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World Bike Touring Examiner (WBTE): Tell me a little bit about yourself and your many trips. Where have you gone? Why?
Rev Hans: My name is Rev. Johannes Erich Myors. Everybody pretty well calls me Rev Hans and my nickname is "The Cycling Rev". I was born in a small village outside of Munich, Bavaria, (West) Germany in 1956 so I am 53 1/2 years old. I came from a small family (father, mother, grandmother, two sisters, and a brother). I was the oldest by five years. I immigrated to the United States in 1979 and became a citizen in 1984. Since 1979, I have lived in California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. Georgia has been my state of residence since 1995. In the fall of 1998, I was ordained as a minister through an Evangelical Christian ministry near Augusta, Georgia.
I have to explain a little bit about my religious beliefs. I was actually raised "Orthodox Jewish". My family were survivors of the Holocaust and that's the reason for the small family size. I became a believer in Y’SHUA (Jesus the Messiah) during Hanukkah of 1975 while still in Germany. Instead of calling myself a Christian, I tell everybody that I am a "Yehudim Meshahim". In English, this would be a "Completed or Messianic Jew".
My family totally disowned me around Passover of 1976. I was almost 20 years old at the time. My parents told everybody I had committed suicide. There was even a funeral for me at my former synagogue and a tombstone was made with my name on it. Because of this, I haven't had any contact with my family for over thirty-four years.
Before I started this riding adventure that I am on now, I had already done some extensive bicycle touring. My first taste of bicycle touring actually happened in 1974 when I was finishing up a year as a high school exchange student (12th grade) at a small high school in Northwest Ohio. I took a thousand-mile round trip from Forest, Ohio to the Mississippi River near Savanna, Illinois and back.
During most of 1986, 1987, and 1988, I took a 16,500 mile loop and a half tour around the perimeter of the United States starting in Virginia Beach, Virginia and ending in San Antonio, Texas with stops for the winter in San Francisco and Toledo, Ohio.
In 1992, I took a cross-country trip from Spokane, Washington to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This trip was about 3,500 miles long. What was so unusual about the trip was that I had a partner with me (my golden hamster named "Schroeder"). Schroeder survived the trip living in a small cage in my handlebar bag and he also survived several Greyhound buses back to Spokane, Washington and then to Portland, Oregon.
The riding adventure that I am on now started February 19, 1993 from Portland, Oregon. I was in Portland doing some work as a case worker with Catholic Social Services. Between February 12 and February 15, I had the same short dream of myself traveling by bicycle. The dream lasted just long enough to stay in my memory but I couldn't tell where I was. The dreams were silent except for the last night. The silence of the last night was interrupted by one short two-lettered word “GO”. I felt strongly that this was a call to action on my part by ADONAI (GOD). In four days, on February 19th, I was on the road.
The ministry portion of the ride didn't start until I left the Santa Monica, California area on March 27, 1993. Since this adventure started, I have made sixteen crossings of the United States and have also been in every state but Alaska and Hawaii. Also, I have made short jaunts into Canada (three provinces) and have touched the Mexican Border several times.
Along the way, I have cycled through almost every major city in the United States and have traveled through most of the National Parks. With regards to elevation, I have been as low as one hundred feet below sea level in the Imperial Valley in California and as high as almost eleven thousand feet (2.08 miles) above sea level in the Colorado Rockies west of Denver. As of August 31, 2009, I have cycled 196,135 miles. This is almost 7.9 times around the Equator. The mean distance around the Equator is 24,901 miles. I tell everybody that I've traveled over two-thirds the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
Along the way, I have crisscrossed the United States
- speaking at churches wherever possible either during Sunday school classes or the services (32 churches during my last trip between March 23 and August 31, 2009 - my 19th trip)
- talking to people along this country’s highways and by-ways
- performing disaster relief
- working with other agencies
- helping churches set up compassion ministries
- maintaining an internationally read website
- designing websites for other agencies and ministries around the world.
You can read about my adventures on my website at www.pedalprayers.org
Another integral part of what I do is to pray along the way. I tell everybody that “with every wheel revolution, a prayer goes up to Heaven”. That is why my ministry is called “Pedal Prayers”. On June 15, 2004, I passed the one billionth wheel revolution mark. As of August 31st, 2009, the wheels of my bicycles have gone around 1,106,307,785 times. Along with expressing action, the word “Pedal” stands for Pray Every Day And Listen.
