One hundred and 47 years after the last Pony Express rider saddled up for the 11-day ride from Sacramento to St. Joseph, two endurance cyclists are following that approximate route.
The two, Spencer Klaassen and Dan Clinkinbeard, are bicycling the 1,800 miles on their own between the two cities that will host the opening of the 2009 Tour of California and the 2008 Tour of Missouri.
They left Sacramento on Aug. 24 and were shooting for Marysville, Kansas, before stopping on Friday. The pair expect the trip will take two weeks and will put them in St. Joseph by the start of the 2008 Tour of Missouri on Monday.
Klaassen has been filing updates to a blog at the St. Joe News when he can. Friday morning, for instance, he reports that they bicycled 160 miles the previous day. They've been sleeping in motels, except for the first night out when they couldn't find a motel and had to settle for a porch on a Sierra Nevada pass.
On the old Pony Express route, stations with fresh horses and riders were placed about every 10 miles. The horses traveled at a gallop and were replaced at every station. The trip took 10 or 11 days.
Although memorialized in the history of the West, the Pony Express lasted less than two years. It went out of business two days after the Transcontinental Telegraph reached Salt Lake City in 1861.
Read Spencer Klaassen's blog about his Pony Express bike tour, or see his photos of the Pony Express bike tour.
More info at 2008 Tour of Missouri website.
First seen at the Kansas Cyclist blog
I shot that Pony Express statue in Old Sacramento this winter at the start of the American River Trail
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