Sean C. Morgan
It was the middle of a record-setting cold spell as Leo Dever and his dog rolled into Sweet Home as the weather turned cold.
Temperatures dipped as low as 4 degrees overnight Sunday, Dec. 8, and the bicyclist stayed at the Sweet Home United Methodist Church to take a break and repack his supplies on his way to the Big Horn National Forest in Wyoming.
He has been meandering his way across America for nine years, returning to his home in the Ozark Mountains, Ava, Mo., between rides. This year, he set out in June to reach the Big Horn National Forest for the second time but along a different path that has taken him through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and Oregon so far. He is accompanied by Sassy Max, a 4-year-old terrier.
His goal is to raise awareness and funds for animals and to do what he loves, traveling on his bicycle.
He was almost 50 years old washing dishes at a restaurant when he decided to hit the road, he said. He was in good shape, and figured it was a good time to start traveling.
“I wanted to see how many states I could do,” he said. “I got me a cheap bike and everything got set up and made it a whole first year, and I thought I’ll try it a second year.”
He got better gear and better bicycles over time, and he decided he wanted to do more than just ride.
That’s when he started learning about the Internet. A Myspace page didn’t work out very well, but when he switched to Facebook, he had all the Internet resources he needed to communicate with his fans and friends.
He met a woman along the way who has helped him keep on the technical end of things, he said. She helps him handle his Facebook (Leo and Max Across America) and Paypal accounts, where he collects donations from his fans and friends.
The animal adoption ads on television don’t cut it as far as he’s concerned. He’s out doing something about it, ramping up awareness everywhere.
He receives a lot of support everywhere he goes, Dever said. “I’m going down the road, and when people see me, they say, ‘I like it.’ They say, ‘I like you’re out there really doing it and promoting it.’”
He grew up with animals, and he’s had them around all his life, he said. It’s not just cats and dogs. It’s pigs, chickens and cattle. They’re all important to him.
Dever has taken his message to a majority of states, but he still has some he’d like to visit on the east coast and around the Great Lakes. He’s especially interested in riding in Alaska, perhaps going to work running a dog team there for a time.
People ask him why it takes him so long to finish his rides. He takes it slowly. He was in southern Nevada in September.
“There’s too much to do, too much to see, always something new,” Dever said.
He’ll stop when the weather’s bad and start again when it’s right; but he’ll ride through the heat, the rain and cold weather long after most folks would stop.
The key there is to get outside and get acclimated early. He started this trip in June so he could handle the August heat and kept going as the weather turned chilly.
“You gotta get out in the weather,” Dever said. “You can’t be in all this time and get up tomorrow and expect to do it.”
Even when he’s in a hotel room, he’s in and out to stay acclimated, he said, just to keep from getting soft.
The weather still affects him, he said, but he takes it better than most.
He said he plans to winter over here in Sweet Home for a bit before he decides to move on. He can’t stop for too long.
“I remember what Willie Nelson said about singing: I could do it forever,” Dever said. Riding across America is the same thing for him.
“I could do it forever,” Dever said. “You get to thinking where haven’t I been, what haven’t I done yet? You always find something new.”
Dever may be found on Facebook by searching for “Leo & Max Across America.”