Winter Texan bikes almost 1,300 miles to get back to Valley

As a child in Nebraska, Steve Vandenberg had 11 siblings and a mother who did not drive.

He pedaled all over Omaha. He rode to school, he biked to the store, hauling home small items for his immobile mother. Vandenberg, who is now 57, had inadvertently begun training for Sept. 29, 2011.

On that day, he left home on his bicycle. During the next 16 days, he pedaled 1,295 miles. He rode all the way from his front door in Omaha to his winter home in Edinburg, averaging about 80 miles a day.

 “The biggest challenge was the wind,” Vandenberg says now, a full month removed from the epic, two-wheeled journey. “I almost quit one day because of the wind. I figured I’d put my bike on top of the car and be down (in the Valley) by nightfall instead of the other three or four days I had left. My wife convinced me to give it another day.”

Vandenberg’s wife Cher was crucial to the ride. In terms of helping him out, she did all but actually pedal the bike for him. She functioned as a chef, moral support and roadside assistant.

The couple spent nights in hotels. Around 8 a.m. every morning, Vandenberg began his ride, and Cher tracked him on the internet with GPS. She knew exactly where he would be for lunch.

Cher would drive ahead to pick up groceries, prepare a meal for her husband and meet him on his path. They took a quick break in the car, eating together, and then it was bike time again. She was always ready with orange juice or a sandwich or the vital encouragement needed to overcome high winds in North Texas, which he hadn’t accounted for.

Before he retired Vandenberg worked for years as an actual certified public account. Although he says he’s “in pretty good shape,” he’s no professional athlete.

He’s just a man who always wanted to ride his bike a long way. He trained hard one summer to do it. And he did it. There was only one other annoying problem.

“My legs were just fine,” he says. “The problem was sitting on that bicycle seat.”

Despite a bit of posterior soreness, he says he would do it again. In fact he plans to embark on another such quest in the future. He just needs to figure out where.

Zack Quaintance covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.