VIRGINIA BEACH
Keith Wise wanted to bike across the country for charity. The problem was, his country isn't big enough. So he borrowed ours.
"A thousand miles wasn't long enough," said his wife, Amy, who lives with Wise in Dorset, England.
Wise, 30, began his 3,116-mile journey in Los Angeles on July 22. It ended at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, at 9th Street.
He was accompanied by Amy and her parents, Brian and Pam Whitlock, traveling in an RV. They'd drive 20 miles and wait for Wise, pass off an energy bar or banana - "I think we bought all the bananas in the country," Amy said - then drive another 20 miles ahead.
Along the way, Amy kept a daily, online diary of her husband's ride.
Americans, she noted, get a lot of food for their money.
At a Navajo restaurant in Arizona, $9 bought "two whole chickens worth of meat on each plate... an absolutely ridiculous amount of food!" There were "Texas-sized waffles" and a slice of carrot cake in Nashville, Tenn., big enough for four people, she wrote.
She wrote of a mountain lion sighting in New Mexico, armadillos in Arkansas and dogs willing to give chase everywhere.
Amy charted each punctured tire - there were 12 - a near-miss with a tractor-trailer out West, the merciless headwinds on straightaways in Oklahoma, the kindness of strangers who stopped to offer help when the RV was parked on the shoulder.
The last stretch, Wednesday, was from Roduco, N.C., to the Oceanfront, where they were met by Wise 's parents, Dave and Joan. The family celebrated with champagne at the finish line.
Through fundraising events, they raised $12,000 for the charities - an ambulance service and a cancer research laboratory.
"We were doing it every day for six weeks," Amy said Thursday. "It seemed strange today not to get up and ride 100 miles."
Sunday, they fly home to England.
To read about Wise's adventure, go to www.acrossamerica.co.uk.
John Warren, (757) 222-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com
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