By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 20, 2002
BAYONET POINT -- Even a grizzly bear couldn't break Myron Mueller's pace. But after a harrowing experience in Alaska when a bear crossed in front of his bicycle, the 70-year-old got himself a canister of pepper spray.
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[Times photo: Michele
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That and a T-shirt that reads, "Meals on Wheels."
Now Mueller is tackling a new adventure with 41-year-old friend Jim Stout: the two are pedaling around the perimeter of the United States.
So far, their travels have brought them through an unfriendly American Indian reservation in Arizona, barren west Texas and the quiet country roads of Florida's Panhandle.
Three months after leaving California, the pair passed through the North Suncoast, stopping at Bayonet Point this week to stay with Stout's relatives for a night.
The reason for the ride? It's not to raise funds or draw attention to a cause. Although one man they met in their travels hopes to list Mueller in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest person to bike the country's rim, that's not why the pair set out.
"Everyone is asking us why we're doing it," said Mueller, with a kerchief on his head the colors of the American flag. "It's for fun!"
They were taking a brief break Monday before heading down U.S. 19 for the Pinellas Trail in Tarpon Springs. They hoped to hitch a ride on a pickup truck across the Sunshine Skyway and then bike to U.S. 41 toward Miami. It's hard to miss them in fluorescent orange and yellow vests.
"We don't want to be part of the scenery," Stout explains.
The two met during a cross-country bike trip two years ago, from Virginia to Oregon. That ride was a mere 4,700 miles. This trip will be far longer than their other tours -- 15,000 miles. They have no deadline to complete the journey. They're just hoping to wrap up in California by the end of this year or early 2003.
"We have to be over the Cascade Mountains (in Washington) before snow closes the roads," Stout said.
If they finish, they'll join a small group of fellow pedalers.
The Perimeter Bicycling Association of America Inc. in Tucson, Ariz., recognizes eight cyclists as completing a tour around the rim of the United States, said founder and president Richard DeBernardis, who is one of them.
Another four cyclists are thought to have done the job, but DeBernardis can't find them.
At the end of Mueller's tour, the Perimeter group will submit his name for the Guinness World Record as the oldest person to bike the country's perimeter. The next oldest person was a 65-year-old Colorado man who did the trip alone in the late 1970s.
"It's rare for someone to do trips like this, particularly someone of this age," DeBernardis said.
Mueller and Stout didn't even know about the perimeter group when they started their journey.
"They bicycled into (Tucson) and went to a bicycle shop and told them what they were doing," said DeBernardis, whose office is across town from the shop. The store employees told them, "'You have to go over and meet Richard,' " he said.
Stout got the idea for the perimeter bike tour from a friend, who promised to ride it with him when he got back from a bike tour in Chile. But that friend hurt his knee -- climbing out of a tent.
So Stout turned to Mueller, who didn't hesitate, despite his age.
"I'm as strong as him," Mueller said, waving at Stout.
Mueller, who is from Encinitas, Calif., which is near San Diego, is retired from Rancho Sante Fe Security Systems Inc., a company he ran for about 30 years.
Stout, who is from the San Francisco area, saved up money for the ride from working in an auto manufacturing company, where he might return at the end of his trip. Neither has any romantic ties back home.
"I retire for a year every couple of years," Stout said.
The two carry a global positioning system to track their way. Instead of using routes published by organized bicycle tours outfits, the two rely on maps and advice from strangers. That's also a good way to meet people, they say. The bikes seem to break down barriers.
"When they see bikes, there's always someone asking questions," Mueller said.
Still, sometimes they get turned away at RV parks, where they spend their nights camping. And at one American Indian reservation in Arizona, they were told not to dally. Someone turned the American flag on Stout's bike upside down.
But most people are friendly, at times taking them into their homes and giving them meals.
To be safe, the two both pull about 100 pounds worth of food and other goods on a wheeled trailer behind their bikes.
The physical toll -- about 50 to 60 miles a day at about 10 mph -- is the easiest part of the trip, they said.
Instead, what drains them most, they say, is the psychological hardships: worrying about where to sleep and beating the monotony of the road.
"I don't like it when there's nothing for miles," Mueller said. "West Texas was a chore."
Stout said one of the highlights so far was learning through e-mail from an uncle that he has relatives in Bayonet Point.
Stout and Mueller check their e-mail every day through PocketMail, a handheld keyboard they can plug into any phone receiver. That's how they update their Internet journal, by sending e-mails to relatives, who put them on the pair's Web site.
After Stout got word about his Florida connections, he and Mueller stopped to call Patty Leitner, Stout's third cousin, and her husband, Richard, from Levy County on Friday. The Leitners were shocked when they got the call.
"I've never met him," Patty Leitner said. "At first I thought it was his father, but his father has polio and I knew he couldn't be out riding a bike."
Stout and Mueller pulled into Bayonet Point last Sunday. For starters, the Leitners treated each of them to two bulging ham-and-cheese sandwiches.
"I never saw someone who could eat so much," said Leitner, who didn't know what to expect of a cyclist's appetite. "They ate all the cupcakes and the sandwiches and the chips and dip."
Between meals, Stout and Mueller delighted the Leitners with their stories. Mueller proved to be quite the inspiration for other reasons. The Leitners are both in their early 70s.
"He's just really got it," Patty Leitner said. "I think I better get out and catch up on my walking. We've been lax. I think I better get back to that."
Three basic things have kept Mueller so fit all these years, he says: nutritious food, exercise and herbal supplements.
"He's a health nut and I'm a total Big Mac (eater)," Stout said. "I set out on the trip to convert him. The opposite is happening. I'm eating spinach."
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Copyright 2002-2004 St. Petersburg Times.
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