By Emily Williams
At the beginning of October, Vestavia Hills’ Don Hagan concluded a more than six-month cross-country bike journey – though it took a little more imagination than expected.
Though a literal cross-country ride could not be finished safely in a pandemic, he found a way to complete his efforts virtually.
On March 6, Hagan was not in his Vestavia Hills hometown, glued to the television taking in the pandemic news. He was in California.
One of the retired Southern Company nuclear engineer’s dreams has been to bike across the country and raise money for the Presbyterian Home for Children in Talladega and its Ascension Leadership Academy.
He took off from San Diego on March 6, just Hagan and his bike making a cross-country trip to Florida. The plan was to arrive in St. Augustine, Florida, by April 27.
Throughout the ride, he was fundraising, asking his supporters to pledge $30 – one penny per mile biked – to support Presbyterian Home for Children. Those efforts raised more than 600,000 pennies for the children’s home.
Throughout his journey, he carried a picture of the kids at the home as a reminder of his purpose.
“We are overwhelmed with gratitude for donors like Don who help us provide a path of hope and a place of healing for the children and families entrusted to us,” said Doug Marshall, president of the Presbyterian Home for Children.
Hagan is a bit of a staple in the home’s community. Sometimes he can be seen gliding by on his bike, a Trek Madone named Erowin because, “it’s light as air and fast as the wind.”
From Marshall’s perspective, Hagan’s contributions have been more than monetary, they have infused a bit of excitement into the home’s day-to-day operations.
“There has been a lot of excitement around Don’s Coast 2 Coast Challenge,” he said.
Hagan was documenting his journey on his Facebook page as well as social media channels of his church, Edgewood Presbyterian Church. He peddled through 768 of the 3,203 miles over the course of two weeks, meeting people and sleeping in a tent, a gym, a national guard armory and a hotel.
Then his plans came to a halt March 21. Quarantines shut down many of the places where he planned to sleep along his route. Finally, he rented a car in El Paso, Texas, and drove home to Vestavia Hills.
“While I’m disappointed, I’m still very proud of what God has led me to do,” Hagan wrote in a Facebook post at the time. “I never would have experienced getting to know the kids at the home had I not done this. I believe every penny donated was for them more than some crazy man riding a bicycle.”
Reimagining His Trek
Nevertheless, Hagan was determined to finish his work in whatever way he could.
He began by riding 50 to 60 miles several days a week along the back roads of Shelby, St. Clair and Talladega counties. All the while he wrote posts for Facebook as if he were traveling through the country, with vivid imagery and facts.
On his figurative trek from Madison, Florida, to High Springs, Florida, he describes the “very low traffic roads with smooth pavement, wide shoulders along lush green fields and live oak forests with Spanish moss dripping from the branches as they hung over the road.”
He even pretended to stop as he passed O’Leno State Park outside of High Springs to help a gopher tortoise cross the road.
“On a side note, I didn’t post a picture of my leg where a dog bit me last week down in Shelby County,” Hagan noted, adding that it was the first time he had ever been bitten by a dog.
While he still had planned to finish in late April, his timeline did not hold.
Luck doesn’t seem to be taking any sides this year, and Hagan is no exception. He was injured in a bike wreck during a 60-mile ride in Springville.
That sidelined him for about eight weeks. He took that as an opportunity to have cataract surgery.
Luckily, he was able to get back on the horse, so to speak, and finish the rest of his virtual trek in early October.
“So ends my quest of riding across the United States both in reality and virtually as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hagan wrote in an Oct. 1 post. “It took three months longer than I had planned because of a bicycle accident but as they say: “I got her done!”
To read Hagan’s travelogue, visit the Childrens C2C Cycling Challenge Facebook page.
