About Us

Chris and Alan

Chris and Alan.

We are Alan & Chris Penny, brothers who live near Oxford and Swindon respectively. Alan 52 retired from Thames Valley Police in September 2009 after 30years service and Chris 56 is the Volunteer Coordinator for the National Trust at Avebury.

Our first long cycling tour was Land’s End to John O’Groats. It’s the British equivalent of the Transam on a much smaller scale but for us, back in 1995, it was a hard slog. We took too much gear, hadn’t trained properly, didn’t pace ourselves, ate the wrong food at the wrong time and generally had a tough time. Despite all that, the moment we reached John O’Groats we wanted to do it all again!

Apart from a Hotel, a few houses and a pottery shop we don’t remember much else being at John O’Groats so arrivingĀ  was a bit of an anti climax after our struggle to get there. At that very moment we decided that in future our bike tours would end somewhere a little more exotic.

Since that ride we have planned and completed several 1,000+ mile unsupported tours across Europe. We’ve ridden to Barcelona, Rome, Monaco (via Bilbao and the Pyrenees) and Budapest and completed several localĀ  UK tours with Sustrans.

Long distance cycling is somewhat addictive so there’s always been a desire to do something more ambitious but home and work commitments made it impossible to find the time, until now. Cycling across America has been an ambition for at least 10 years and now that Alan has retired and Chris has been given the time off work it’s game on.

We’ve also wanted to do something to raise money for Cancer Research so this is the perfect opportunity to combine these desires. We are under no illusions that this ride will be easy. Cycling for 85miles a day, fully loaded for 51 days will test us for sure. The weather, temperatures, terrain and altitude are all more extreme than we’re accustomed to cycling in Europe.

Despite all that we can’t wait to get going and once again savour that simplistic day to day life on the bikes and see America for the first time.

Alan & Chris