Six states. 1,700+ miles. A 25-year-old bicycle: One Rockford-area man’s personal quest to ride home
By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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LOVES PARK — Derek Beegle pedaled out of Corpus Christi, Texas, on a hot day in mid-August with hundreds of miles between him and his new home in northern Illinois.
His only mode of transportation would be a quarter-century old bicycle that his mother had lying in a shed at her Texas home.
He strapped a series of bags to the bike and stuffed them full of dehydrated food and other snacks, as well as water and camping equipment.
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With $20 in his pocket, the 35-year-old set out on a quest to ride home relying only on his own endurance, ingenuity and the support of any strangers kind enough to help him along the way.
“I’ve heard of stuff like this and having support along the way — meet up like every 50 miles, we’ll meet at this hotel — but no: Derek was all on his own,” said his father, Paul Beegle, of Loves Park. “He had what he packed in his bags, camping on sides of roads that he could find that are safe and secure for him to sleep.”
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The trip brought Derek Beegle, a 2007 Hononegah High School graduate who had been living in Corpus Christi for more than two years, through six states over 28 days. He covered more than 1,700 miles, many of them through blistering summer heat that at one point topped out with a heat index of 118 degrees.
“This is my version of being completely free: Self-reliance, being kind to people, meeting as many people as I can and just sharing what I have in my heart with them,” Derek Beegle said. “That’s my version of freedom.”
Exactly how much ground he covered was difficult to track due to the zigzag nature of Beegle’s route as he tried to avoid riding along busy and potentially dangerous highways. Traveling by highway, online map tools show, would have taken roughly 1,300 miles. His father kept his location pinged via cellphone throughout the course of the trip, and their best estimate is that he covered between 1,700 and 1,900 miles.
Beegle’s trip was in part a mission of self-discovery and a personal challenge. He also hoped others would find inspiration.
“If you find yourself in a place where you don’t feel complete, with a little planning you have the power to create your future,” he wrote on Facebook a few days after starting his trip on Aug. 12. “Change is an uncomfortable thing at times. By putting myself through this maybe that can be the spark that lights the fire in you.”
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He was also returning here to reconnect with his father, who was recovering from a stroke.
“That really hit me hard because I remember the last time I saw him I didn’t say ‘I love you’ to his face,” he said. “If I can do this, you can recover, too. That was kind of the fire behind me.”
The trip also marks a new beginning for Beegle. He learned while on his bike that he could regain custody of his two children, ages 14 and 12, in northern Illinois. It had been several years since he saw them in person after losing custody in divorce. Now he will set roots here so he can raise his children.
“He’s making a great effort to be a good dad,” said Paul Beegle, who has been caring for the kids at his home until Derek can do so. “He walks through the door and these two kids, their faces just light up.”
His father and son, 12, were waiting for him outside their home on Sept. 8 as Beegle pedaled in. His daughter was there, too, but asleep inside.
“It was an emotional moment,” Paul Beegle said. “We could see kind of a silhouette down the road because it was getting near dark, headlights from cars coming our way.
“We spotted him. My grandson is jumping up and down. … He shows up, pretty much dumps the bike and gets off and big hugs.”
Derek Beegle was livestreaming the final 40 minutes of the ride on Facebook. In the video, he begins to tear up as he remarks that he can see his son, looking much taller now, off in the distance.
“In that instance. In that space and time I was the happiest person I’ve been in a long time,” he said. “If I could relive that every second. Just having that happiness that I experienced in that instant.
“You can’t capture that in a bottle. I’ll tell you that. I wish you could though. I’d give it to everybody.”
‘Make that first step’
Beegle posted several videos on Facebook to document his journey through Texas and Louisiana — where he encountered wild boar and alligators — as well as Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.
“I was in a heat wave for pretty much the whole trip,” he said. “I wasn’t drenched (from sweat). I was just salty.”
He fixed flat tires and broken spokes, and detailed moments of exhaustion and times where he wasn’t sure where he’d be able to refill his water supply.
