Farmington couple learns what’s possible on cross-country cycling trip
- jfitts0
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
By John Fitts
Submitted photos
Riding from Portland, ME to Portland, OR is certainly on the bucket list for many cyclists.
Dan and Karen Mastella of Farmington began seriously contemplating such a journey more than a year ago.
“If you ride a bike very much it’s in the back of your mind,” Dan Mastella said. “There are certain things that you know about - the Tour de France - and you know that riding across America is a thing, and [you] know about epic rides. You sort of think about these things, but I never thought I would get the opportunity to do something like that.”
Cycling has been a big part of the couple’s lives since they met at Georgetown University and that continued when they came to Farmington circa 1993 and started mountain biking together.
Dan had been an avid cyclist since his days as a paper boy but riding in the woods was a new experience.
“[Mountain biking] was new to both of us. When Dan was in Med school, we did a lot of riding at the reservoir,” Karen added. “It was a fun thing because neither of us were mountain bikers before. …It was sort of a new thing and so that made it fun.”
From there, the couple started getting more serious about road cycling, a sport in which Dan had previously participated. For Karen, it represented more serious riding that anything she had grown up doing.
“Then it was mostly road cycling,” Karen said. “We got into triathlons. I did sprints and Olympic distance triathlons, which are shorter ones, and then Dan started doing Iron Man triathlons.”
“So, the distance we rode started going up as time went on. We didn’t go very far at first and then started doing 30-to-50-mile rides,” Dan added.
Karen added, “yeah, I think that’s kind of where it came from. We just started to ramp up the miles we were doing.”
Karen also ended up eventually joining a cycling group called Women on Wheels.
“It’s just great to have a group to ride with and trade stories and tips and tricks,” she said.
It was around March of 2024 when Karen was at Trek Bicycle Newington and picked up a brochure on travel opportunities. Someone at the shop mentioned the cross-country trip.
Dan is orthopedic surgeon and hand surgeon at The Hand Center, while Karen manages Joint Jack Company, which distributes hand therapy products. So, as busy medical professionals who also have an active family life, such a trip didn’t seem entirely realistic.
But they put their name on an interest list and began talking to their families and then co-workers.
And - long story very short – it began to look more realistic as time went on.
Parents on both sides are healthy and able to care for each other. Their four kids were also set – with the youngest starting college this year. Co-workers were also supportive.
“So, we’re like, ‘oh jeez, come August everybody’s going to be tucked away. It’s just going to be us. We may have a little window of opportunity here.’ It lined up with when the trip was going – just by happenstance,” Dan said.
“So, I think it took a little bit for it to become a reality,” Karen added. “We sort of had to feel out can we really do this? This is crazy and it is, and it was, but things started to kind of fall into place and there wasn’t anything that set off an alarm that we shouldn’t do this.”
So, after some intense training, the couple left Aug. 20, 2025 - dropping their youngest off at college and - later in the day – flying out to Portland West. They began the trip the next day.
And, technically, they rode from Astoria, OR to Cape Elizabeth, ME.
They were part of a group of 20-plus riders who logged 3,800 miles. They also climbed 160,000 vertical feet while riding through 15 states over 47 days in late summer/early fall of 2025.
They’d ride approximately 10 days at a time, with one off day - stopping at hotels and motels along the way, all arranged by Trek Travel. The company also had a trailer with full kitchen, providing lunch and water breaks along the way.
Eighty-Eight miles was the average distance they rode each day, although one day was just 37 miles and 17 days involved 100 miles or more.
Both had ridden extensively and trained with coaches for the trip. Still, it was, at times, grueling.
Dan noted that despite his extensive participation in triathlons, this trip involved a day after day “accumulation of tiredness.”
“So many of the hard climbs we had were in the second half of the day,” Karen added. “So, we’d been riding for four hours and then at mile 95 it was a six-mile climb at 6% or 7%. So, I definitely felt like I was in the best shape ever, but I’ve never done the long-distance races Dan has done.”
And, of course, they met so many great new friends, who offered the encouragement to keep going.
“The people were great. Great group of people who love riding bikes and the goal was so enormous that I just got on my bike every day and the legs were ready,” said Karen.
The trip roughly followed the I-90 corridor. Out west, they were on the highway much of the time, but the ride certainly involved many secondary highways and back roads, gravel roads, farm roads and even an occasional bike trail, offering a nice break from the traffic.
There was, of course, a variety of scenery, much of it as dramatic as one can imagine.
“It was gorgeous scenery from the coastal mountain ranges covered in green. … and then, from there, we rode along [several rivers],” Dan said about the beginnings of the journey.
That included stints along the Columbia, Snake and Missouri.
“We went through the Black Hills and Badlands which was gorgeous,” Dan added. “I mean every area had its beautiful thing.”
By contrast, there was the high desert in Oregon where there’s really nothing much but plenty of heat. Fields followed.
“And then so much farmland for days and days,” Karen said.
“Once you got into Eastern Oregon it was agriculture to Wisconsin … first wheat, then soybeans, and then corn,” Dan added.
The two didn’t feel like they passed things too quickly and even had a chance to linger on side trips to places like at Badlands National Park and Ohio Cuyahoga National Park.
“The nice thing about cycling is you’re in it,” Dan said. And the towns were also dramatically different from Spotted Horse, Wyoming – population 2 – to thriving tourist towns and everything in between.
“We met the nicest people in these towns who just wanted to help us, take care of us with a good meal or something,” Karen said.
And as the trip came east, the roads became busier. But still the scenery amazed. The couple’s fellow riders were blown away coming into New England just as fall was just starting to reveal itself.
“To be reminded of it by the people on the trip who aren’t from here and were just in awe of the leaves and things like that - it was kind of a neat reminder to not take it for granted,” said Karen. “It was such a treat to bike through New England in late September, early October.”
“America’s fantastic all the way across but we live in a really nice place,” Dan said. “It’s pretty great.”
They got home Oct. 7, one day after the trip ended.
They don’t plan to take this exact trip again but have taken so much from it – new friends, new appreciations and the message that people can do so much more than they often believe is possible.
“There were definitely some moments that I won’t forget. ... I can’t do this climb, it’s too steep or how am I ever going to do that at mile 100? And I can remember those feelings. I mean right now they’re coming back as I talk about it and those are the things that I think I’ll bring with me – like you thought you couldn’t do that; there was no way you were going to finish this and then you just kept turning the pedals and you got there. That’s that kind of stuff I think that I brought back,” Karen said.
“It does make you wonder what’s possible. Well, you know you managed to do something like this, what else what else could you do?” Dan said.
“This is something I never expected we could ever do. Even if you thought you could do it, you know, physically, you’d probably never get the opportunity. ...It’s empowering. It gets you thinking gosh, you can do big things,” Dan added. VL
