Author Info

Lifelong adventurer Frank Briscoe doesn’t scare easily. Take his first experience on a bicycle — seven years old, his feet nowhere near the pedals, “my cousins balanced me on it while running alongside of me. They released me as I began rolling down a hill right into a clothesline. It immediately snapped me off my bike. It was an insane first ride!” Frank has always had a hunger for adventure and the scars to prove it. Frank has visited all 50 States and 11 foreign countries. Even just a sampling of Frank’s exploits could inspire the shyest of cyclists — or compel them to cover their eyes. Over the course of his life, Frank has scuba dived, raced motorcycles and a stock car, he’s run 10 Ks and half-marathons, rock climbed, backpacked the Grand Canyon rim to rim in Arizona and the famed Chilkoot Trail in Alaska. He has whitewater rafted most every wild river in America, sport rappelled off many a rock face, spelunked wild caves, and wrecked his knee, he’s free fallen off the Stratosphere in Las Vegas and off a bucking rodeo bull. Miraculously, he’s still in one piece. You’d think that after getting lost while wild cave exploring or charging down whitewater rapids Frank’s thirst for action would be sated. But there was one adventure Frank was lacking -“Crossing America on a bicycle” was my biggest and oldest dream. I first decided to do it when I was a Boy Scout, around 1957. I never expected it would be 54 years before I actually did it!” Frank wanted to bike tour. And even though it had been on his bucket list since boy scouts, life got in the way of the epic cross-country tour. To celebrate his 65th birthday, Frank finally crossed America by bike in 2011. From the upper northwest corner of America, the San Juan Islands in Washington State, to Key West, Florida, Frank traveled a distance of 6,343 miles in 126 days through 16 States. What was the best part of riding diagonally across America? The people he meets. “All across America and around the world I have literally met thousands of people since taking up bicycle touring and not once has anyone been mean-spirited. In fact, many have become my friends. The USA is not only geographically beautiful, the people are, too.” Frank has been a Life Member of Adventure Cycling Association for 3 years. When asked why he said, “As I drove back from my “Crossing America” adventure, I felt like a caged animal in my car much like an animal must feel in a zoo. I missed that sensation of freedom I felt on my bike. I believe in the mission of Adventure Cycling, it inspires people to get off the couch, get outside and see America and the world from a new and improved perspective. Being a beneficiary of that mission, it is only right to give back to the organization by becoming a Life Member. It is my dream to continue bicycle touring until this old body one day wears out.” 2012 Frank rode the length of the Mississippi River from the Headwaters at Lake Itasca, MN to the Gulf of Mexico. Already in 2013 Frank rode his bicycle 1,080 Kilometers (approximately 670 miles) around the Netherlands. Frank left me with a Mark Frost quote that aptly sums up his own indifference to nagging injury — “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow ... What a ride!!’” Frank’s exploration-slate is as full and inspiring as ever and includes bike touring around the globe, 10 more countries in the next 3 years. Frank is also a newbie to the “International Travel Writers and Photographers Association”. Being a member of the guild he hopes will help open the door to publications where he will be able to share his inspirational stories with many more folks.