Ep. 1045: Biking to Every National Park in the Lower 48 - Spencer McCullough
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2024
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On May 21st, 2024, in Acadia National Park, Spencer became the first person to complete a trip to all the national parks in the lower forty-eight states…by bicycle. It took 13 months, 18,000 miles, and a whopping 28 flat tires.
In preparation for this bicycle trip, Spencer moved into a van, cut the expenses of his life down to save money so he could take this time off. This bike trip was only the beginning of a larger advocacy project. Spencer’s goal is to make sure that if you hike or bike into a federally
managed campground, there will always be a cheap place for you to stay. This will provide the necessary support for people who are recreating without a car and offer an incentive to others to leave their car at home.
When not on the move, Spencer is heavily involved in community organizing and advocacy work. In 2020 he wrote and passed a ballot initiative in Denver County regarding Internet access and has spent countless hours helping move the needle on walking, biking, and bus infrastructure in Denver.
Learn more about Spencer:
https://www.instagram.com/spencexyz/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast. |
| 0:09.5 | I'm your host, Mason. |
| 0:10.8 | Today's an exciting episode because Spencer McCullough here recently did this trip. |
| 0:16.7 | We did this interview not long after he'd finished. |
| 0:19.2 | He finished in late May. |
| 0:21.1 | We did it in mid-June. |
| 0:23.6 | And what he did was biked to every national park in the United States outside of Alaska and Hawaii. |
| 0:31.4 | So take the lower 48 states, all 51 national parks. |
| 0:35.9 | He rode a bicycle to. |
| 0:39.8 | And you're like, wow, that would take a long time because there's national parks in every corner of the u.s and you'd be right it took over 400 days |
| 0:47.2 | so over a year like 13 months uh and it was 18,000 miles and over two dozen flat tires, which is actually pretty good for that long of a ride. |
| 0:59.2 | And the reason he wanted to do this, one, outside the obvious, seeing our beautiful country, in all the glory of Mother Nature, and the beauty and the diversity of what you see out there in the states and all |
| 1:13.0 | oh my gosh i mean it's just so gorgeous he also was raising advocacy for uh hiker biker campsites |
| 1:22.2 | in national parks and different areas around the country so So think of campgrounds. |
| 1:28.4 | There's a lot of big RV campgrounds now. |
| 1:31.1 | And a lot of times there isn't a spot for a tent or a cyclist. |
| 1:34.7 | And I ran into this personally because I did a similar trip about 10 years ago, which we |
| 1:39.5 | talked about in the episode. |
| 1:41.1 | And I only did 30 national parks. |
| 1:43.5 | And it was sometimes a challenge to find a place |
| 1:46.3 | to camp really close or in a national park, which was crazy to me. I'm like, that's what these are |
| 1:51.8 | for. And I'm so small being on a bike, it should be super easy. Why is it easier sometimes for a half a million |
... |
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