The avid cyclist and 2019 New Ulm Cathedral grad’s 39-day ride saw him begin by flying to San Diego, California.

Dipping his tire into the shores of the Pacific Ocean officially kicked off Helget’s ride, a ride that saw him cover more than 2,700 miles. The ride ended at Jacksonville Beach, Florida, on June 20 as Helget dipped his tire in the Atlantic, but the adventure was anything but a stroll — or ride — in the park.

Helget, 22, first got into cycling a couple of years ago, making this trip all the more impressive for the New Ulm native.

“I started cycling a couple years ago and it started off with a 30-mile ride, and then 40, 50, 60 and got up to 100,” he said. “And then last summer, I did a 200-mile ride and I’m like, ‘Well, that’s the most I can do in a day, so what’s the next step?’ I think the next thing was just doing a multi-day touring type of deal. So what’s the coolest thing I could think of? Going across the country.”

Zach Helget sets up tent outside of Del Rio, Texas, at Seminole Canyon State Park. Helget spent half of his sleep time during the ride camping outdoors,

Helget said his aunt and uncle, Cheryl and Brad Johnson, played a big role in getting him into cycling in the first place.

“I had an internship a couple of summers ago and I lived with my aunt and uncle and they had an extra road bike and they took me with them on these bike rides,” Helget said. “And they got me hooked on it.”

Helget said he wanted to do a trip of this magnitude after graduating college as one last big adventure before settling into his new full-time job in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Helget began his ride officially on his Specialized Diverge bike in San Diego, carrying the necessities with him.

“I had these bags that were on the back of my bike with this rack that holds the bags,” he said. “I had a tent, a sleeping bag, clothes, tools and what not in there. I would say about 50% of the time I was tent camping and the other 50% I was staying with host families along the way.

Helget looks back at the Pacific Ocean on Ocean Beach in San Diego, California as he begins his 39-day ride.

“There was this program I found that, basically, people sign up and they’re available to host bike tourists like myself, people that are doing long-distance trips like this.”

Helget traveled through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The ride didn’t necessarily get any easier for Helget the longer it went, but the first week was the toughest part of it.

“Week 1, I really wasn’t prepared for the heat,” Helget said. “So the desert in California, Arizona, it got hot really fast. So there was one morning where I got up at 3:30 and I was off the bike at 9:30 because it was already 90 degrees-plus. Towards the end, I could really pull back on that start time, getting up at 6 o’clock and getting on the road at 7, that was when I got out of the desert.”

During Helget’s trip, he kept a blog, which he amusingly admitted to being a way to keep his mom informed.

“I didn’t put a lot of work into [the blog], I just did voice to text, it was mainly so I didn’t have to call my mom every day [laughs],” he said.

Helget completes his ride at Jacksonville Beach, Florida, by dipping his tire in the Atlantic Ocean. The “Wheel Dip” is a cycling tradition when completing a coast-to-coast ride like this.

Even with the blog, Helget found himself calling his mom several times during the first week of the ride as he battled the desert.

“During that first week, it was the hardest cycling I did and I probably called my mom three times a day that first week [laughs],” he said. “So it balanced out for sure.”

Most of Helget’s food and water stops were at gas stations and dollar stores, which allowed him to get in and get back out on his ride quicker.

Helget also met some other cyclists along the way, one doing a similar cross-country trek.

“Maybe halfway through I met up with someone that was doing the same route I was doing, but he was going the other way, so he started in Florida and he was ending in California,” Helget said. “So we just ended up at the same campground one night and just talked for a couple hours. And outside of this small town in the middle of nowhere in Texas, I met up with this guy who was from Belgium and he was biking to the highest point on each continent and he was climbing that mountain. Crazy.”

Helget took this photo of the desert in the morning just outside of Jacumba, California, on May 14 on his way to Holtville, California.

Helget enjoyed his trip and will forever have the memories of it, but he likely won’t do another ride quite as monumental in the future.

“If I were to do something crazy like this again, I’d probably just ride down one of the coasts,” Helget said. “So maybe, like, Oregon to California, but that would take a long time. Maybe just shorter things around the community, not as far.”

Those interested in seeing and reading more about Helget’s trip are invited to check out acrossamerica1.blogspot.com/?m=1.

Helget spent some time during his ride in New Ulm, Texas, which is located between Houston and Austin, Texas. He event got his photo published in the New Ulm Enterprise newspaper, which has served New Ulm, Texas, and wider Austin County communities as their newspaper of record since 1910.