Pennsylvania is a divided state, everyone says. But on a bike trip from end to end, I found kindness. | Opinion with Ian Power-Luetscher

I’ve done one bicycle trip in my life and so naturally I’m insufferable about it: an absolute expert on interstate biking. I rant at my friends about a bike trip as the ideal post-pandemic travel dream, and their eyes just roll and roll. Though I had driven through Pennsylvania before, I’d never really experienced the people of your fair state until I dragged myself all the way across it atop a junky commuter bike, three summers ago.Since then, including through an election cycle that starred Pennsylvania as a “divided state,” I’ve consistently wondered why I remember Pennsylvania so much more than the rest of my trip. Why is it the only one, of the five states I rode through, that I plan to cycle across again as soon as the pandemic allows? I believe that the answer has something to do with the people.

UW-Green Bay Associate Lecturer Ian Power-Luetscher (Humanities) penned this piece.

Source: Pennsylvania is a divided state, everyone says. But on a bike trip from end to end, I found kindness. | Opinion