Senior Miles Mathews and his father, Guy Mathews, brought a whole new meaning to the word “adventure” this summer when they biked 4,225 miles across the country through 14 states in 59 days.

To start his trip, the Mathews flew to Boston on June 17. “We took our bikes apart and put them in boxes, then put them back together once we got to Boston,” Mathews said. “It was good practice because we needed to know how to do that in case anything broke down during the trip.”

The two bikers averaged 70 miles in six to eight hours a day in order to reach Palo Alto by Aug. 16. “We started off slow, so we did 50 miles a day during the first week, but then your body gets so tuned to the biking that we could add 10 more miles for the second week and so on,” Mathews said.

Prior to the excursion, Mathews’s only training had been biking to and from school. “You’d be surprised to find out that the people we met during our trip who were doing the same thing weren’t really that avid bikers either,” he said.

After reflecting on his experience, Mathews doesn’t regret his decision to cross the country by bike rather than an alternative mode of transportation. “There’s no better way to see the country than on a bike,” he said. “With a plane, you’re in the air, and with a car, you’re in your own little world, but on a bike, there’s no boundaries.”

Mathews was inspired to attempt the voyage by his friend, Ben Sklaroff. “My friend who did the same thing but went from West to East told me about his experience, and his trip just sounded amazing,” he said. “So during the school year, I looked into it more. It was perfect because my dad was just switching careers to become a teacher, so he had some time off this summer to do it with me.”

To prepare for the voyage, the Mathews bought new bikes. Miles’s friend senior Sam Zeif designed Coast 2 Coast t-shirts with a map of the route on the back for the two to wear on their journey.

They planned their path using maps of the Adventure Cycling Association’s Transamerica Trail, Western Express and Northern Tier biking routes.

During the voyage, Miles’s mother, Emily tracked their route by using cell phones with a Telenav tracker, which took a reading of their longitude and latitude every minute, then sent the information up to a server online every half an hour.

The two traveled through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and finally California.

With the help of the Telenav tracker, Emily was able to plan a surprise visit for the two bikers. “Miles and Guy were in Iowa, and my brother, who lives in Minnesota, wanted to surprise them on the road,” she said. “So with the tracking system, I could direct him to exactly where they were. Miles happened to be at a diner eating breakfast, and Guy was in the bathroom or something. So my brother went into the diner and sat in the booth across from where Miles was sitting, and when Miles looked up from eating, he was like, ‘Uncle Neil?’”

The Mathews mostly camped outside in a tent, but occasionally stayed with a friend or in a hotel. “We would have oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and ramen noodles for dinner,” Mathews said.

According to Guy, they each consumed 5,000 calories a day for biking and had to eat and drink accordingly. They each carried six liters of water through Nevada.

Throughout their journey, Guy and Miles met a dozen others attempting the same feat. “The youngest person we met on the way was a 13-year-old girl who was biking with her dad in Colorado,” Guy said. According to Guy, cross country biking trips are common among college students.

According to Miles, one of the best parts about coming home was tasting his mother’s homemade banana bread. “You just don’t realize what you have at home until you attempt this kind of trip,” he said. “We would spend five days without showering, and when you’re biking, it kind of smells.”

Emily compared Miles’s and Guy’s cross country biking trip to a voyage of her own. “Miles’s sister Aja and I had a similar adventure after her junior year where we walked across Spain,” she said. “This is a parallel for the two guys.”

According to Mathews, he set off hoping to “meet America.” “I learned about how open the country is to other people going out and taking on adventures that show them so much about the country,” he said. “The people we met along the way were really interested in our life and our journey. In small towns, they would invite us in to camp in the park or to eat breakfast, and each person has their own background and history that you wouldn’t have guessed. We’re all so related to one another.”

Mathews said that he gained a lot of insight and maturity during the trip. “It was a great journey and I definitely encourage people to do it,” he said. “It’s an experience you can’t find doing anything else.”