Today's post is written by Todd Murdock from Western Carolina University's Talent Search, a “college connection” program for low-income, first-generation college-bound students. The program helps steer them through middle and high school, right up to college enrollment time.

I met Todd when he and a group of students passed through Missoula, Montana, on their tour of the Lewis and Clark Bicycle Trail several years ago. We are thrilled to see him out there doing it again — this time with a theme we feel is especially compelling, the Underground Railroad. Thank you Todd for your enduring leadership and commitment to "Go Greener" with bicycles, history, and education.


Going Greener, by Todd Murdock

“My view of people who are not exactly like me has completely turned around. Now, I see all people with hopes, dreams, and an appreciation of freedom, instead of the way they look. From now on I will always see people for who they are, by their thoughts and their feelings, rather than the color of their skin” —Erica, Andrews High School junior

It was the forth day of our twelve-day trip, and our group of twelve high-school students sat in a circle, discussing people. In particular, the people whose names were stamped into the metal wristbands that each of them wore.

At the start of our trip each student was given the name of a “freedom seeker,” a runaway slave of the past. Each freedom seeker had his or her own story, of course, and my students were reading them now, in a small way, as their own. These were the life stories bouncing around our circle on this beautiful morning. Some were encouraging, some horrifying; all were humbling.

“I thought I had a pretty good idea of how the slaves felt and what they went through, but now I know I can’t even begin to understand,” said a student named Anna. Another student compared slavery in America to the Holocaust — images fresh in all of their young minds, no doubt, because of our visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., only a few days earlier.

We were also on our way to the biggest birthday party of the year … the 4th of July in a big city: Pittsburgh. Most of these students had never witnessed anything like the kind of fireworks display they were about to see. More folks would attend this particular fireworks show than live in the entire county back home in the rural mountains of western North Carolina.

This would prove to be a trip of many “firsts” for our group. Most had never cooked their own food and camped for 12 days; never seen our nation’s capital, or Pittsburgh; never traveled through any of the five states we’d see between here and home; never ridden a bike for 50 miles day after day after day. Tyler, from Robbinsville High School, said, “This experience has changed my views about the word ‘lazy.’ At every moment there is something else to be done, cooking, cleaning, or setting up camp … laziness is not an option on this trip. This will be beneficial for me taking the next big step in life, which is college.”

It was the first tour for most of the dozen students. Many could not even shift gears when we started. They all discovered the value of cycling shorts and body glide. Encouragement and good attitudes abounded. These students were at an age where they are discovering who they are and what they value. Miles in the saddle helped bring out the real people they are, making mortar for the kind of lives they want to build and who they will choose to be: positive, strong, influential men and women. I watched as these students began to discover real strength and how to use that strength to help move our group forward in task and relationship.


We had already learned to make bio-diesel fuel to power our school bus, but CJ went a green step farther: he had built his bike from the most renewable and craziest construction tubing known to man — bamboo. By day four, he was feeling quite confident in his ride. CJ had been on tour before, but now he was traveling on a machine that he had made himself. He and his bamboo bike were enjoying much attention and marvel at campgrounds and rest stops every day.

Our trip was taking us to lots of places that should help foment the concepts of American history and social justice in our minds. “The one thing I will remember most about this biking trip was hitting the spots that school can’t take you,” said Alex, from Smokey Mountain High.

The trail we are rode is hard to beat for groups of students. It features a great city on each end (Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh), the two connected by 320-plus miles of traffic-free, mostly shaded pathway chock-full of great history, including Harper’s Ferry, Fort Frederick, Antietam Battlefield, and the C&O Canal National Historical Park. It’s a virtual ribbon of history paralleling the Potomac, Youghiogheny, and Allegheny rivers. The gradient is easy and the surface is fit for all but the skinniest of tires. My seven-year-old son Griffin, who enjoys a good long day in the saddle, even rode the tour with me on a tandem. “It was great dad! I liked everything. Well, I liked everything except the biking.”

Cycle touring, like any “expeditionary learning” experience, is a great teacher of personal responsibility and group living. It challenges one’s intellect and character. Consequences are clear and present. Opportunities are abundant for teaching and for enhancing leadership, personal responsibility, perseverance, and even relationship skills. As Erica said, “Instead of thinking about the way people look on the outside, I can get to know them from the inside, by the things that really matter.”

Visit Talent Search’s trip blog, see their photo album on Flickr, and read more about their trip in the article in Western Carolina University's newsletter.

Top photo of Todd and his son Griffin taken by Therese Murdock. Middle photo of group at the Lincoln Memorial by Troy Adams. Third photo of CJ’s bamboo bike by Therese Murdock.

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CONNECTIONS is posted by Ginny Sullivan, Adventure Cycling's special projects director and features the cultural, historical, geographical, and human connections created through bike travel. Find out about our award-winning Underground Railroad Bicycle Route.

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