The 10th National Bike Summit in Washington DC was last week. This three day event was a great opportunity to learn the latest on bike advocacy issues, lobby Congress, and network with peers. I was attending this wearing a two main MTGA hats: Detroit Greenways Coordinator and Michigan Airline Trail Ambassador.

Sometimes the reason for doing something lies in the act itself. When a scraggly bearded Forrest Gump was asked by a group of reporters in the movie of the same name why he took up and started running across the country, he replied, "I just felt like running." To a less-than-seasoned athlete, a trek across the country might seem like an impossibility, but a group of local bicyclists has felt the pull of the pavement. The group, sponsored by the Decatur Bicycle Club, Decatur Athletic Club and Spin City Cycles, started this week on a trip across the southern U.S. from St. Augustine, Fla. to San Diego.

The route of our 1984 cross-country bicycle tour is still pretty much imprinted on my brain. So when Google announced it had created bike directions for Google maps, I was interested to see how its suggested route compared with the route we took 25-some years ago.

Just a reminder to all our Austin readers and friends that we’re doing a presentation at the REI in downtown Austin THIS Thursday at 6:30pm. It should run for about an hour with plenty of time for Q&A. If you definitely want to get in, we encourage you to register online for the event: http://www.rei.com/event/2614/session/3119.

Kathy Heydorn was resting on a park bench when her life changed forever. It was a warm Friday afternoon in May, and Heydorn, a former triathlete and a long-distance cyclist for 30 years, just had finished a bike ride. She was talking on her cell phone, making plans for dinner with a friend, when a pickup truck driven by someone later found to be high on drugs came barreling straight at her. The impact left Heydorn with myriad injuries: Her pelvis was broken in two places. All the ribs on her left side were fractured, as was her shoulder blade. Her spinal cord was bruised so badly, she couldn't move her legs or her arms. She had to stay in bed for a month until she could start physical therapy.

Travelers driving between Chicago and LA used to get their kicks on Route 66 before it was essentially decommissioned in the 1980s with the emergence of the Interstate Highway system.

Now some surviving portions of the Mother Road in the Midwest have become destinations for bicycle tours while other abandoned stretches are being considered for bicycle trails.

The old highway, which dates back to 1920s, sounds like a great place to travel by bike today -- in places. It wends across the landscape visiting small towns and passing the old-timey car culture claptrap of art-deco-style motels and diners bright with neon.

Elsewhere, of course, it's buried under freeways, becomes part of a frontage road system or just disappears. In the West, parts of the old highway take off across endless miles of desert.

The schedule for this one-day educational and networking event has now been added to the Web site at http://industry.exploreminnesota.com/2010-bicycle-tourism-summit/.

Jim Sayer, Executive Director for Adventure Cycling, will be the keynote speaker. Jim has assisted convention bureaus and the state of Idaho with developing bicycle tourism, and is making a presentation at the National Bike Summit in March on this topic.

Washington resident Durwood Moore’s longest, most-daunting bike trip likely will be his last.

Moore, 71, is in the midst of a cross-country journey along the Southern Tier Route, which is mapped out by the Adventure Cycling Association. The route stretches from San Diego, along the U.S.-Mexican border, to Florida’s Atlantic coastline. Hundreds of cycling enthusiasts take the 3,000-mile-plus trip every year. At the end of the route, Moore will turn north and travel through Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina to Washington.

“I’ve been reading for four or five years about people taking this trip. At my age, I figured I better do it now,” Moore said via cell phone Tuesday evening. At that time, Moore said, he was between El Paso and Del Rio, Texas, about 1,000 miles into his trip.

Besides the magnificent beauty of the Arizona mountains, Moore said, the generosity of the American people has stood out most to him, so far, during his trip.

The New Belgium Brewing Company are well known across the US for their Fat Tire amber ale, and their financial donations to the bike-focused non-profit and advocacy world have further endeared them to cyclists.

In her 40s, Vicki Bunn-Cohen discovered setting a simple goal, like reaching age 50, made her feel happier. Deciding to cycle across the United States changed her life.

At the Bandon Library Friends and Foundation Travel Night in January BLFF volunteer John Logan asked Bunn-Cohen to pinpoint the most striking element of her 17-state experience, the physical experience, the visual landscapes, the people she encountered.

After a moment’s thought, Bunn-Cohen responded, “Every moment that I lived in the last two years means something to me today.”