Climbing a healthy series of switchbacks through the chill of a Colorado dawn, I don't feel tired. I don't feel the miles I pedaled yesterday or the weight I'm carrying now. Pockets of warm air hug the corners of the road. I spot wildflowers clinging to the washes and dotting the ravines as I clear the tree line. When I look over my shoulder there's another cyclist, some industrious insomniac out for an early morning ride. He's determined to catch me before the top, but it doesn't happen. We rest beside a sign marking Cottonwood Pass, at more than 12,000 feet above sea level.

The author takes a rest stop in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

"You're coming from where?!" he asks a second time, looking over my rig, my two boys, and the trailer I've been towing for 1,576 miles. He nods reverently. "And I thought I was doing something bold this morning."

We wait for sunrise at the top of the world -- casual gods surveying a kingdom that spans for miles -- then roll the summit and barrel into another day on the road.

I misspent the better part of my youth on a bicycle, with a career total of 100,000 miles and counting. That includes six coast-to-coast marathons, a 2,000-mile epic across Australia's crimson-red Nullarbor Plain, and up-and-down rollers on both of New Zealand's islands. I've chased ice cream trucks around Baja and pedaled a surfboard to the breakwaters of Jaco, Costa Rica. If a 12-step program for addicts of open-road adventure existed, friends would have tackled me to the ground years ago.

I did stop rolling long enough to find a full life. But a wife, two boys, three books, and one mortgage later, the dangerous notion that it doesn't have to end in one zip code keeps surfacing. I came up with rationales for a meandering, unsupported, 17-state joyride from Portland, Oregon, to Washington, DC, at the height of summer with my two sons in tow. But here's the real reason: I've just hit 40, and there's no denying every man's desire to give the middle finger to the approach of midlife.

And so I covered the living room floor with maps and circled July 1 on the calendar. By pedaling Oregon, Idaho, Montana, a bit of Wyoming, Utah, and the length of Colorado, we'll get heart-pounding scenery instead of choking heat; I simply pretend not to notice how many times our planned route crosses the Continental Divide. But highlighting every mile of a proposed route is akin to cartographic masturbation. Once beyond the Big Muddy we -- Quinn, seven years old, Enzo, a few days short of five, and I -- will improvise our way to the nation's capital.

I'll be pulling 14 feet of traffic-stopping rig: My custom-made 27-gear Rodriguez touring bike, plus four expedition-size panniers loaded with everything from replacement parts to fishing poles to pots and pans. Quinn will be my copilot, pedaling a secondary cycle attached to my rear rack; Enzo will lounge in his trailer, wedged between sleeping bags, bike pumps, and the occasional watermelon. Most days this 250-pound caravan will feel like I'm hauling a Hobie Cat behind me. I take inspiration from the unsung Sherpas working Everest and New World conquerors weighed down by armor and battle axes. This brand of insanity always gets my blood going.

JULY 3 | 82 MILES
Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
We're only two days outside Portland and already I'm playing fast and loose with the pedal count: Dog Mountain, a towering hiker's haven, is 25 miles off course. I know better than to toss in a hefty side trip this early in the game, but any solid adventure has, at its core, a casual disregard for good sense. So we pedal across the Bridge of the Gods, park the bikes at the trailhead, and hoof it three and a half miles and nearly 3,000 vertical feet for a bit of impromptu cross-training and one helluva view.

The payoff is worth it: Standing on that windblown summit with a bird's-eye view of the Columbia River Gorge, we look upriver toward massive Multnomah Falls and downstream to our home of Portland. Squinting hard, we try to peer beyond the dry patches of eastern Oregon, through Big Sky country, across the Rockies, past the Plains, over Kentucky's rolling hills, and straight up the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Capitol dome.

Every cyclist wants to believe in the myth of West Coast tailwinds and the steady descent to the Atlantic. I've done this enough times to know better, but like a man released from indenture I need to run hard and savor everything -- good, bad, and sublime -- that the road puts in front of me.

