Max McManus arrived from Alaska on Sunday, rode a rental bike around the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center, then got back on a plane for the mainland to begin logging 7,500 miles on bicycle, covering 50 states in 50 days.
When the next 50 days are over, McManus, 47, expects to ride his Trek 6.9 Madone bicycle to Ground Zero in New York City on Sept. 11 with $3 million in donations for victims and family members to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
That’s if McManus’ busted-up right knee holds together for the 150 miles he needs to average every day — and if he doesn’t get hit by another car again following a crash in July 2010 that left him with three broken bones in his left elbow that haven’t been repaired.
"Who are we kidding?" McManus said Sunday during his three hours on the ground in Honolulu. "I’m 47 years old. It’s not like I’m bouncing out of bed like an 18-year-old."
But McManus still has a body that looks as if it was chiseled out of marble, and has competed in four Ironman World Championship triathlons in Kailua-Kona and several shorter triathlons. He was trained in exercise physiology and runs his own sports training and rehabilitation business in Reno, Nev.
Although he’s never attempted anything as ambitious as his 50-state bicycle ride, McManus finishes what he sets his mind on, said his younger brother, Dave, who grew up with him in Newport Beach, Calif.
On July 23 McManus competed in the 125-mile, one-day "Death Ride" that takes riders 15,000 feet into the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
"I grew up idolizing him," Dave McManus said Sunday night from Michigan. "Mentally he’s as tough as nails. Physically I’m not so sure."
McManus got the idea for his "Freedom 50/50 Ride" two weeks after knee surgery in March.
"I was just sitting there, and something just came upon to me to connect the United States," McManus said. "It was like a message. And I wondered if I could come up with a route."
In some ways the next 48 states on the mainland will be easier than the first few miles in Alaska and Hawaii that marked the start of his journey, McManus said Sunday.
He flew out of Reno at 7:05 a.m. Saturday and landed in Anchorage, Alaska, at 12:38 p.m., rented a bicycle and then rode around the airport to check off the first of 50 U.S. states. At 2:40 a.m. Sunday, McManus then flew from Anchorage to Seattle/Tacoma to Honolulu.
McManus then flew out of Honolulu at 3:20 p.m. and was scheduled to land in Las Vegas at 11:55 Sunday night.
Beginning in California, McManus will have company on the rest of his ride in the form of a support vehicle and trailer carrying a documentary film crew, plenty of food, two extra bikes and lots of tires and spare parts.
Sponsors in Reno are covering some of the costs, but McManus said he is paying most of the $50,000 expense for the trip.
Along the way, he hopes to collect an average of one penny from every American to generate $3.1 million in donations for the 9/11 HelpAmerica Foundation.
"He’s done triathlons and run marathons and is so dedicated to America," said McManus’ mother, Sharon, who spoke by phone Sunday from Newport Beach. "But I said, ‘Honey, are you crazy?’ I’m worried about cars and I’m worried about his knee. But that’s what mothers do. We worry."
