it one day at a time, man. How's the new shirt? Oh, you know, when you look good, you feel good. And this morning, I feel I'm really looking good. Looking good, boys. Thanks, it's important to look good. That's right. Good morning, good morning. You having fun? So, Ali, who is this dude? This is our new friend Kevin. We just met him here at Rag Bride and yeah, he's got some love advice for us. Been married one year. Just a year, June 3rd was one year. Yeah, yeah. And my best advice so far has been intentionality, just love is never gonna stay the same and it shouldn't stay the same, right? It should be dynamic, but in order for it to change, you have to intentionally change. Every single day, try to love your partner as best as you can. That's been my best advice so far and marriage has been the best decision I've ever made in my life. Yeah, so my experience with Rag Bride has been amazing. The people are easily the best part and best reason to come back year after year, but it's also fun stopping in all these little towns that otherwise would not get any sort of traffic, but you see what I was really about, you see what the Midwest is about and just what society was before all these big cities kind of rose up. Thanks for the corn, guys. This is awesome. Would you like a plate now? Mmm, I like the butter. The kids in Iowa have been very well-behaved. I gotta say, whoever is raising these children in the whole state of Iowa, you're doing a great job. Oh, look at that. Looking good. So we just saw this bus. It says Shulton for Congress. We got to meet the guy. This is really him. He's very tall. Let's talk about love. So it's a good segue actually because our motto is standing tall for all and so I happen to be 6'6". But it goes beyond that. It goes just equality and treating everybody with respect and love basically. And I don't care who people love or anything like that. Like I just want us all to come together. I was known for our strong communities where we really work with each other and if your neighbor is stuck in the, in snow, in the ditch, you help them out. And it doesn't matter if they're Republican, Democrat, independent, whatever. And so that's the Iowa I know and I grew up on and that's Iowa. I'm trying to make sure it's right. Oh look! Five, five, one, two, three, four. Faster, faster, faster! Ha ha ha! Looking good! My mom! Lovely Iowa police officers. Did I get you a little wet? Sorry about that. Porta party party. Gotta put your back into it. There it is. So happy. Bubble! Awesome! Look at that. This guy knows what's up. Paniersmen out of trash cans. Hey there, buddy! It's our new mascot. I think he'll fit my front basket. Yeah! He'll eat all of our Nutella, though. Oh, give him, he's so sweet. How could you not want to bring him across the country with us? Oh, yeah, he is pretty cute. How did you get the idea to do this for Raghbri? Um, well, Habitat for Humanity helped me out with a roof on my house and I figured I owed them back a little money. So I am doing this for Habitat for Humanity. Surprise each other. Oh, I like that. Yeah, just surprise each other. And you don't come home today and I'm pregnant with somebody else's child. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I'll try not to do that. Boop, boop, boop, boop! Here we go, my man. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you! USA, USA! We did it! We did Raghbri! All right, Allie, only 1,500 miles to New York City. That's a finish, but we are not finished. We still have to keep pedaling forever. We'll never finish pedaling! Well, I'm gonna miss all the pie and the slip-in slides and I already missed the 27,000 people that we've been hanging out with for the past week. As a kid growing up, I always saw fireflies like in movies or on TV, but we did not have these things in Colorado. I didn't really think they existed until I went out east and I still love fireflies. There's something seriously magical going on in their little butts to make them light up. I think it's awesome. Going into the forest. Ta-da! Oh, wow! This is beautiful. This Jane Addams trail is heading us straight north into Wisconsin. Here we go, let's go! It is Wisconsin! Wisconsin! We're in Wisconsin! In the tons of mosquitoes we gotta go fast! You excited about Wisconsin? Yeah, jeez, baby. Google Maps has us on the Badger State Trail all the way into Madison. Wow, thank you so much. Can I have a high five? Yeah! Yeah, that was nice. You can have that and your brother can... Here you go. Sang, sang, sang, sang, sang! You're welcome! Yeah! Love bugs, ready to go. No crashies, no whammies, no flatties, let's go to New York. We're about a thousand miles away now from New York. We're starting to close in on it. Here we have my soul brother, Ben LaRoy. Ben lives here in Madison. It's a fact. I'm looking forward to riding with you part way to New York. Yes! For at least like two or three miles. This is the first time I've been on a bike in a couple of years. How you feeling back there, Ben? I'm feeling awesome, Ryan Manduzer. Always treasure the two of you, but remember that you are part of a larger ecosystem and that we are in time where spreading that love and light that you guys are feeling for each other, spreading that out across the world