Back in January, I talked about my upcoming cross-country bike tour this summer in combination with the release of my upcoming book, The Expeditionary Man. We just completed the web site for the bike tour and wanted to invite you to check it out at whythebike.com.

California, here we come…along with Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina!

Now that plans are official, I wanted to officially announce a unique author tour that my family and I are going to be taking this summer.

The Expeditionary Man Bike Tour is a cross-country bicycle trek that will start on June 28, 2008 in San Diego, CA and finish up 2,500 miles later in Charleston, SC on July 25, 2008. Along the way, I will be speaking at churches and community events about the key message of my upcoming book—The Expeditionary Man: The Adventure a Man Wants, the Leader His Family Needs (Zondervan, available in stores in June 2008).

My 15-year-old son Jared and I will be biking each mile of the coast-to-coast tour. My other two sons—Jordan (17 years) and Justus (13 years)—will be riding part of the days and serving as part of the support team. My wife, Kim, will be driving the support vehicle. (Bless her heart—that’s 2,500 miles at 15mph behind us! )

In addition to speaking at various events across the country, my vision is that the tour helps symbolize the promise of family unity in a hurried world as well as the hands-on leadership role that every father is called to.

Download map (.pdf)

The official web site for the bike tour (whythebike.com) will be up and running in March. However, in the meantime, you can visit the tour’s Facebook Page for more info.

Finally, if you live near where we will be traveling through and would be interested in hosting a church event, I’d love to hear from you. Please contact me at rich_at_digitalwalk.net (substitute @ for _at_).