JULY 11 | 611 MILES
Colorado Gulch, Montana
Hemingway said that to learn the contours of a country best, one must travel it by bicycle. He knew that a long-distance rider experiences every bend, every barely perceptible grade, every pulse-quickening descent. Pedal long enough and the road becomes an extension of one's body. Yesterday, somewhere short of 6,320-foot MacDonald Pass, my body and the contours of the country decided to reject each other. For mile after mile of slow uphill death, I fixated on the memory of Oregon's emerald gorges and the easy days of wheat-covered flatirons across southern Washington. Anything to take my mind off the river of asphalt I was pushing against. My rig would teeter when I dropped below 6 mph, snapping me to attention the way rumble strips wake a punch-drunk trucker. The pavement heated with each passing mile. I lost my appetite, tasted metal in the back of my throat, and became serious and silent as I hugged a shoulderless road and managed the pain and a crisis of confidence. Pride had already left the building when I found myself lying in a heap a few hundred yards before the top. Shame took its place when my boys hovered over my sweat-drenched body, poking around with a bike pump. "Gentlemen, if I throw up, don't be alarmed. It's a perfectly natural part of the riding process." You never forget your first bloody street fight to crest a summit. At least the scenery was five-star: a carpet of forest giving way to subalpine meadows in soft, late-afternoon light. When I could breathe normally again, we topped the monolithic hill and headed to a friend's remote Montana cabin. Before we can continue through Big Sky country, though, I'll have to drop some ballast. Other upgrades along the route will test my fortitude and knock me to the ground: a daylong slog up Crested Butte with only the three highest gears functioning, a crawl up Rainbow Boulevard into Kansas City that's the cycling equivalent of flying monkeys and tornados, and a weak moment on a series of Kentucky rollers when I will discover that my eldest hasn't pedaled in two days. So I lay out our gear on my friend's deck and send my two front panniers home. Who needs replacement parts or fleece in the summertime? And sleeping pads are highly overrated. Right?

JULY 14 | 704 MILES
Missouri Headwaters State Park, Montana
Every touring cyclist knows the cheap thrill of causing a controlled stampede. Bulls, horses, or bison huddled along fenced pastures near a road will take to the hoof in spooked unison with nothing more than the backspin of a freewheel and a few yelps and yee-haws. The herd gives chase in a clamor of sound, dust, and fury, posts and barbed wire keeping you safe from the mindless mob.

One day beyond MacDonald Pass we were riding a stretch of national forest service road -- so remote even telephone poles haven't taken root along its edges -- when a herd of wild horses appeared behind us from over a rise. The pace quickened, the sound of pounding hooves grew closer. I swallowed back fear. No fences this time. "Keep pedaling. And whatever you do, don't spin your freewheel," I cautioned Quinn, remembering a second too late that you don't tell a kid not to do something in pressure situations.

We want to believe that these were mustangs. What I know for sure is it's humbling to be so close to graceful power in fluid motion. We pedaled at full speed in labored silence for several glorious miles, but when they chose, the horses passed us as if we were standing still. The herd disappeared into the landscape, leaving nothing more than a brief vapor trail of dust. If these animals can still roam free in the West, there's a betting man's chance that we might also outpace the reach of society between here and the Atlantic.

Considering the cargo, our 80-mile-per-day pace is a speed metalÐband tempo. Yesterday, a real thunderstorm forced us into our first dead sprint. Sixty miles south of Helena, quarter-size raindrops kept me hammering the pedals even though I'd already put in a full day's work. For the better part of an hour we stayed in front of the worst of the storm. Then, just as the skies opened, a campground came into view. Wet and weary, but safe under a sizable pavilion, I planned to sleep like a dead man as soon as I could get the tent pitched. The thunder drowned out all communication. It was 6 pm -- time to call it a night.

