Princeton University Athletics
Rough Rider
April 10, 2001 | General
When Hewes Agnew '58 and wife Susan first heard about Odyssey 2000, billed as the world's first professionally organized, mass-start bicycle tour of the world, they could only imagine the adventures that lay ahead. And, as it turned out, traveling through 45 countries and pedaling their tandem cycle nearly 16,000 miles through every continent but Antarctica was every bit the life-changing event they hoped it would be.
Beginning at the 2000 Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena on New Year's Day, the cyclists journeyed through Central and South America before flying to South Africa, perhaps Agnew's favorite stop during the trip. Another flight began a swing through Southern Europe. After a brief tour of the Eastern United States and Canada, the cyclists went back to Northern and Central Europe before heading to Australia, where the group arrived in time for the Summer Olympics in Sydney. From there it was on to Japan, China, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and finally Hawaii before returning to lead the Tournament of Roses Parade again this January.
"We averaged about eight hours per day on the bike," says Agnew, who along with his wife has been riding a tandem for nearly 20 years. "On a typical day we would get up at 5:30, pull up our tent [riders camped more than half the time as opposed to sleeping in hotels or other accommodations], pedal for somewhere between six and 11 hours, get in, shower, eat and get the tent set again. It was a tough experience but very satisfying to know that we were doing it."
The biggest challenge for most of the Odyssey riders came in China in October. Tim Kneeland & Associates, the Seattle-based special events management company that ran and promoted Odyssey 2000, informed the group that each rider would have to pay an extra $3,000 in order to complete the journey because of increased airfares.
Many riders dropped off the tour at the point, returning home or going off on their own, but the Agnews and less than 25% of the original group stayed on to complete the adventure.
Now, more than a month after the 366-day, $36,000 per-person tour ended and as the Agnews adjust to the simple life back at their Montana home, controversy that they never could have imagined is swirling around the trip.
"Nothing like this had ever been done before," says Agnew, who played football at Princeton and was a member of Dick Colman's 1957 team that won the school's first Ivy League championship.
"It was marketed as something that anybody regardless of cycling ability could do. But some people were taken aback by the amount of cycling and things that happened along the way, especially in the beginning, and really were unhappy with their experiences."
Some of those "things" have, unfortunately according to Agnew, turned into the basis of a class-action lawsuit filed against Odyssey 2000 organizers.
The Agnews, two of less than 50 people to actually complete the trip out of the nearly 250 people who started, had a "satisfying and terrific experience," however.
"Tim [Kneeland] had a concept and a vision with this thing, and he kept on with it," says Agnew. "Only a few people kept that vision with him. By and large he kept the tour going and maintained the schedule he set out. Everything wasn't always perfect, but he allowed people to do their own things while still keeping the route together."
Agnew, who took up cycling largely to keep active because of chronic knee problems caused by an injury first suffered while playing football at Princeton, says his knees hurt more walking and touring the sites than while pedaling. He and Susan, a retired teacher, had taken three of their four children, two of whom are also Princeton graduates, on a spectacular cross-country bike trip in 1992 and heard about the Odyssey 2000 trip three years later.
A surgeon who lived in Baltimore for 13 years before moving to Montana in 1972, Agnew actually returned to the East Coast in 1997 to take over as chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. He officially retired from that position in July 1999 and then went on a brief bike tour of Burma with Susan in November of that year in preparation for the big event.
Now, as the Agnews adjust to life off the road and a house they haven't occupied in three years, they look back without regret at the voyage that took them around the world.
"I was actually a little worried before the trip because I thought it would be too planned and not enough adventure," laughs Agnew. "It turned out to be a lot of both and different than anyone anticipated, but it was certainly a spectacular challenge."
by Ed Benkin