Ep. 39 - Drew Echelberger, I rode here from Kentucky

Bikes or Death

Patrick Farnsworth

Sports, Health & Fitness, Wilderness

4.8 • 563 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2020

⏱️ 136 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Drew Echelberger is a 29 year old adventure cyclist, writer, glassblower & rapper from Louisville Kentucky. The eccentric aspiring novelist, & travel show host has been making & hiding marbles all across the country throughout the course of the 37,000+ Miles (over 1.5 x around the planet earth) 30 states & 3 countries he has pedaled though solo & self supported over the past 5 years.

Two weeks ago he celebrated 1,000 days on the road since last leaving home. Last month I had the pleasure of sitting down with him on a camping trip to hear him read some poetry, do his best Johnny Cash impression, ramble on about bicycle advocacy politics, "Leaving Monday", sensory deprivation tanks, secret beaches, sky islands, & many other obscure rabbit hole bike related tangents. He describes his trip as "If Anthony Bourdain & Hunter S Thompson went on a bike tour, this would be it".

Later today he will release the clues to a newly hidden marble in honor of his 1,000 days on the road, & in a few weeks he will host a "How To Do A Bike Overnight" presentation on behalf of the Adventure Cycling Association. Follow along on his profile @NightmareTheRustyRobot to stay up to date on all latest & most recent adventures he's got cookin up in the Austin area for now & in anticipation for that faithful Monday when he finally does get back out there on that long open road. Rumor has it this time he's heading for the Caribbean.

•My Website: IRodeHereFromKentucky.Com
•Instagram: @NightmareTheRustyRobot#IRodeHereFromKentucky
https://www.instagram.com/nightmaretherustyrobot/?
•Facebook- Bike Travel: "I Rode Here From Kentucky"
https://www.facebook.com/IRodeHereFromKentucky/
•Facebook- My Glass Art: "Echelberger Glass Art"
https://www.facebook.com/Echelberger-Glass-Art-1856929101187778/
•Facebook- Marble Hunt: "Worlds Biggest Marble Hunt"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1701482663452819/?ref=share
•YouTube: Rap Song Music Video "Dr. Dundiff & Friends - State Of The Art Remix feat. Jim James"
https://youtu.be/ggOtCFZ4zoc
•Strava Interactive Heat Map (to see every wrong tune I've ever made all 37,000+ miles of them):
https://www.strava.com/athletes/645781/heatmaps/15f1f818#3/27.35231/-94.68742
•Strava Athlete Profile: "Drew Echelberger"
https://www.strava.com/athletes/645781
•Warmshowers/Couchsurfing: "Drew Echelberger"
•Article I mentioned about flotation therapy:
https://www.irodeherefromkentucky.com/blog/2018/10/26/sensory-deprivation-flotation-therapy
•Full Gear Breakdown:
https://www.irodeherefromkentucky.com/bike

• Other Featured Articles (not written by me):
http://louisvilledistilled.com/2018/01/09/cyclist-drew-echelberger-journeys-hip-hop-u-s-sightseeing-mission/
https://www.adventurecycling.org/sites/default/assets/resources/20181201_OpenRoad_CaplanidesPoore.pdf

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, bike fans and welcome to the Bikes for Death podcast.
0:04.1	My name is Patrick and I am your host.
0:07.2	And today on the show we have Drew Echleberger, who goes by Nightmare the Rusty Robot on Instagram.
0:14.9	I first found out about Drew from my friend Tom Hughes that I raced the Grand Gravel 500 with, which I'm actually about to
0:24.3	take part in like 10 days from now, and I'm not really ready. But that's okay. I first found out
0:33.0	about Drew from Tom. And he told me, he's like, dude dude you should check this guy out he is riding the
0:39.5	entire circumference of the United States and will be taking the southern tier route which
0:46.4	if you've been listening you'll know goes like 20 miles past my house so whenever I know
0:52.3	know somebody who's going to be on the southern Tier, I always try to be a warm shower host, cook him some good food, give him a shower, place to sleep, all that jazz. And I also try to hit him up for an interview. So ever since I heard about Drew, I've been watching his progress on Instagram and he was doing very,
1:14.3	very well until he got to Austin. And he just stopped. I really wanted to interview him at my
1:23.4	house. I wanted to do the whole, you know, go pick him up and cook for him and give him a nice spot and chat with him and all that.
1:31.3	But he just kind of stalled out in Austin.
1:34.3	So when I was there a month ago, conducting some interviews, I was like, all right, well, I guess this guy is never actually going to make it to College Station.
1:43.3	So I'll just go to austin and interview him
1:47.3	there anyway it was it was a lot of fun to catch up with him finally it's kind of been funny it's a
1:53.1	long time in the making uh and let me tell you this guy has stories for days.
2:01.8	I mean, he's gone so many places.
2:04.8	He's ridden his bike and he hasn't just gone spot to spot.
2:10.2	He's found experiences and people and opportunities along the way.
2:17.3	And all of those just lead to stories.
2:19.9	And this guy's got a lot of them.
2:21.6	So I appreciate him taking the time to sit down with me at a park bench at McKinney Falls
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Patrick Farnsworth, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Patrick Farnsworth and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.