Proctor Alum Matt Welch Riding Bike From Oregon to Maine

On June 21, Welch started in Seaside, Oregon, and will bike coast to coast, all the way to Portland, Maine. He's already traveled over 770 miles, which is only about 15 percent of his journey as he said the route he's taking is about 4,700 miles.

PROCTOR, Minn. – After not qualifying for the 2020 summer Olympic Trials, Proctor High School alum Matt Welch was looking for a new challenge.

“I thought of this bike tour and three weeks later I’m on my bike and biking across the country. I’m really just getting started, I’m just getting warmed up right now,” Welch, who also ran track and cross country for the Rails, said.

On June 21, Welch started in Seaside, Oregon, and will bike coast to coast, all the way to Portland, Maine. He’s already traveled over 770 miles, which is only about 15 percent of his journey as he said the route he’s taking is about 4,700 miles.

“I’ve been a professional runner for a while and that’s a real, legit physical challenge but now I’m embracing a different kind of challenge: emotional, physical, spiritual, all of the above, it’s been a great trip so far,” Welch added.

Besides the route, Welch said he has nothing planned out and is just seeing where the bike takes him.

“[I] wake up 5, 6 in the morning right as the sun’s coming up. I’ve been tenting, tent camping most of the time and then I’ll ride my bike for a couple of hours, try to find a place to stop to have breakfast or an early lunch. I usually bike between five and seven hours each day,” Welch said.

He’s doing the journey solo but will be meeting people along the way.

“I’m just excited to disconnect with a lot of that and just kind of reconnect with who I am and understand what do I want, what do I value in this life, and how can I construct a life that I’m excited about, after this and while I’m on this journey,” Welch added.

Welch says he had no real cycling experience before this but his decade of running has helped.

“Just the athlete mentality of grinding through when things get hard and then the mentality of waking up every day and moving your body and kind of enjoying that and gaining a lot of energy from just acting from moving your body,” Welch said.

And added that he was nervous without having that experience, but just wanted to try it, which is what Welch says he hopes to instill in younger athletes, especially those back in the Northland.

“If you’re worried about a race, a sport or a test or something in life, just act on something. Once you’re actually doing it, you get more and more excited about the whole vision about what it could be. And that was my issue, I was like 4,700 miles, will I even be able to do this, I’m so unprepared, all of these self-doubts and these concerns that I had, just kind of vanished once I started because I was just focused on the now and focused on OK, now I’m in it, now I’m really excited about it and I want to continue to invest my time and energy into it,” Welch added.

You can follow Welch’s 4,700 mile tour from Seaside, Oregon to Portland, Maine on his website.