is super, super important. But what you guys are doing when you see people along the road that you're not asking questions about like, I wonder who they voted for, I wonder what their politics are, but you're just taking them on as a human being. It's so important that we foster those kinds of connections and those relationships that we see people essence to essence. And we recognize that they maybe aren't as bad as the caricature of what we think they are, but also we realize that we have a responsibility to be an ambassador for the good things in the world and that we let people see us like that. So just recognizing the humanity in people even when it's tough and it is tough. This one has a weave above our heads. The trees are just crisscrossing and they've created this fabric above us, fabric of leaves and branches. It's really beautiful. All right, we've made it to the Lake Express super fast ferry across Lake Michigan. We've really been loving these rail trails in the Midwest. We've been on them a majority of the time, barely any riding through city streets. This is great. And this trail is going to take us all the way to Grand Rapids. And in Grand Rapids, we're going to meet up with some YouTube fans, which should be exciting. Ride on Seward Avenue. How's it going? Nice to meet you in real life. You can stay. Oh, look at that. I love it. We're sitting here having a great lunch, getting to know our new friends. Baby pictures start flying around. We don't have any baby photos. What can we show them? YouTube videos. We have new friends at Grand Rapids. This is amazing. So this evening was just another one of those end of the days. We're cruising around looking for a spot to sleep for the night and just randomly turned down a road, saw the signs Nature Park. And yeah, you never know what you're going to find when you just take those random turns. This place turned out to be really beautiful and perfect. But we wouldn't have found it just looking on Google for a campground. Does it remind you of a Robert Frost poem? And I took the road less traveled by. And it made all the difference. Nice job. This is essentially the candy burrito right here. And I'm very excited about it. Good morning. You ready? One, two, three, go. Look at the little bunny rabbit. Hello, good morning. Our little love bug is looking so cozy on the back of Allie's bike. And you would think after two months of being side by side all day, every day, 24 hours a day, we'd be sick of talking to each other. But we seem to always find something to talk about. It's pretty astonishing, really. Have we gotten sick of each other? Nope. Not really. I mean, sometimes we're sick of each other. But we get over it. Yeah. Carthor Street. OK, Siri, I will. We are today going to Canada. Can you believe that? Just for a little bit. Just for a little bit. We'll jaunt through Canada, and then we'll be on to New York, our last state. This is Bruce, and he's taking us across. Let's do it. Let's do it. He says they don't let people walk across the bridge anymore since 9-11. So everybody on a bike has to be escorted, which is kind of cool. You feel very special. Really appreciate it. Yeah, awesome. Oh, Canada. Smells fresh in Canada. Smells like maple syrup. Look at those birdies. Hey, guys. Since we are in Canada, we should probably go to a Tim Hortons. I don't think Allie's ever been, have you? Never been to a Tim Hortons. Didn't even know it existed until very recently. Yes, this is such a lovely Canadian date, our first date in Canada. Yay. And I got Canadian maple. Hey, look. It's Canadian corn. And it looks just like American corn. We are now on the Terry Fox Memorial bike path. And Terry Fox, if you don't know, was like a Canadian hero. He had cancer. He beat cancer. But he lost a leg. And he decided to run across Canada. And it was this great inspirational story. The whole country was behind him. And then the cancer flared up again as he was going. And he ended up dying. It's a very sad but inspirational story. There's a documentary about it. It definitely has inspired me for a lot of my adventures. We're not going to be in Canada for very long. So we've got to take advantage of poutine. It's fries with gravy and cheese. And it's all for you. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. It's not as good as refried beans and tortillas. But it's still pretty good. We are rolling into this little RV park. And some of the long-term campers saw us and said, hey, why don't you just camp with us? Thank you so much. It's so nice of you. Hey, little guy. Did we smell different? We're American, I know. So what are we making here, Rick? Canadian double-smoked ham and some Canadian anchimima pancakes. It looks like a bottle of alcohol. It does. It's very fancy and delicious. In one moment, we were kind of totally screwed. We got to the town. There were no restaurants. We bought a bunch of junk food at the gas station. And then 10 minutes later, we were in your backyard. There you go. And it felt like home. Only in Canada. Yay! And all these people that we're meeting are so incredible and just reminds you that most humans are like that. This is nuts. I was expecting big waterfalls, but not all this. Dinosaurs are cool, though. Whoa! Well, you don't