For whatever reason, it has become customary, each year, for us to take a moment to share a few of our own reflections upon the past as well as our hopes and dreams for the future.

This adventure began for us almost 29 years ago as the product of our own bike ride across the continent. For us, it was an incredibly memorable experience, one never to be forgotten and likely never to be repeated. The euphoric hangover from that ride propelled us to launch our little “ma and pa” enterprise that we called, in those days, Timberline Bicycle Tours.

When you do a seriously long bike ride, expect to become infected. You have the bug and it is with you forever. In the beginning, it was Ramblers (9-day rides), followed by Classics (10-day sorties), always well beyond the parameters of everyone else’s 6 day, 5 night formats. And then came the Odysseys—rides from Missoula to Jasper, Seattle to San Francisco, Chicago to Chicago around Lake Michigan, Lewis & Clark in 2004 from Wood River, IL, to Astoria, OR, and Chasing the Great Divide in 2007, 40 days and almost 150,000-feet of vertical, criss-crossing the Continental Divide from the Mexican Border to Jasper, AB. Even our hikers have shared our affliction as we continue to hike the full length of England’s magnificent 105-mile Cotswold Way But for us, all of these ultra adventures notwithstanding, the truly ultra, ultra adventure remained. Sooner or later, we knew that Timberline, as an organization, needed to ride across the North American Continent. In the season ahead, once and for all (and never again!), we’ll do it in the context of Odyssey 2010: Sea-to-Shining-Sea.

In so many ways that extend well beyond Sea-to-Shining-Sea, we believe the coming season well may be our most exciting year to date. We’ve taken last year’s Odyssey, Volcanoes of the Cascades, and created two new back-to-back rides in the Pacific Northwest—Volcanoes North and South. We’ll also tour western Colorado’s amazing wine country and challenge two of the great climbs in the west—the Grand Mesa and Colorado National Monument—in the context of Vines and Vistas. New Hikes also have been created in Joshua Tree, Mt. Rainier and Guadalupe National Parks, and we’ll hike England’s Cotswold Way one final time.