Middle Miles: Cycling from Canada to Mexico Along the Pacific Coast Highway

How many summers do you have left?

At fifty-three, Cory Mortensen decided he wasn't interested in counting them. He'd rather use them.

So he climbed onto a bicycle at the Canadian border and pointed it south.

1,850 miles. 27 days. Canada to Mexico. One bicycle. And a Pacific Coast Highway that had absolutely no interest in making things easy.

Middle Miles is a funny, candid, and unexpectedly reflective travel memoir about cycling the Pacific Coast from Washington to Oregon and California—and about what happens when a man in the middle of his life decides growing older doesn't mean the adventure has to end.

Along the way, Mortensen pedals through towering redwoods, fogbound coastal towns, brutal climbs, relentless headwinds, landslides, strange roadside history, questionable decisions, encounters with unforgettable strangers, and some of the most spectacular scenery in America.

He races a Garmin programmed with the speed of his younger self. He thinks about friends who didn't get as many summers as he has. He gets sick. He gets lost. He suffers heat exhaustion. He laughs at himself. And somewhere between Canada and Mexico, the finish line becomes less important than the question that started the ride:

What are you waiting for?

Part cycling adventure, part road-trip memoir, and part meditation on friendship, aging, mortality, and the strange freedom of putting everything else aside and simply moving forward, Middle Miles is for anyone who has looked at the calendar and wondered whether there is still time for one more adventure.

There is.

You don't have to ride 1,850 miles to find it.

But you might have to stop saying someday.