I am now on my seventh bicycle. My first two bicycles were Schwinn "Criss-Cross(es)" lasting 23,054 and 28,082 miles and the second two were Specialized "Crossroad-Sports" lasting 9,698 and 33,907 miles. These four bicycles were 21-speed “hybrids” (mountain bike frames with road tires and straight handlebars).
My fifth bicycle was a 24-speed SWB (short-wheelbase) recumbent made by Lightning Cycle Dynamics in California. I got this in the fall of 2000. A short-wheelbase recumbent is one that has the pedals in front of the front tire and you usually have the steering column between your legs. When it was traded in 2005, it had 49,883 miles on it.
My sixth bicycle was an Easy Racer/Sun EZ-Speedster-SX 24-speed SWB recumbent that lasted 23,648 miles.
I got my current Easy Racer/Sun EZ-Speedster-AX 27-speed SWB recumbent on April 20, 2007 after my last recumbent was destroyed in a freak car accident in the Mystic, Connecticut area. I wasn't riding the recumbent at the time. As of August 31, 2009, I've ridden 27,789 miles on my current trusty two-wheeled steed that I call "Alice" because it's frame is made out of aluminum.
I have helped after the Great Mississippi River Flood in 1993; Hurricanes Andrew, Charley, Emily, Frances, Isadore, Ivan, Katrina, Lili, Opal, and Rita; and the Los Angeles Earthquake in 1994. Also, I have helped out after other floods, tornadoes, and wildfires. I will try and ride to the disaster area to help out if I am within 500 miles of it. The longest that I’ve stayed in a disaster area was three weeks. During the natural disaster recovery efforts, I have worked with the American Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Salvation Army. Between 1996 and 2009, I worked with Habitat for Humanity helping to build sixty-three homes around the country.
Basically, my message is two-fold:
For Christians (actually for people of any faith belief system), my message is that they should “live out their faith”. Another way of saying this is that they should put those words and beliefs into action. They should “Walk the Walk” instead of just “Talking the Talk”.
It is my conviction that if I am going to claim to be a follower of Y’SHUA (Jesus the Messiah), then the life I live ought to be in keeping with that claim. Another way of saying this is “Actions speak louder than words”. The second chapter of the New Testament Book of James states that our faith and our works (actions) need to go “hand in hand”.
There is a song that says “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day”. I see my life as being a living example of this.
For churches, my message is that they should get back to the basics or be a church that cares and has a compassionate heart. For basics I mean that they should get back to doing social action as found in James 2 and Matthew 25. Some examples of "caring" ministries are:
- clothes or food banks
- health ministries (church or parish nurses)
- learning programs (budgeting and finance, computers)
- ESL (English as a Second Language)
- G.E.D. and homework help
- minor home repair for the elderly (Christmas in April)
- respite for parents with children (Mother’s Day or Night Out)
- hospice care
- temporary housing
WBTE: Why the bike? Why not travel in a car like most people?
Rev Hans: For one reason, I do not have a license to drive a car and that's pretty hard to believe for somebody in their fifties. In Germany, there was such a fantastic system of mass-transportation (bus, passenger train, and subway) so pretty well every town and city were connected to each other. There was no reason to have a car. All of Europe was connected via mass-transportation. I never saw it being important for me to learn how to drive a car.
I did drive a car once back in the early 1980s when I had to help a friend get to a subway station in Arlington, Virginia and I had to attempt to drive the car back to the house. This was a frightening experience. I'm just glad that the trip was only a couple of miles long. I don't mind riding in a car but I'm probably not going to attempt to drive again. I am into the environment some. The last time I used any gasoline was mowing a friend's lawn about five years ago. I've lived in quite a few places in this country that had good mass-transportation systems.
When I was a child, I suffered from constant ear aches and didn't get outside much. It turned out that a serious ear infection wasn't properly diagnosed for eight years and I had to undergo a major ear operation when I was fourteen years old. Traveling on a bicycle gets me outside in an environment that I enjoy now. I guess that you can say that I am catching up on all of the times that I missed as a child.