I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd's onetime soundman before I saw him. Near midnight, a pickup truck dropped his wrecked body and worldly possessions next to my tent, then fishtailed out of the rain-soaked campground. Thick sheets of precipitation drove across the pavilion, but Rodeo's cigarette stayed lit. I offered to assemble his shelter, and he talked while I labored over his rancid tent. The arm sling and second-degree burns had been acquired in a motorcycle accident. He'd just been released from the hospital -- sans transportation -- and, as the bass player for a Skynyrd tribute band, needed to be at a gig in Bozeman by midday. I showed him my bike. He understood I wasn't his ride ticket.

Still, being a Florida boy, I spoke his language, lyrics, and liner notes. "Every Mother's Son," "Gimme Back My Bullets." Rodeo began calling me brother. By morning light he appeared even more damaged than I remembered, Keith Richards' harder-drinking relative. As we pedaled away Rodeo squinted at our rig and shook his head. "Our fans, with their braided rattails and Bic lighters, they think they're Freebird, man. But this..." He spread his battered arms wide. "You really are Freebird."

JULY 17 | 850 MILES
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
By dipping into the shoots and swells of Montana's Gallatin River, I was able to scratch off four lines of my life list: (1) Come down a river faster than I pedaled the road against it on the same day. (2) Share a risk-filled rafting trip with my sons and have them beg for more. (3) Witness moose and bighorn sheep running along the banks from the relative safety of our inflatables. (4) Try my hand at fly-fishing the eddies where A River Runs Through It was shot.

Running Class III water with the boys, and a few precious hours of solo casting (the kids' camp at Big Sky Resort took the lads for an afternoon), was like turning back the clock 200 years, to a time when the pioneer spirit ruled our collective unconscious -- when a trek over the next rise held uncertainty and required no small measure of courage. Watching dancing flies over the dark pools and creases of light reflecting off a still-pristine river, I realized that I'd slipped into the skin of my ancestors, or at least felt the afterglow of their presence.

But bison don't give a damn about that -- you can see it in their eyes. At 2,000 pounds, why should they? We noticed the behemoth 100 yards off to our left yesterday morning, as we pedaled into first light across Yellowstone's Midway Geyser Basin. It was taking a bath in the ash fields, kicking up clouds of dusty powder as it crashed, rolled, and returned to its feet. This riveting performance brought us to a halt. It also distracted us from the other bison closing distance to our right. I spotted the chocolate-colored beast when it was no more than 25 yards from our stalled bike, taking measured but deliberate steps in our direction. I stood on the pedals and managed an awkward, crooked line uphill to safety. (Whether you're being pursued by bison, dogs, or wild-eyed rednecks in monster trucks, there's always an incline. Always.)

From the top of the rise we noticed our bison charging across the road at the exact spot we'd been moments earlier. A group of tourists around an RV scattered in its wake. Call me twisted, but a deep sense of peace washes over me when it's clear I'm no longer at the top of the food chain. I enjoy living in a world where bison still don't give a shit about us.

JULY 24 | 1,323 MILES
Telluride, Colorado
Six days ago, nearly 1,000 miles into the ride, I stopped pretending and admitted it was time to see a doctor. I hadn't swallowed properly since Helena; now I sounded like a pack-a-day smoker. "With a lung capacity of 96 percent and resting pulse of 48, you're the healthiest patient I've seen all year," said Dr. Bart Brower, an urgent care specialist out of Idaho Falls. "You're sucking dust and dry air and God knows what else in massive quantities for up to 10 hours a day. It'll stop by Kansas, when the humidity overwhelms you. Until then, gargle with Benadryl, breathe through your nose...and pray for rain."

Now, rain it does, dumping down on us in Telluride. We'll spend our first night camped above 11,000 feet near Lizard Head Pass. An end-of-days storm tonight will find me shoring up tent stakes in the dead of night, wheezing and coughing. I'll give myself the John Belushi Animal House speech: "It's not over until we say it is!" That, coupled with some scotch and karaoke at the hotel, should help me resolve to continue, huffing, sweating, and bleeding, if necessary, to the nation's capital.