“When I went on this trip I found out so much more about myself,” he said. “The tests that I undertook — trusting my gear, trusting myself, being aware — those were huge tests.”
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His beard had grown scraggly over the course of the trip, and his padded bicycle pants had worn thin from hours and hours in the saddle. He battled through strong headwinds on a 90-mile final day of the trip, and returned home exhausted and ready to restart his life here. He’s working now at a pub and grill in Roscoe.
“People get so comfortable with where they are, and they become complacent. Complacency in my mind is a killer. It kills your mind. It kills your spirit,” he said. “If you need to make a change, all you have to do is make that first step.”
Beegle is an Army veteran who served as a combat engineer in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn.
He said he suffered some post-traumatic stress disorder, and said it felt freeing to be able to move from place to place.
“I got mortared a lot, I got rocketed a lot,” he said. “Maybe that was my subconscious: this is how we’re going to heal.”
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He also had a lifelong love of camping that prepared him to setup to sleep wherever he might find himself when exhaustion set in.
In the mornings, he’d plan his routes. After his solar-powered battery charging banks were lost, he’d look for a restaurant in town to charge his phone before setting out for the day’s trip.
He had a few instances where people along the way offered him a place to stay, but most often he searched for 24-hour parks or free campgrounds.
“If there was none of that, I’d look for bridges and just anywhere I can tuck into,” he said. “I’d talk to people, what kind of area am I in? Am I safe? Should I bike a little further?”
Perhaps his most perilous moment came on a busy highway in Tennessee, when he was side-swiped by a car, damaging his bike.
“It jarred me pretty bad, and I did end up going in a ditch,” he said. “The frame got bent up a little bit.”
Strangers stopped to help him, giving him food and a place to stay for the night before taking him to Jackson, Tennessee, to get his bike repaired.
‘Random kindness’
Beegle said they were among many people he connected with over the course of the trip, some of whom he continues to keep in contact with today.
“The amount of support that I got, it’s just like, wow, people care. There are kind, caring people out there,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing I found out is just the amount of kindness, just random kindness, too.”
Some of that random kindness came from Heather and Bob Askew of Karnak, which is about 400 miles south of Rockford at the southern end of Illinois.
The couple was visiting a friend at The Sun Bar in Vienna when Beegle stopped in on Sept. 2.
“Derek comes rolling in, sat down next to us and was really friendly,” Heather Askew said in a phone interview with the Rock River Current. “We ended up sitting there for three or four hours talking about (his trip). We just think it’s awesome he made this really epic trip.”
The couple bought him dinner and restocked his water supply before helping him find a park to stay at in Vienna.
“It makes you feel good that someone’s able to do something like that. It was uplifting,” Heather Askew said. “He’s an awesome young man. He’s had his struggles, but this is a personal achievement that you can say not many people have done in their lifetime.”
Friends also donated to Beegle’s CashApp, donating roughly $500 in total that he used to pay to repair his bike and stock up on food and water.
Angie Behringer of Benton, which is about 345 miles south of Rockford, said she could see from the moment she met Beegle that he was a kind soul. She and her husband let Beegle crash on their couch, shower and use their swimming pool as he prepared for the last leg of his trip.
“He has an outgoing personality. You couldn’t see no harm in him,” she said in a phone interview with the Current.
The Behringers sent Beegle on his way with ice water and snacks.
“He inspired me. He inspired me a million ways,” she said. I bragged about him for weeks after he left and I still do. When he left I was almost in tears.
“He’s one of a kind. He was a very kind soul. … I’d have him back.”
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Some friends tried to encourage him to try to monetize his trip, but Beegle said that was never his goal.
“He doesn’t even think about being rich. You never hear ‘money, money’ out of his mouth, never,” his father said. “It’s just being happy, and as far as success, success to him is getting to the goals and happiness more so than anything else.”
Paul Beegle said his son’s journey should inspire people to pursue their goals, even if they seem unachievable at first. Doing so, Paul Beegle said, provides you with a life story to tell if nothing else.
“I’ve always told him throughout his life, you’ve got to have stories,” Paul said. “He’s got a big one now.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas
