Ride your bicycle from San Diego to St. Augustine, Florida, in 52 days, and you might impress 83-year-old Larry Kilgore, an Estes Park resident who completed that feat last month on a 21-speed gravel bicycle.
Kilgore’s 3,000-mile journey started with the back wheel of his bicycle in the Pacific Ocean on March 6, 2026, and ended with his front tire in the Atlantic Ocean on April 26.
Averaging about 65 miles per day in temperatures from the 40s to mid-80s, his worst obstacles were morning fog and “goat head thorns.” He only had three days of rain.
But the goat head thorns flattened tires and ripped flesh. One campground had thousands of goathead bushes.
“They even punctured our tents!” Kilgore said.
Supported by six professionals from Timberline Adventures of Lafayette, Colorado, and traveling with a pack of 22 riders, Kilgore said, “I like challenges. The people I knew who retired, sat down to read more, and stopped moving are dead now. Not exercising is a bad habit.”
Riders on his recent cross-country challenge ranged from 55-83, and one said to him, “I hope I’m as crazy as you when I’m 83!” said Kilgore. “Some thought it was absolutely cool, but one said, ‘You must be sick!’”
The daily routine for 52 days was to wake up at 4 a.m., be on the bikes by 8 a.m., ride 5 to 7 hours, and have an “off day” about once a week for bicycle maintenance.
Another rider took Kilgore “under his wing” and rode every day as his partner, sometimes riding ahead and then circling back to check on the octogenarian.
Two of the original riders didn’t finish the challenge. One man had to quit in Arizona when he broke his hip in a fall on a slippery railroad track, and a woman had to quit just a few days before the finish line when she hit a metal object on the road, fell, and broke her pelvis.
All the bikers were supported by a Timberline Adventures sag wagon that transported their tents, blow-up mattresses, sleeping bags, and personal belongings.
A chef and medic traveled with them. The outfitter also prepared breakfast and dinner, secured campsites, set up tents and mattresses, and broke down campsites each day.
To train through the winter months, Kilgore said he rode “whenever I felt like it,” a couple of hundred miles a week on stationary bikes at a gym and sometimes outdoors in nice weather.
Born and raised in California, Kilgore moved to Colorado in 1972 and became a middle school shop teacher in Longmont.
Both he and his wife, Jan, also 83, started biking when they were 50, and they quickly got into epic rides.
While driving through Colorado, they saw 2,000 bikers participating in the “Ride the Rockies” challenge and decided to try it.
They entered a lottery for a spot in next year’s ride, and both completed the six-day, 400-mile event that first year, then went on to complete that same challenge for about 10 years straight.
Then they upped their game with the Triple Bypass ride in Colorado, a one-day 120-mile ride from Evergreen to Avon with a 10,800-foot elevation gain, climbing three major mountain passes: Juniper Pass, Loveland Pass, and Vail Pass. They completed that challenge seven times.
At age 65, Kilgore rode 4,000 miles from San Francisco to Maine, but this shorter trip last month was harder because of his age.
“At times it was difficult, but downhill was always good,” he laughed.
When asked why he challenges himself with these extreme rides, Kilgore said, “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone but myself. It takes a great deal of self-confidence to think you can do it.”
There was no self-doubt leading up to this year’s start date. “If you have self-doubt, you’ll find an excuse to quit. I don’t want to do that.”
Road conditions on last month’s ride were challenging, especially in Texas, Alabama, and Florida, where huge potholes were a danger on secondary roads with road shoulders only 8”-10” instead of the roomy 10’ shoulders on some highways and freeways.
Some impatient drivers on remote roads yelled and cussed at them, “Get off the road!”
They occasionally rode on freeways with 70-mph traffic when secondary roads and highways were not available.
Kilgore is thinking about doing this same challenge again at 90 years old, but his wife said, “No, you’re not.”
Even though he called her every evening to “give her a pep talk,” and she had a tracking app on her phone to see his movements 24/7, he said she worried.
The best part of the trip was not about sunrises, sunsets, or his front tire’s final revolution into the Atlantic Ocean. It was greeting his wife back in Colorado when it was all over.
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