Traveling on a bicycle is cheap, it's efficient, and I can go places where a car can't take me. If it wasn't for a bicycle, I would probably be walking every where. Back in the late 1980s, I hiked about two thousand miles, which included about two-thirds of the Appalachian Trail.
WBTE: I know there are plenty of wonderful days when the sun is shining and you've got the wind at your back. But there are also days when it's raining or you face a headwind or you're climbing a hill that just won't end. How do you get through those days? What keeps you going?
Rev Hans: I've had hundreds of those days these past sixteen years.
- Riding in rain that lasted all day long.
- Trying to ride against wind that was so strong that it felt like you were climbing up a horizontal wall.
- Riding in extremes of weather from high heat where you have to get started before dawn and then stop around noon time and try to find a place out of the heat to bitter cold where you had to wear at least five layers of clothes.
How do I keep on going? Prayer. Being internally motivated in what I do. Knowing that I'm doing my travels for a higher cause. My trips on two wheels these past sixteen years haven't been just for pleasure. They are my profession and this is how I share ADONAI's (GOD's) love.
When I am cycling up a steep and long grade, I set up a series of mini-goals. I pick a pole, fence post, or a tree in front of me maybe a hundred feet or so and I ride to that goal. When I get to my goal, I take a mini-break (sip some water, breathe slowly, let my heart rate go down some), pick another goal, and start the process over again. I eventually get up that hill or mountain and then there is always that coast down from that hill or mountain.
WBTE: As hard as it is to pick out one or two highlights – would you, could you? Tell us about a couple of those incredibly wow-ing, drop-your-jaw experiences you've had.
Rev Hans: Kind of hard to choose just two so I am just going to talk about one. One of the jaw-dropping experiences kind of shows some of what I call "mini-miracles" on how ADONAI provides for my needs. I'm out here on faith and I don't really have a financial support system to keep me going.
Let it be known, I have never asked for any financial support. You won't find any appeals for funding on my website. I have never really been without any money in my wallet or food in my panniers. In fact, I tell everybody that I have a traveling mini-food bank and if I come across somebody that is hungry I always try and give them a meal and maybe a few food items to take along with them. I get a lot of my funding through what I call "green-handshakes" (on the spot monetary donations by individuals) and "road manna" (the loose change or currency) that I find alongside the road.
One of these mini-miracles occurred on August 29, 1993 (I checked the journal section of my website to find the date). This was my first year out. I was heading back to the East Coast after doing some relief work in Missouri and Iowa during the Great Mississippi River flood. It was a Sunday and I had the chance to take part and speak at an outdoor church service in Ogden, Illinois.
When I got to Danville (about twelve miles to the east and eight miles west of the Indiana state line), I stopped at a shopping center to get some supplies at a grocery store. When I got back to the bike after buying groceries, I was surprised to find a money order on the pavement right by my rear wheel. It had been made out for a little over three hundred dollars.
What was so strange about this was that all it had on it was the embossed amount. It didn't have any other writing on it or embossing telling who had bought it or who it was to. Also, it had both receipt coupons on it that had to be torn off before sending the money order. They were blank also.
I wasn't sure what to do with it. I couldn't just leave it there or throw it away. After getting the groceries put away, I went back to the store to see if anybody knew anything about the money order. The store manager said that nobody in the area sold a money order like this one.
I carried it with me for a couple of days and when I got near Indianapolis, Indiana I stopped at a bank to see if somebody might know anything about the money order and how I could trace it back to the buyer. The person at the bank told me that they had never seen that kind of money order before but it was legal tender and if I would just sign it they would cash it for me.
There have been many more of these mini-miracles.
- Having more money appear alongside the roadway when my funds were getting low.
- Finding a pair of tennis shoes along side the road that fit and came just at the right time because there were a couple of holes worn in the soles of the tennis shoes that I had on.
- Finding a tent alongside the road when the tent that I had started to leak.
- Finding a huge pile of baked goods (breads and pastries) on a picnic table of a rest area. It was good to have my food pannier filled up for a couple of days more.
These mini-miracles haven't always been supernatural in nature. People have come into my life just when I needed that special help or encouragement.
