Cycling the Globe

Come New Year’s Day 2000, amateur cyclist Cathy Behm will trade in her usual bike route--from her home here to Laguna Beach and back--for a much longer stretch: a ride around the Earth.

Behm, 36, is joining Odyssey 2000, believed to be the largest group ever to embark on a bike ride around the world.

The international team of 250 cyclists will cover 20,000 miles in a year, traveling about 77 miles a day, roughly the distance from Huntington Beach to San Diego.

To go, Behm will spend $31,000--the early bird price--and the upcoming balloon payment is probably “the biggest check I’ll ever write in my life.” Latecomers pay $36,000.

A bartender at the Quiet Woman in Corona del Mar, Behm said she had saved years to buy “a house or something special.” She decided that the “something special” was pedaling around the planet.

“I’ll get a house later,” Behm said. “I get to see the world. I am not the kind of person who wants to wait until I am 65.”

Her “To Do” list before leaving includes finding a sitter for three cats that “are like my children,” securing several visas, getting inoculated against foreign diseases and carefully saving tips from work.

The hefty price includes two daily meals, lodging, overnight stays, gear transport, airline and boat tickets to cross the oceans, route guides, potable water, a doctor, hot showers, roadside repairs, toilets, massages and tickets to the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

A bike of undetermined make and model comes with the package. One thing’s for certain: Everyone will receive the same bike so the crew only needs to supply parts for a single model. That’s because bike shops can be hard to locate in places such as Tanzania.

Organizers said there already is a waiting list for the upcoming ride, and two more trips are planned in 2003 and 2006.

“Two hundred and fifty people are going to be able to say, ‘I rode my bike around the world in 2000,’ ” said trip planner Tim Kneeland of Seattle. “They’ll be part of a pretty fantastic inaugural event to welcome the new millennium.”

Trek statistics boggle the weekend cyclist.

The itinerary includes 366 days (2000 is a leap year) of travel, 52 countries on six continents, 28 airplane flights and two boat rides. Cyclists range in age from 13 to 80, with a roughly equal number of men and women.

Riders will not circumnavigate the globe. They’ll hopscotch to highlights on six continents, following the sun instead of the circumference of the Earth.

The trip will begin and end in Southern California, possibly at Disneyland or Pasadena.

From the starting line, team members will pedal south to San Diego, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina and Chile.

After that, every country in Western Europe except Portugal is on the tour. The Asian portion of the trip features stops in Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. African stops include South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. Visits to Egypt and Israel remain tentative due to political upheaval.

Australia and New Zealand complete the foreign leg before Christmas in Hawaii and the last New Year’s Eve parties of the millennium in Los Angeles.

Kneeland has organized bicycle trips since 1980. But this marks his most extensive undertaking to date, and he’s already visiting route sites to eye the best paths and make arrangements.

“Anything that can happen in a person’s life in a year . . . can happen out on the road,” he said, explaining the need for lots of planning. “People are going to be sick. The weather is going to be the weather.”

And many participants aren’t seasoned cyclists.

One of Behm’s team members will be Al Levine, 45, a security systems installer from Long Island, N.Y., and the first person to sign up for the trip. He balks at traditional training techniques.

“I am training--I am sitting in front of the refrigerator,” Levine joked. “To ride a bicycle, it hurts.”

But he enjoys the vantage point of a bike seat and has ridden across this country.

“You’re moving at a pace where you can stop and see and enjoy,” he said. “Riding in a car, you miss everything, but on a bicycle you’re moving at the right pace.”

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As a woman traveling alone, Micki Mallory, 32, of Portland, Ore., wanted the security of touring with a group.

“I couldn’t find a better way to see the world,” she said. “I’ll be in the best shape of my life at 35, and be outdoors all day with a community of new friends.”

Mallory gave her employer, Nike, four years’ notice for a leave of absence. “Hopefully, they’ll give me free shorts.”

Behm will prepare by riding 120 to 150 miles a week on her Waterford 1900 touring bike, a custom model. She’s already ridden cross-country and from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

“Your body adapts quickly, and then you feel like you’re Superman--or Wonder Woman,” Behm said of the intense cycling schedule. “It makes me feel strong, more confident. I get a sense of peace.”

Serenity is a dividend of hard exercise--but there’s nothing like a good old endorphin rush.

“I think that if people who use cocaine and heroin could feel as good as I feel on a long bike ride, they would quit and buy a bike,” she said.

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Wheels Across the World

The Odyssey 2000 bicycle journey will take 250 riders around the world. Some particulars on the trip:

Start date: Jan. 1, 2000

Trips between countries:

* Bike: 30

* Air: 28

* Boat: 2

Total miles: 20,127

Countries visited: 52

Total cycling days: 261

Average miles per cycling day: 77.1

Days off for travel, recovery, etc.: 105

Cost: $31,000 or $36,000

Source: Odyssey 2000