The author and sons Enzo (left) and Quinn refuel at Secret Stash Pizza in Crested Butte, Colorado

JULY 28 | 1,475 MILES
South of Crested Butte, CO
We've been calling the road home for close to a month, and I feel us going native. It's the point in an epic at which everything becomes loose again. Your mind lets go of a former life and accepts the rhythm of the road as its future. We pee outdoors without shame, inspect ourselves for ticks around the campfire, eat from one pot, grin in the face of 80-mile days, and stop cursing headwinds and soft shoulders. I braked the bike hard at a rodeo arena near Montrose to watch the rise and fall of eight-second dreams.

We peered over the sheer granite and sandstone gorges of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, where Abraham Lincoln Fellows and William Torrence invented modern rafting by mistake, using rubber mattresses to explore its impervious depths. We ate popcorn on the precipice and reimagined the mayhem of our fellow adventurers before camping in their footsteps.

Just south of town I stumble onto a rare treat: the collision of federal highway dollars and summer construction schedules. Brand new downhill blacktop, sealed and dry and waiting to be christened. Safety cones still in place. Think pool balls rolling true over a newly felted table. For days we'd struggled with rough roads, dodging potholes, weaving between steaming chunks of roadkill, gigantic tire scraps, and broken pavement. At 40 mph, the posted speed limit before fines double, I pump my brakes exactly once. I could have stopped on a dime, but I didn't. Howling and punching the air with my fists, I recognize a moment of open-road clarity. I was 12 years old again, praying that I will have the balls to set aside even a sliver of my adulthood doing vulnerable things just like this. I tuck and go small and fast the rest of the way to the bottom.

AUGUST 3 | 2,152 MILES
Kansas City, Missouri
We entered Kansas and our second calendar month at nearly the same time. My throat cleared up but our tires started popping like party balloons. Three flats on one 10-mile stretch forced me to put instant sealant into the tubes and add reinforced Kevlar tires. This let us fully concentrate on the searing heat, smothering humidity, gale-force crosswinds, and daylong plagues of grasshoppers. But all is forgiven for Kansas's multiple helpings of Americana pie: a pristine turn-of-the-century carousel offering rides for a quarter. Blue herons at Wilson Lake and wild turkeys at sunrise. A Mena Suvari in American Beauty look-alike, right down to the cheerleading uniform, offering iced tea and a reprieve from heatstroke. A stop at the world's largest ball of twine. Kansas helped me appreciate our heartland and the art of staying alive in temperatures above 100 degrees. It also did wonders for our daily mileage count: We covered 110 miles on the third day alone. Now we're in K.C., a culinary orgy and much-needed refueling stop. I've been eating anything and everything -- slabs of steak and pounds of shrimp at Golden Corrals, buffalo burgers in Montana, corn chowder across Wyoming, Utah melons munched to the rind. Consuming upward of 7,000 calories a day, I'm still managing to shed weight. (I'll roll into Washington 15 pounds lighter.) But in Kansas City food is an art form. We're stopping here for three gluttonous days, tackling two of its famed barbecues in short order -- Gates and Arthur Bryant's -- then feasting at a friend's five-star French bistro; ordering Chinese at the Princess Garden; and getting New YorkÐstyle Reubens delivered to my godparents' back porch.

AUGUST 19 | 3,804 MILES
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh marks the end of an exhilarating two-week gauntlet of Midwest adventures. From the vantage point of a childhood friend's home near Highland Park, just blocks from where I was born, there's time to catch my breath, lick some wounds, and recount outrageous moments of beauty and brutality across Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.

The beginning of August on the outskirts of Sedalia, Missouri, was my first chance in 2,500 miles to forget about what could run us over. The Katy Trail, a rail line converted into a 225-mile crushed-limestone bike path, was a rare find. No cars allowed, but there was flat terrain, shade, wildlife, good fishing along the Missouri River, stunning bluffs, and caves with Indian artifacts.

