John Goldman of Elmira, who only started cycling a few years ago, took a trip from Rome, Italy, to London, England, this spring.
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Fifteen years ago, John Goldman’s doctor advised him to exercise more to improve his health.
Goldman took the doctor’s advice to heart and decided to take up cycling. Since then, he has done more than he expected – several thousand kilometers.
For Goldman, who splits his time between his home in Elmira and a summer home on Cayuta Lake, his new hobby quickly developed into a driving passion. Or, in his case, a passion for peddling.
Short trips turned into longer journeys until Goldman found the physical stamina and mental strength to cycle alone across the United States in 2022 and, most recently, to complete a bike tour through the heart of Europe in March and April of this year.
“If you can drive 10 miles, you can drive 30 miles,” said Goldman, 69. “If you can drive 30 miles, you can drive 300 miles. That was the logic I used.”
The development of a long-distance cyclist
Goldman grew up in Schenectady, New York, and moved to Elmira in 1982.
He worked in financial management at Corning Glass Works, now Corning Inc., and later joined Met Life Insurance with his wife, Liz Walton. He is now in early retirement.
Goldman, who turns 70 in October, said he rode a bike as a child in Schenectady, but he hadn’t ridden a bicycle for years when his doctor advised him to exercise more to combat his high blood pressure in 2009.
The idea of getting back on a two-wheeler intrigued him, and Goldman went to Kingsbury’s Cyclery in Elmira, where he decided to buy a touring bike.
Then he started cycling. And riding some more. When he wasn’t riding, he read about it. In 2019, he joined the Finger Lakes Cycling Club.
“I drove from here to Buffalo. I drove along the Erie Canal and on the way back I visited some of the Finger Lakes,” Goldman said. “I covered 1,100 miles in 20 days. In my mind I was on the road for three weeks, so three months wasn’t out of the question.”
Get your kicks on Route 66
When Goldman thought about expanding his cycling horizons, he decided to think big.
He was inspired by a legendary US highway that once ran from Chicago to Los Angeles and gave rise to both a popular song and a successful television series.
“I was fascinated by Route 66 as a kid. Route 66 was definitely cool,” Goldman said. “I thought, why not make it a cross-country trip?”
The original Route 66 was replaced by sections of the Interstate Highway System and closed in 1985. However, sections of the highway still exist, and Goldman used routes from the Adventure Cycling Association and combined them into a cross-country route that started in New Jersey and met Route 66 east of St. Louis.
Goldman, who said he is a planner by nature, spent several months meticulously planning his route and researching historical weather patterns before setting off from Coney Island Beach on August 8, 2022.
More than two months later, after overcoming scorching desert heat and other challenges along the way, Goldman cycled to Santa Monica, California.
He then decided to take a plane back to New York.
Throughout the planning phase and the bike ride itself, Goldman’s wife played a key role in planning and executing the adventure, which is why he calls her “mission control.”
Her duties included keeping her husband on track when conditions changed and the route had to be changed.
“Every day there was something new,” said Walton. “And nothing we expected.”
Cross the ocean for a new adventure
Not one to rest on his laurels, Goldman was already thinking about his next cycling trip while he was still recovering from his strenuous cross-country ride.
Of all the natural and human wonders in the world, Goldman wanted to see… tulips?
“I always wanted to see tulips in Amsterdam. I thought that would be cool,” he said. “I’m not getting any younger. I thought, ‘Why not?'”
Of course, to see tulips in Amsterdam you have to visit Europe. And so Goldman’s next cycling adventure took shape.
Goldman originally planned to begin his epic adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland, and end in Rome, Italy.
However, realising that the weather conditions in Scotland in March were not particularly conducive to a solo bike tour, he changed his approach and started from Rome instead.
Once again, Walton stayed home and helped coordinate the trip from mission control.
Walton was now used to Goldman driving out alone to hit the open road, but this time she was a little more nervous, with 6,000 miles of ocean between them.
“My only request was that he let me know every day by phone or text that he had arrived safely,” Walton said. “If there was a problem, I trusted the help of strangers to get him through.”
How to see Europe (at least parts of it) in 32 days
Goldman left the United States on March 21 and began his journey from Rome on March 24.
He ended his trip in London, England on April 25 and returned to the United States on April 28.
On the way he crossed parts of eight countries, including Italy, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and England.
He used trains and ferries for part of the journey, but still covered about 1,000 miles by bike. And at times the ride was bumpy.
“Forty percent of the route I took was unpaved,” Goldman said. “Sometimes trails were impassable because of rain or there was a fence that shouldn’t have been there.”
Goldman encountered another unexpected obstacle – his health.
The postnasal drip developed into a persistent cough, which forced him to end his trip in London rather than in Edinburgh as originally planned.
Still, Goldman was pleased that he had overcome all the pitfalls of his tour, including traveling through countries where few people spoke English.
And of course he achieved his most important goal.
“I saw the tulips,” Goldman said. “That was the greatest thing.”
What’s next for the international cyclist?
It was a great relief for Walton to pick up her husband from the airport after his return from Europe.
He had many stories to tell, but – not surprisingly – his thoughts were already turned to the future.
“Of course, it wasn’t long before he rested and started talking about the next adventure,” Walton said.
What will be the next adventure?
Goldman is considering returning to the British Isles at some point to complete the unfinished final leg of his journey from London to Edinburgh at a time of year when the weather is better.
In the meantime, Goldman has his sights set on another marathon hike — the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile hiking and biking route that stretches through parts of 15 states from Maine to Florida.
“If it’s too much for me, I might split it in half or do the whole thing,” he said. “Maybe I’ll do it next spring. How far I’ll go? I don’t know.”
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