Hello! I am Ben. I love bikes — and more so, people. I’ve spent my career as a an entrepreneur and consultant. I found that stuff a bit dry and now have dreams of finding a career that allows me to exercise tolerance and openmindedness towards others and thus a career where I can savor the splendid joy of connecting with other humans.

I started on May 10th in DC and am headed to Seattle. I expect to arrive early September.

Cycling across the USA has been a dream for a while now. But the unsexy inspiration behind this journey is that I had a romantic idea of van camping around the USA like every other 20 year old trapped in routine society, and after quitting a marketing job last summer, I realized I didn’t have $50,000 lying around to buy a van. I wanted something to do that summer, so I slapped a tent on my bike and had a blast biking around on different overnight trips. There are countless stories in those first few trips about eye opening conversations with strangers, and the kindness of the people in this country.

On all my tours and on this trip, I have experienced radical kindness unfathomable to myself just a few years ago. I have been welcomed into homes, fed steaks the size of the moon, offered a brand new bike, given 100-mile rides across states after accidents…

People have covered my bills at restaurants, taken the tubes out of their own bikes to get me going again, given me the keys to their home…

It has been a mind altering experience to speak with new people and new places. It has been a privledge.

To be frank, I don’t even like riding bikes that much, this is just a good excuse to talk to people I would never get the chance to talk to anyway.

I am wholeheartedly convinced that this country is full of great, hardworking people who are just trying to get by, put food on the table, and help their neighbor when they get their chance. Any news or blogs or social media that tells you otherwise is probably more intent on getting eyeballs than distributing the truth. As a Chinese-American in rural Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and now South Dakota, I have experienced almost nothing but the greatest kindness and generosity imaginable.

Stay tuned for more!