James Burkett poses with his bike at the end of the trip in front of Professor Nathan Schleuter’s house.
Courtesy | Peter Burkett
Some students drive to Hillsdale College. Others take a plane. Freshman James Burkett rode his bike.
Burkett and his father, Peter, biked more than 300 miles from their home in Pennsylvania to Hillsdale in three days: the longest ride either of them had undertaken before. Peter was a seasoned cyclist, but James bought a bike only this summer.
“I was a runner in high school, but I didn’t enjoy it that much,” James Burkett said. “Then I graduated high school, and I wanted something different.”
Neither father nor son remembers how the idea of cycling to Hillsdale came about, but soon both took it up as a challenge.
“James was looking for some kind of adventure before leaving for school,” Peter Burkett said. “It was going to be a challenge. There are no guarantees, by any means. But it wasn’t something ridiculous, like ‘I want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro before I go to college.’ That’s not gonna happen.”
Not only was the trip doable, it felt appropriate to the moment.
“This is in a lot of ways a metaphor for college,” Peter Burkett said. “You’re going through a long tunnel of thought and emotion to try to get to your destination and see what you’re made of. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.”
So the Burketts bought a used bike for James and started training. The family lives in Meadville, which is in northwest Pennsylvania, 40 miles south of Lake Erie.
“I rode back from Lake Erie a couple of times. We rode to our cousin’s house, which was 40 miles. We rode to my dad’s friend’s house, which was 80 miles,” James Burkett said.
The first day of the trip, the Burketts rode 71 miles in five hours and 34 minutes. They stopped only a couple of times before staying the night at a family friend’s house. The second day, they rode into Cleveland, Ohio, visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Later that day, James hit an important distance benchmark in cycling.
“When we got to 100 miles, that was my first ‘century’ ride ever,’” Burkett said. “We stopped and got ice cream.”
Outside of Cleveland, their route changed from small highways to bike trails, which Burkett said felt safer.
“The bike trails allowed us to not worry about traffic,” Burkett said. “You can look ahead. You don’t have to constantly worry about the people behind you or next to you.”
On their second night, they stopped at an inn in Ohio close to the North Coast Inland Trail, having biked 195 miles in total. The Burketts woke up for their third and final day of cycling knowing they would have to reach Hillsdale by the evening — 111 miles left, about an 8-hour journey. Outside of Toledo, Ohio, the bikers ran into a strong headwind, slowing their progress. They took turns riding right behind one another, so only the rider in front would feel the full effects of the wind.
“It was really just demoralizing,” Burkett said, describing it as the hardest part of the trip. “I was getting pretty tired by that point. My dad definitely has more endurance.”
According to Burkett’s smart watch, he was burning around 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day — comparable to what a marathon runner would burn on a race day. Unlike a marathon runner, Burkett did not wear special shoes.
“I actually rode in these boots,” Burkett said, pointing to the pair of Blundstone Chelsea boots he wore. “My dad had riding shoes, but I didn’t. They cost like $200.”
During the ride, Burkett said he listened to a rotation of his favorite podcasts, including “The Pillar Podcast.” For his part, Peter Burkett said he enjoyed often riding in silence.
“For the most part, we were in our own little worlds, which is what I wanted,” Peter Burkett said. “James has got a lot of ideas. He’s always thinking about something, so sometimes it’s kind of nice to actually ride separately, so you don’t have to hear about more questions or problems. And I wanted him to have time to process all this on his own.”
By the end of the third day of the trip, the Burketts were drawing close to Hillsdale. But first, they were passed by the people who made the whole trip possible: James’s older sister Rue, who drove James’s college belongings and their younger siblings to Hillsdale.
“The same day that they were going to do their last leg, our drive was only about four and a half hours,” Rue Burkett said. “So we slept in and made sure all of James’s stuff was in the car.”
With the help of her younger sister Stella, Rue planned a drive-by. The siblings stopped in a parking lot and met Peter and James with Gatorade and cookies. Later that Saturday, all five Burketts made it safely into Hillsdale — Peter and James several hours after the car — where they met their relatives, Professor of Philosophy and Religion Nathan Schlueter and his wife Elizabeth.
“It really helped to have the Schlueters as our destination,” Peter Burkett said. “Elizabeth had dinner ready for us, and they looked after us for a couple of days.”
Peter joined Rue and company for the trip back to Pennsylvania, though he says he wished he could have done otherwise.
“I was ready to turn around and bike home, really,” Peter Burkett said. “If I had the time off of work, that’s what I would have done.”
His sister traces James’s determination to his early high school days in cross country, when he committed to a sport he at first hated.
“James is the type of person who, if he’s going to do something, he’s not just going to do it halfway,” Rue Burkett said. “He ran hard. He didn’t just jog because someone said he had to. And then he grew into it.”
Reflecting on the trip, James said he appreciates the new freedom he has. Knowing he can handle long rides opens up the possibility of other cycling trips in the future, including day trips to his cousins’ house next summer.
“Cycling is something my dad really likes, and I was super glad we got to do it together,” James Burkett said. “I actually really enjoyed it.”
The cycling trip, Burkett said, puts freshman year in perspective.
“When I got here, I did think it wouldn’t be as hard as I’d thought,” Burkett said. “Worst comes to worst, I can just ride the 300 miles back.”
