Last summer, Malcolm Moncheur spent 58 days traveling across the country — on his bike.

“I was kind of apprehensive, starting it was terrifying,” said Moncheur, who is the vice president of the Syracuse University Outing Club. He said the trip was relatively unplanned. He knew he wanted to bike across the country and decided to just go for it.

In the course of two months, Moncheur followed a TransAmerica cycling map developed by Adventure Cycling. The path, which began in Oregon and ended in Virginia, highlighted cyclist-friendly areas while steering clear of large cities. Along the way, he made stops in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois and Kentucky.

“I had a magical experience every day,” said Moncheur, a senior bioprocess engineering student at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Moncheur was 21 at the time of the trip. On June 21, 2014, he and his father drove from their home in Boise, Idaho to Florence, Oregon, and Moncheur’s cycling adventure began.

Over the course of his trip, he rode down the highway while an antelope raced next to him in Yellowstone, slept in a tree house in Kentucky, spent a day feeding baby cows and herding sheep on a farm in Missouri and finally reached the victory monument in Virginia. But even those are just a few of the experiences he had on the way.

“I biked to this brewery in Bucyrus, Missouri, and apparently I was the first person to ever bike there,” Moncheur said, adding he was treated like a celebrity at Piney River Brewery because everyone there was so excited. “The owners gave me free drinks — I didn’t have to pay for a single drink that night.”

Moncheur said he learned to take each situation in stride, and being unhappy was almost impossible. “I’d wake up and I didn’t know where I was and know all I have today is to bike and meet new people and see beautiful landscapes,” he said.

Although there were some less-glamorous moments — like sleeping in a bathroom in Montana and being chased by dogs in Kentucky — Moncheur said he found he was more trusting of both people and situations than he thought he’d be.

Moncheur’s father, Andre Moncheur, was originally hesitant about his son’s journey, but knew he was going to go no matter what.

“I told him, ‘Go for it, go for it, go for it — with a huge amount of caution,’” the father said. Andre Moncheur’s contribution to his son’s journey was to drive him to the coast of Oregon to begin his trip, and when he dropped his son off in Florence, he recalled watching him from behind as he rode off.

“The minute he left was extremely painful for me,” Andre Moncheur said. “I was extremely petrified that something would happen to him. I kept thinking, ‘Well, I have to trust him, I have to trust him, I have to trust him,’ and it all went well.”

Because Moncheur’s family is spread out all over the globe — his father in Idaho, his sister in Pittsburgh and his mother in Belgium — Andre Moncheur took on a primary role in communicating Malcolm’s whereabouts and stories to the rest of the family.

“It really built the family in a way like never before,” the father said.

Moncheur spoke with his father almost every day, as long as he had cell phone reception, and his father would find himself sharing Moncheur’s story with everyone he could. The minute he got Moncheur’s phone call, he’d fire off emails to the rest of their family, full of excitement and pride for his son.

He also served as Moncheur’s moral support — when the weather was bad and the roads were rough, he would always be a motivational force.

“If you are struggling with the alligators, you have to drain the swamp,” the father said, referring to a quote he’d tell his son. “If we don’t stretch ourselves, we’ll never get anywhere.”

Ana Ally, a senior mechanical engineering major and the president of SUOC, said when Moncheur told her and the rest of SUOC he’d be biking across the country, she was shocked, but knew he was more than qualified to do it.

“I thought he was insane.” Ally said. Having done some long-distance backpacking herself, she said the one thing that can really get to someone is being alone, and learning how to be okay with that.

“He did a really great job with that,” Ally said. “On tough days he would say, ‘Oh, god can I really do this?’ And of course he did. It’s Malcolm.”

SUOC really helped Malcolm open up to the “dirtbag lifestyle,” Ally said, meaning he pushed all his other needs aside to complete his bike trip across the country and gave it all he had.

“Just do it. I think it’s good just to dive in headfirst and go big,” Moncheur said. “It really made me realize that there’s more to life. It’s about experiences.”

Published on April 2, 2015 at 12:23 am