Biking for Kelly Boyce Hurlburt
From staff reports
On the first leg of his ToTheRockTour across the Upper Midwest and through two Canadian provinces, adventure cyclist Brian Perich arrived in northern Michigan to find the community mourning the death of a local cyclist whose life was taken in a horrific hit-and-run collision in the wee hours of July 5 in Traverse City.
“Cycling has always been an integral part of my life and to see this young women from Benzie County leave behind her family and loved ones because of the negligence of a driver is absolutely tragic,” said Perich. “Kelly Ann Boyce (Hurlburt) was doing something she loved, something that sustained her life and connected to her community while riding that bike.”
Perich will ride through Traverse City on Wednesday morning, July 10, and will dedicate this leg of his journey to her. Other cyclists are invited to join Perich. He’ll leave Benzie County at approximately 8:30 a.m. and travel through Interlochen (he’ll check in and update his time at the Interlochen Public Library) en route to Traverse City via US-31 and US-37, and arrive around 10:30. Perich hopes to spend a couple of hours in Traverse City talking with the community.
Brian Perich is an adventure cyclist, father and teacher on a tour of North America to re-connect with friends, family and community. A Canadian-American dual citizen, he recently returned home from seven years in Asia, where he lived in Gangneung, Korea with his wife of 10 years and their children Matthew and Sierra.
His ToTheRockTour 2013 is a cross-county bicycle tour which aspires to prove that one can travel across international borders on a bicycle and connect with communities along the way. Perich started in Grand Rapids and is headed toward Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He will then head west through Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, and then north into Saskatchewan, where he’ll follow the Trans-Canada highway into Medicine Hat, Alberta, then onto Calgary. His final destination is Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains. Follow his TotheRockTour here.
This is Perich’s third cross-country bicycle tour. His first tour in 2011 took him to Western China, the Taklamakan Desert, the Southern Silk Road, and into the Aksai Chin Mountios, which borders Afghanistan, before he was turned back at a military checkpoint and arrived in the ancient city of Kashgar in East Turkestan, in the heartland of the Uighur culture. Perich continued the tour through Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, across the bone of the Himalayas —meeting many cultural groups within China.
With an interest in meeting nomadic cultures, he traveled to Outer Mongolia and spent the summer of 2012 crossing deserts and the Steppe. The grueling journey across 1,553 miles and 130,234 vertical feet of altitude while connecting with nomadic peoples offered insight into the beauty and generosity and open spirit of the people. It took Perich nearly one year to recover from the last expedition.
Follow Perich on his website for times and location updates. You can also contact him at tesol2000@gmail.com.