see that every day, do you? That is pretty darn cool. We made it all the way to Niagara Falls. And this is quite the treat for the end of today. This is something I've always wanted to see. We're on a boat. We're on a boat. We're on a boat, boat, boat, boat. Children must walk, not run. The decks may become wet and slippery. It has been concluded that the American Falls will eventually transform into a succession of descending rapids due to natural forces of erosion. And to this day, Niagara Falls remains a clean and significant source of hydroelectric power. The boat is vibrating underneath our feet. It feels really cool. That's the power, the awesome natural power. That was a total tourist trap, but totally worth it. I was saying that being in cities is hard for us. We're so used to sleeping under the stars and being outside of nature that we're becoming hermits. We don't want to be in cities. That is pretty. We were riding from Oregon all the way to New York City. Oh my God. Thank you guys. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it. That's a queen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Where are you guys from? We're from Queens, New York. Oh, you are. I love Queens. I spent a lot of time in Astoria. The benefits of riding a bike. Sliding right between all of the cars. There it is, New York. Oh, it feels so good to be here. We're gonna get on the Erie Canal Trail and we're gonna ride about 350 miles. It's gonna be so good. And these people want to take photos here. Let's go. It is really beautiful down here and it is, I think, a really varied trail. It's gonna be exciting going through lots of historic towns and upstate New York and beautiful countryside. Excited to see what it holds. I grew up in New York and moved out when I was 16. I didn't quite get to explore New York that much on my own so I'm really excited to have some time with it moving through at this slow pace and seeing where I grew up. It already feels like home. I made you breakfast. It's Nutella and peanut butter. Good morning, geese. Oh, you know what time it is. I feel like this is a suiting way to start this beautiful day. We're here on this beautiful location on the Erie Canal. The sunflowers have some love advice for us. What's that? Always turn together towards the sun. We enjoyed the corn fields but the sunflower fields are way better. Good to see you, my man. What a good surprise. This is a great family connection. His wife was my elementary school art teacher and one of his sons was my little brother's best friend and they live in Boulder. They have a cabin out here? Yes, have a cabin out here. Yes, and we watched Ryan run around in a purple cape through high school. Yes, fun. I was a cheerleader. Yeah, I got, you know, I got some spirit. You know what I'm saying? That's right. That's right. How'd you get started? How'd this love story start? When I saw John, I knew I was gonna marry him. He was in one of my art classes at CSU and it was like, I think I'm gonna marry that guy. When you argue, argue about present topics. Don't bring up things in the past. He said, leave the past alone and leave the past dead and talk about and argue about the thing that you're angry about right now or you just don't agree upon. I think we started off our relationship when we were so young that we both kind of were still figuring out who we were to and who we wanted to be. So I think we kind of worked together because John certainly brought out, because I was kind of more of a rule follower and he brought out the, just let's try this. And as much as I'd like, I don't think I want to, but I would try it and it really wasn't that bad. And then I think I kind of thrown him down maybe a little bit to follow some rules. She was very routine. I was not. I was not. Yeah. So I think we kind of- But see, as you get 42 years and you get older, you start to look alike. But we look alike. But we look alike. What a glorious day! Some parts of the canal path look like you're riding through a fairy tale. And this is definitely one of them. Today is our last day on the Erie Canal Trail and it has been such an incredible trail. We're gonna be sad to leave it, but it ends in Albany. And we are going to keep on going down to New Paul to spend a couple days in my family before making the final 100 mile push down to the city. We are on our last few days of riding and it feels pretty surreal. It's hard to believe that this could, that this could end, that we could go back to sleeping in houses rather than under the stars every night. So we're just gonna really stay present and enjoy it and love every single mile. We are crossing the Hudson River now. Gonna head down the Hudson for a little bit, head straight south toward New Paul and then New York City. Old monster. You do not smell very good. We are sticky. Gotta look good for Ali's family. We're riding to your hometown today. How do you feel about that? I am super excited for us to be cruising towards New Paul. We're gonna be riding in on the rail trail where I learned to ride a bike and that you see my major mode of transportation to like my friend's houses and into town and stuff because I didn't have a car so I biked there on the rail trail. It really does feel like home to be in a