We parked the rig beside a wooden bridge for no other reason than we could, and because the river below was just too inviting. The deer count was up to three before I got my helmet off. Enzo had already found a tree to shimmy. The cicadas hummed and buzzed in surround sound as I passed out poles and bait. "Dad, when we cycle across Canada, I want my own bike," Enzo announced from the high branches. The addiction will not be skipping a generation.

Where the treeless landscape of Kansas forced me to take to the road at first light, under the hardwood canopy of the Katy we started our days as late as 10 am. I read from Huck Finn aloud at night in the tent and taught the boys how to shoot pool at the local bar-and-grills that dot the converted depot towns. Everyone called us crazy to pedal at the height of summer, but I would just laugh louder and order more drinks (just a wee thimble of scotch with a Gatorade chaser) during the worst of the afternoon heat. We camped beside cornfields and napped in the mouths of cool limestone caves.

The upside of the more heavily trafficked eastern half of the country is the unmistakable signs of civilization. Our epic ride took a pleasantly surreal turn when touring, in a 24-hour period, both a Trappist monastery and the Jim Beam distillery. Each offered a tranquil setting, rich histories, serious but contented people intent on their work, and product samples (fruitcakes and bourbon). "What do you know, gents," I said, savoring some Knob Creek. "Two forms of religion in one day. If we get to the Derby by sundown we could make it three."

By mid-August, thunderstorms pursued us into the heart of Cincinnati. We rolled up to the stadium and bought scalper tickets to a Reds game. Whether it was our rig or too much Lycra, we turned heads. A bottom-of-the-ninth homer from Ken Griffey Jr. was the highlight of my sons' first foray into professional baseball. We howled, high-fived, and celebrated the continued existence of Middle America as much as anything else.

Eighty miles east of Cincinnati the roads deteriorated to such an extent that I'm convinced many haven't seen improvement since a CCC crew laid Depression-era asphalt. My childhood pal (and his truck) came to the rescue and chauffeured us to the Steel City.

While Pittsburgh puts us 150 miles north of a direct DC route, it holds hidden advantages. Veteran touring cyclists know the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia are harder to pedal than the Rockies: virtually straight-up-and-down climbs that repeat themselves without straightaways for several hundred lung-busting miles. A mostly contiguous series of relatively flat bike paths -- the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal towpath -- will get you from Pittsburgh to Washington. And of course Hershey deserves serious consideration. Given a choice between regular heaven and chocolate heaven, I'll always pick chocolate heaven.

August 28 | 4,043 miles
Washington, DC
Reaching Leesburg, Virginia, 25 miles from the Lincoln Memorial, on Day 58 put us a week ahead of schedule. Avoiding the Appalachians made the difference. Perhaps it helped me forget I was still pedaling a weighty rig. Why else would I have bought 17 pounds of chocolate at Hersheypark? I realized my mistake outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "Boys, I may never say this again, but today I need you to eat lots of chocolate." By lunchtime Enzo asked if perhaps the Amish might like some York peppermint patties.

We skip rocks along the Potomac before pedaling the last few miles of the C&O Canal towpath that leads right onto the Mall. Champagne flows in front of the Washington Monument. I douse myself with bottles of water and take a victory lap, but the truth is I resemble Forrest Gump when he'd had enough running. "I'm a little bit tired. I think I'll go home now," I say to no one in particular. Bone-tired really, but as complete as I'll ever hope to be. At the steps of the Capitol, I face west and really savor our victory for the first time. Miles and the accompanying experiences had chiseled my body into performance art and cleared my head. Maybe it was the endorphins, but the idea of racing in the fall didn't seem like crazy talk. The pull of midlife, with all its second-guessing and settling for what will be, was left sucking wind somewhere back in Idaho. When no one was looking I extended my middle finger and smiled.