WBTE: What about those days you wish you could forget (but you know you never will)? Those days when everything goes wrong and then even more goes wrong? Tell us about a couple of those.
Rev Hans: Pretty hard to choose. There have been a lot of good things that have happened but there have been a lot of bad things happen. I've been
- run off the road and made to crash,
- hit by a couple of cars,
- had quite a few near misses with other cars and trucks,
- had two bikes destroyed in vehicular accidents,
- had one bike and all my belongings stolen in an attack and robbery that landed me in a hospital overnight with a minor concussion and some major bruises that took at least six weeks to recover from,
- been robbed of money several times,
- been shot at,
- held at gun point by - of all persons - a minister,
- had numerous objects thrown at me,
- had a front tire blow out while coasting down a hill on May 04, 2002. This resulted in having the head of my left humerus (upper arm bone) shattered and a two-piece artificial head for the bone was implanted in a four hour operation at a hospital in Augusta, Maine. I was back on the road less than eight weeks after the operation.
Then there have been days when you almost get stranded alongside the road because of some kind of major equipment breakdown (bad tires, bad tubes, bad pump, broken spokes, etc).
These things do and will happen. There is really nothing that you can do to prevent bad things from happening. I've just to be in a "Surf's Up" mental state and just go with the flow. With every bad happening, there is always the chance to have six or more good happenings. I haven't felt the urge to stop and end this adventure. In fact, I will be getting back on the road in a couple of months. This will be my twentieth mission trip. This will be a special one because sometime during the latter part of second month of the tour, I'll be passing the 200,000 mile mark.
WBTE: You’ve toured many miles and have gained tons of experiences through those miles. If you were to talk with someone relatively new to cycle touring, what recommendations would you give them?
Rev Hans: Know yourself. Know your limitations. Don't attempt something that's above your skill level. Don't make plans to go on a coast to coast tour if you haven't even gone on a two or three day trip.
Know your bicycle. Get the right kind of bicycle and make sure that it fits. Get some training in bicycle repair. Take classes. Have the proper tools, equipment, and knowledge to be able to "on-the-road" bicycle maintenance like being able to repair a flat tire, being able to take care of your brakes, being able to either temporarily or permanently repair a broken spoke, being able to take care of a chain break.
If your trip is going to be a multiple day one and you’re not going to spend each night in a hotel or motel, have the right camping equipment on hand and know how to use it.
Prepare for the trip like mapping out the route, getting your gear down to the essentials because as the expression goes "ounces count". I can go on but I think that these are the essentials.
WTBE: Wow! What a life you've had. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us!
Follow along with Rev Hans as he continues his ministry at www.pedalprayers.org
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Meet world record breaking cyclist, Mark Beaumont. He is known as the fastest man in the world, and is currently cycling the Pan American Highway.
Scott Napier just broke the world record for the Pan American Highway - 125 days to cycle over 14,000 miles!
If you enjoyed this interview, you might enjoy these other interviews with world cyclists:
Goat from Riding the Spine - Alaska to Argentina on dirt roads
Sean from Riding the Spine - Alaska to Argentina on dirt roads
Jacob from Riding the Spine - Alaska to Argentina on dirt roads
Friedel from Travelling Two - 3 years around the world
Sonya and Aaldrik from Tour.TK - 3 years on the road, currently in South America
Alastair Humphreys - 4 years on 3 continents - Africa, Asia, America
Peter Gostelow - pedaled from Japan to England; now headed toward Africa
Tim & Cindie from Down the Road - 7 years on the road and no plans to stop
Jaime Bianchini of Peace Pedalers - nearly 8 years through 77 countries on tandem picking up strangers
There are also a number of families who have adopted a life on the road with their children:
The Williams family is on a open-ended tour on a triple bike with their 9-year-old son.
Rebekka and Florian traveled the Pan American Highway to Tierra del Fuego with their small son in a trailer.
The Verhage family with sons aged 11 & 13 have cycled south from LA. They are now in Peru.
My family is currently cycling the Pan American Highway - we've cycled 16,000 km from Alaska to Colombia so far. You can find us at Family on Bikes.
Contact me via email at familyonbikes@gmail.com
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