place that's just so fertile and so green and so lush and the rolling old hills and the old Victorian architecture. I just love the beautiful buildings. My family is amazing. There's a lot of them and it is so much fun when we're all together. We have made it to the last 20 miles of trail into New Paul and that is my beloved rail trail. It's got black dirt, which is different than any of the other rail trails that we've ridden on. And here to greet us is my brother-in-law, Jason. Yeah. And he's gonna ride this last 20 miles into town with us. So when I was just a sparkle in my daddy's eye, my parents decided to get together with a group of friends, six families, and buy this property. They bought 200 acres and most of that was communal land, but each family got a couple acres for their own private plot. So a lot of the people who created this community together are still here. This is the first house that I lived in here and my mother, my father built it together. This land will always feel like home to me. The community here, the people, the cliffs, the pond, the river, all the houses that I lived in officially and unofficially, but again, most importantly, the people. It'll always feel like home no matter how long I'm away. When I come back, it's still my land. Welcome to my brother Wyatt's house. We're here for a big family celebration and though my family is really tight, there's not a lot of opportunities for us all to get together like this because my mom and my dad and my sister live in Colorado, so do I. So they're all here and we are gonna have a super fun time tonight before we do the last 100 miles in the city. How's it feel to see us at the end of the trip? I am very happy, but it's not quite the end. We've got a hundred miles and I keep my fingers crossed and say my prayers every morning. No crashes, no smashing, so flat. You gotta make it that 100 miles. Get that wheel in the Atlantic Ocean and then I'll be relaxed a lot more. These are some of my nieces and nephews and some other ones. We just acquire kids in this family. Hey guys, say hi. Are you presentable? I'm getting you presentable. You may recognize this one. This is my very own father, Peter. Yeah, I think the one and only. The one and only. These are my very own sisters, Leah, Shiloh and Jesse. And you can tell they're sisters because we all have the same tattoo. Oh, I have to take my pants off. Well, that's okay. You have to take your pants off every day. Oh, look at that. It's beautiful. It's such an amazing experience. It's an amazing experience for you and Ryan to do together, you know? Like most people never have an experience like that together. It's really interesting. But if there's anyone who's gonna do it, it's gonna be Ally. If there's anyone who says would you actually like to bike from one coast to another like in two weeks? She'd be like, sure, yeah, that's fine. Most other of us probably wouldn't have made that decision. So, we weren't surprised. But we're so happy. And so proud of you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye to you. Happy bike ride here. God, this trip has been so long and so short in so many ways, but we have one night. We wake up tomorrow and we have 100 miles exactly to New York City. Our final day of riding. We got this, no crashes, no whammies, no flaties, no flaties. And here's a fun fact. We have not had one flat tire this entire trip. If we get 10 flat tires tomorrow, I don't care. It's pretty amazing we've gone this far with no flat tires. It is, it is not the one. Yeah, your family's awesome. We got this. How many of your family members are here? What are we looking at here? Oh, I can never count them all. This family does not hold still long enough to be counted. Good to see you. Good to be seen. High five, Leah. Boom. Are you excited to be up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning? Yeah, of course. One, two, three, no whammies, no crashes, no flaties. This kind of reminds me of that scene in Forrest Gump when he's running across the country and people just start joining him and there's a huge crew. Feels so great. We're surrounded by love. That just leaves you and me, Allie. Can you believe it? Just the two of us and you. We have 34 miles to New York City. Yeah. Oh, what a feeling. 34 beautiful, awesome miles. Let's enjoy it. We are in the Bronx. Would you believe it? Certainly doesn't look like the Bronx on TV. Well, we certainly aren't on a rail trail anymore. Welcome to New York City. It's a huge. Although this is not officially the ocean, it's the Hudson River, but eventually it connects in a roundabout way to the ocean. We started in Astoria, the Pacific Ocean, and this will go to the Atlantic. It is beautiful. We are so close to the end of our journey. I know. Esso trocala! It is time to go across the Brooklyn Bridge and fight through a sea of tourists. Look at that city behind us. That's the city we've been aiming at for three months. Oh man, it feels so good. We did it together. Do you remember that day leaving Astoria, Oregon? I do, I do. I remember the waves washing over our feet and filling my shoes. I remember having tears in my eyes. I was so excited. Then, gosh, all the nights getting lost in Washington and Idaho, the motorcycle guys. Hot