As a certified diabetes educator nurse, Montana cycling tourist Mary Madison teaches that regular exercise leads to good health.
The 70-year-old cyclist had plenty of opportunity to put that message into practice as she bicycled 4,500 miles from Montana to Maine this summer and fall. It was just the latest in a series of bicycle tours she's undertaken.
The Sidney (Montana) Herald reports Madison biked 95 days during the four-and-a-half months. The rest of the time she met with friends, took some side adventures, and just relaxed.
“Biking at a slower rate you experience towns and areas so much more deeply than you can traveling in a car. It’s a completely different experience.”
It sounds like the route she picked posed some difficulties. She was pushed into oncoming traffic by strong sidewinds in North Dakota and struggled over the steep Adirondacks in New York and Green Mountains in Vermont.
“I’ve gone over passes in the Rocky Mountains and the Northern Cascades that weren’t as difficult as some of the ones I found on this journey. … Most of the western mountain passes are less than 6 percent grade, so you’re climbing all day. It’s not like that in the eastern mountain ranges where many of the roads are very small, windy, steep and treacherous.”
Madison knows what she's talking when it comes to bicycle touring. Two years ago she completed a 3,400-mile journey on her Trek 7700 from Montana to Folsom, California. The Montana State University Collegian says she biked with 70 to 80 pounds of gear across Washington and down the Pacific Coast, but took a more direct route back home.
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