About the author

hello from 2025 (!): I have just completed my PhD in Materials Science at the Colorado School of Mines (graduated December 2024), and Jason and I are about to embark on a 3 week van trip out to Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, then we head to Salt Lake City, and close out with a week at Indian Creek (Utah). Most of these destinations were chosen for rock climbing, with the notable exception of SLC where we will ski and I will finish my Scuba certification (at the Homestead Crater). My goal for this year is to get a job, stay as un-injured as possible, and keep learning.

hello from 2021: I am currently a PhD student at Colorado School of Mines, and I still need to update this page. I also ride/race for a local team called Girls Gears and Beers. Check em’ out on Facebook or the gram so you can see where we are riding this Thursday. All the paragraphs below I wrote several years ago, back when I was young and confused. I have everything, absolutely everything, including what underwear I will be wearing 87 days from now, figured out. 100%. All figured out.

hello from 2019: I need to update this page….but I will keep what I have written below, from 2016. In a nutshell, I am currently working for a 3D printing company and I love riding my bike and learning about science, particularly chemistry involving sequestration and useful conversion of CO2. I will update this ABOUT section, at some point. Maybe. Follow the blog links above for more info, or if you would like to send me one of those electronic mails: c7porter@gmail dot com

You're really biking alone, from California to Chicago?

Last spring I graduated from U.C. Berkeley, diploma in hand and no idea of what I wanted to do with my life.

I decided to live it

 I hopped on my bicycle in California and headed for Chicago,

But I didn't stop there.

I rode all the way across the country to Maine, and the people I met and the things I saw along the way were life-changing.

Now I live in Chicago, but my thirst for adventure lingers.

This August I will be tackling the world's longest off-pavement cycling route as a brand ambassador for the cycling gear company Blackburn Design.

Stretching 2,700 miles from banff, Canada south to the mexican border, I will be pedaling along the spine of the north america

I can't wait.

One year ago, I was standing on the stage of the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA, holding my diploma and gazing out at the crowd as they sustained wild applause. The audience seemed ecstatic, but I felt anxious. During my last few weeks as a college senior, I interviewed for positions as an environmental consultant and outdoor educator, but I left each interview feeling ambivalent about the job and distracted by a crazy idea kept growing in my head.

I wanted to go on a long bike trip. "Long" meant anything over 1,000 miles, which was over three times the length of the longest bike trip I had gone on at the time. The destination wasn't as important as the journey, and I wanted to carry everything I needed to eat, sleep, and repair my bicycle by myself. 

My desire for adventure led me to accept a job that raised everyone's eyebrows but my own. My first job out of college: line cook at a brewpub in Chicago, with the shaky promise that my job would develop into a sustainability manager position for the company. It never did.

On June 4, 2014 I left my front door in Walnut Creek, CA, packed with my sleeping bag, tent, bike tools, two pairs of clothing and took off to ride my bicycle to Chicago by myself. 

The adventure was astounding, beautiful, and life-changing. I saw parts of the country I had never seen before for the first time from the seat of my bicycle. I met people whose generosity was endless and beautiful like the Great Plains or the skies of Montana. I reached Chicago, met the company I would work for for 7 months, and kept pedaling all the way through Ontario, Canada, upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, to finally reach the Atlantic Coast in Portland, Maine. From there I turned around and took a train back to Chicago, where I spent one year in a love-hate relationship with the Windy City. 

After a year in Chicago, I was ready to move out of the city. Apparently I am not a city girl. When a bike messenger friend introduced me to an opportunity to ride a mountain bike from Canada to Mexico through Blackburn Design's Ranger program, I immediately applied. I was accepted as a Blackburn Ranger, and set out to Canada in early August. I rode over 1,000 miles alone, traversing over steep passes and only crashing badly once. I'm fine. An injury in Colorado put an early end to my trip, which was extremely disappointing, but I felt that I had experienced such rugged beauty and built enough character (headwinds, baby) in 1,700 miles that I could only imagine what another 1,000 miles would achieve.

Now, I am moving back to California to accept a job in northern CA. It has nothing to do with bikes. I will be selling big honking pieces of recycling equipment to big honking companies. I am sure it will be challenging and fun, because my path always seems to lead me the challenging (and fun) way.