I think that it’s hard to realize how you changed after a multi-month bike tour until a while down the road. Maybe months, maybe years down the road. When I got done with my big one in 2011, I was naively hoping for “instant transformation” when I got home, hoping the New Improved Shawn would break out of the shell of Old Shawn. That of course didn’t happen, but looking back with a decade’s perspective, I can see how I’m ever-so-subtly different.
Coincidentally, 1998 was a year of a transformative trip for me: It was my first cross-country drive, from Connecticut to California to go to the Alternative Press Expo in San Jose. I can say that this trip really did change me in a positive way.
Nathan Tolzmann 
Since this epic tour, have you done another big tour like this? Or any more bike tours?
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I did RAGBRAI once, but that was a very different kind of ride! Matt has done a number of tours.
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Did you just feel after doing one bike tour you didn’t need another?
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I think that it’s hard to realize how you changed after a multi-month bike tour until a while down the road. Maybe months, maybe years down the road. When I got done with my big one in 2011, I was naively hoping for “instant transformation” when I got home, hoping the New Improved Shawn would break out of the shell of Old Shawn. That of course didn’t happen, but looking back with a decade’s perspective, I can see how I’m ever-so-subtly different.
Coincidentally, 1998 was a year of a transformative trip for me: It was my first cross-country drive, from Connecticut to California to go to the Alternative Press Expo in San Jose. I can say that this trip really did change me in a positive way.
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More will be revealed in the Epilogue!
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Right on!
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