Since deciding to do this trip several months ago, we’ve had things happen that have inspired me to create our first blog post. One was getting our passports in the mail. One was booking the plane tickets. Others have been the practice rides we’ve gone on to get some saddle time in as a family.

The thing that finally got fingers to keyboard, though, was meeting Daniel.

Chris was out running errands on a wet night with L&T when he first noticed the bike sitting outside the laundromat. It was a Surly Long Haul Trucker outfitted with Ortlieb panniers (bike bags), almost identical to his own set up. It wasn’t difficult to spot the owner of the bike, who was the only person around not wearing normal clothes.

Chris struck up a conversation with Daniel and found out that he was on day three of a planned 10-week tour from his home in Monterey, CA, to New York. They talked a bit about gear and routes and Chris went on his way.

As he drove away, though, Chris thought about Daniel setting up his tent in the rain.

“Should we go back and offer Daniel some hot food and a place to stay tonight?” he asked the boys.

They were all for it. Chris turned the car around to gather Daniel, his bike, and his gear. I was in a school fundraiser meeting and got a text:

bringing home a cycling tourist

It was after Chris offered him some food and a place to stay for the night that Daniel told him about the purpose of his trip: Daniel is biking for kindness.

He left Monterey with no food or money, but video equipment in order to capture what he knows will be random acts of kindness offered to him along the way. Daniel has done a lot of bike touring before and knows how good and generous people are. After this brutal election year, he’s fed up with negativity in the news and has set out to capture the goodness happening all around us. He plans to turn the footage of his trip into a documentary.

“I worry people might begin to believe the world is only the bad stuff they see on the news if they don’t get out.” he told me. “Getting out and having experiences with one another is a way for us to learn that, as a whole, people are just waiting to help.”

A piece of advice we received while looking into “training” for this trip is that it’s not as important to get in the miles or gather the right gear: it’s to connect with like-minded people who will inspire and encourage us and not question our sanity. Daniel is one of those people.

We’re rooting for him and his cause all the way to New York.