springs. Hot springs. It feels like we've lived so many different adventures, like a year of adventures. I know. In the past two months. Every single day seemed like two days. We got two days for the price of one every single day. It was amazing. Every single day we made it happen. Every single day we woke up, not knowing where we were gonna go or where we were gonna eat or sleep and every single day we made it happen and we did it together. And we'd fall asleep next to a state fair or... That was awesome. I'll never forget that. Or in some random town park we were poaching. We did that a lot. Yeah. Yep. And I'll never forget all the people. Even the people we didn't really document or capture, but just the short moments we had with the guy outside of a gas station that was so psyched about our cross-country ride and tells us that we inspired him. Our time with Dana and Xantha and Bobalicious and Michelle and gosh, your whole family and Ben Leroy. Love that guy. And here we are. Look. So many incredible humans. I keep spinning us around because the audio's better the other way. This is into the wind, but there's the city. This is better for audio. This is better for audio. This is us. It's kind of surreal. I mean, for so long, New York seemed impossibly far away. And as we rode, as we got here today, it was like, are we really gonna be in New York? Cause we were like in the jungle for most of the day on these rail trails. And it's like, New York can't be around the corner. And all of a sudden, there it is. There's New York. Now we're at the tip of it. It seems like the perfect place to start a stop. It is a good place. It's the perfect end for a journey. Yeah. And by the way, this is your second century ride. 100 miles. Congratulations. That's true. It doesn't come easy for me. Yeah. No, we saved a big day for the last day. I mean, we're gonna be processing this for months and months and even years. Like, it was all so much so fast that we really didn't get to, when we took it in as much as we could, but I think as we go home and we chill out and we wake up at three in the morning, we're like, oh, remember that one time? It's all gonna, I'm so excited. We get to relive this forever. Yeah. I'm really grateful that we got to share the past two months together. Two and a half months. Two and a half months. We left June 11th. It is now August 20, something five? 25. I think my final word is that I just have a renewed faith in humanity. After doing this ride, all the beautiful people we met, there's so much good in this world. And I can't wait to keep on exploring and making new friends on this planet and just spreading the joy, spreading the love. And I would say that my patriotism has been renewed. My belief in this country and the ability of Americans to cross divides and find that place where they can connect regardless of differences and love each other. Yep. All right, I'll give you one last shot of the city before my arm breaks off. Oh, there it is. Ladies and gentlemen, New York City Love Cycles has made it. Ah! Hello, my friends. I hope you enjoyed watching this as much as I did going through all this old footage and reliving these beautiful moments. It is now April, 2021, almost three years from the start of Love Cycles back in 2018. And a lot of you out there watched the series that I made while it was happening back in 2018. And I'd always wanted to make a shorter, compressed version of all the best moments. And I finally got to it. And a lot of my friends were asking, Ryan, has it been hard to see this? Is it pull on the heartstrings and make you sad? And actually, it's been the opposite. It has been so beautiful and almost therapeutic to go through this footage again and relive the experience with Ali. What we did together was so beautiful. And oh yeah, if you're new to my channel, Ali and I are no longer together. We are still friends. We are still very close. We will always have love for one another. And I will link below some video reunions we've had that are very fun. But yeah, we are not together anymore. But watching this footage was just like, wow, this was, it was so beautiful. And in every way, the landscapes, the country, the people we met, the experiences we had together as a couple, both on and off camera, actually all the best moments were off camera where we weren't filming, where we're just standing and enjoying the sounds of crickets as the sun is going down and the moon is coming up and just, it just brought back a rush of beautiful memories. And I'll be forever grateful for what we experienced together and for having met Ali and doing this together. This was once in a lifetime. This will always be one of the top adventures and experiences of my life. So thank you so much for watching this. I really appreciate it. If you have the ability, please consider joining my Patreon. That is how I keep this channel chugging forward and going on adventures and filming and editing and sharing everything with you in hopes of inspiring you to challenge yourself. So if you can do that, great. If you can't, no problem. My videos will always be free. And yeah, I don't really have anything else to say other than thank you and I will see you down the road with a new adventure at some point.