#MyPTStory
When Bob Sanders pedaled into St. Augustine Beach, Florida, on May 11, 2025, it was the culmination of a 3,007-mile bicycle journey that began on Dog Beach in San Diego, California, on March 27.
The ride across the southern tier of America included 44 days in the saddle, averaging 70 miles a day with shorter days spanning 20 to 30 miles, and some days boasting rides of 100 miles or more.
It was a feat anyone would be proud to accomplish. For Bob, who was 85 years and 49 days old when he dismounted at the end of the ride, it meant becoming the Guinness World Record holder for the oldest male to bicycle across America.
But this story doesn’t start on a beach in California or even on a beach in Florida.
The quieter, longer story is about how a lifelong relationship with physical therapy helped make that ride (and the four cross-country rides before it) possible — not by fixing one or two discrete injuries, but by building habits, knowledge, and confidence over three decades.
A lifetime of motion, a foundation of confidence
“My wife Kathryn and I have been coming to the Therapeutic Associates office at the Athletic Club of Bend literally since 1993,” Bob shared, noting that it was the year the couple moved to Bend, Oregon.
“We’ve always been active, but over the years, the staff here have kept us moving, confident, and ready for whatever we have wanted to do.”
Bend has always provided Bob and Kathryn with opportunities for different activities and adventures. From Bob’s time on the Central Oregon golf courses to Kathryn’s passion for the tennis court, to bigger feats such as climbing South Sister, the two have never shied away from pushing themselves.
The idea of bicycling across America, however, came to Bob in an unexpected way in 2009, about a year after settling into retirement. And while he admits giving a range of answers when people ask him why he decided to take that first ride from coast to coast, the truth, he confided, is that it was the answer to his PTSD diagnosis.
“I was in the Marine Corp when I got out of college — 1966-1969 — and went to Vietnam in 1966-’67. After I got out, I went to graduate school and worked overseas. I stayed busy — long hours, visiting a lot of countries … my last two jobs were in Afghanistan, which turned out not to be good, so I retired.”
For 28 years Bob and Kathryn lived overseas. When life slowed down and the couple settled down in their Bend home, suddenly they had a lot of time on their hands.
“In February of 2009, I started having episodes from Vietnam,” Bob shared. “So, I started therapy.”
Bob recalls his psychologist asking him what he likes to do, and upon sharing his need to stay busy, to be active – physically and mentally – to plan things, and how though he had been around the world two or three times, he still liked to see new places, to travel, Dr. Carnahan asked a simple question: Do you like to bicycle?
“That’s how it started, and that is the truth,” Bob said.
Finding purpose through cycling
Distance riding offered Bob not just an outlet for his energy, but a place to focus his mind.
As his psychologist had suggested, cycling became a therapeutic discipline for Bob: digging into months of planning, physical training, and the mental focus necessary to ride thousands of miles. The bike became both medicine and mission. And while Kathryn, like any spouse would, worried about the risks inherent in such an endeavor — traffic … falls … injury — she saw the value and supported her husband’s commitment.
“His first ride was down the Oregon coast,” Kathryn recalled, noting the challenge of being the one at home, not knowing Bob’s status. “But as long as it was helping with his PTSD, it was what he needed to be doing.”
That first coastal adventure, unbeknownst to either Bob or Kathryn, was a catalyst for Bob’s pursuit of more ambitious, long-distance cycling goals. Goals, Bob explained, have been the start of all five of his rides across America.
“The first ones back in 2011, 2012, were just to see if I could actually do it. You know, that was it,” Bob said, matter-of-factly. “After that, I was kind of Machiavellian about it —understanding that Kathryn always worries when I’m out there, alone.”
His goals, then, gained more purpose — fundraising for causes including the Central Oregon Veterans Outreach and the American Cancer Society, to visit family – a brother in Austin, and ultimately to become a world-record holder.
“I just thoroughly loved it. I loved doing all the things — the months and months of planning, making sure my bike was okay, getting straight physically … and then getting out there and doing it – over mountains and deserts and through rain and sometimes snow.”
An essential support system
That planning, preparation and persistence didn’t happen in isolation. Through every goal and every challenge, Bob has leaned on the support of the team at Therapeutic Associates Physical Therapy.
“My reliance on Therapeutic Associates — it’s safe to say — has been behind all my rides,” he said. “The confidence I’ve had over the years comes from working with the people here at the Athletic Club. They’ve always been able to rescue me from the various aches and pains that come up, especially as I’ve gotten older — even now, as we know, at 85.”
That foundation of trust and care has carried Bob and Kathryn throughout many adventures while living in Bend.
Over the years, they’ve come to know many faces at the clinic — from the PTs who’ve guided their care to the front office staff who greet them by name. In recent years, Bren Schmidt has been the couple’s primary physical therapist, helping them not only when injury strikes or surgery sidelines them, but to sustain the strength, mobility, and balance needed to keep chasing the active lifestyle that defines each of them.
A partnership cemented by challenge
For Bob, that partnership was cemented a few years ago during one of his rides when he was exploring El Paso, Texas, with the town’s bicycle club. A faulty sidewalk sent him tumbling, breaking five ribs.
“When you break ribs, it’s really painful,” Bob emphasized. “There’s very little you can do. You can’t even laugh when you have broken ribs.”
But Bren was there to help Bob put himself back together again — he provided a specific diagnosis, realistic expectations, and a clear roadmap forward.
“After a couple of visits with Bren, having looked at the x-rays, he told me, pretty exactly, that it was going to be a long time — weeks, months,” Bob said.
“But he also said, ‘Do this and do that,’ and he gave me four pages of exercises to do, and said if you’re dutiful, in time you’ll wake up one day and say, ‘What? There’s no more pain.’ That’s exactly what happened.”
For Kathryn, Bren’s guidance has been equally transformative. He was there when she suffered a sprained ankle, and then, a few years ago, when she faced a knee replacement — a daunting prospect for someone whose recreational time revolves around the tennis court.
“Before I had my knee replacement, I went to see Bren and he said, ‘We’re going to do all these exercises ahead of time to get you all strengthened up so it’ll be an easier recovery,'” Kathryn recalled.
This pre-surgical strengthening approach — what therapists call “pre-hab” — proved invaluable.
“Bren would tweak or tailor certain exercises to me, not just a one-size-fits-all type of thing,” Kathryn said. “I was back playing tennis in four months.”
The following year brought another challenge: rotator cuff surgery.
“That was the absolute worst of all,” Kathryn admitted. “I could really get down at times, and Bren would say, ‘You know, just take it easy and take this one slow.'”
The recovery took nine months — significantly longer than the knee — but Bren’s patient encouragement and expertise saw her through. Today, she’s back on the tennis court, again, playing regularly.
The power of shared decision making
Between the two of them, the Sanders have kept Bren busy over the past several years. But what makes their relationship work so well, Bren explained, goes beyond his clinical expertise — it’s rooted in shared decision-making.
“I find that including the client in the plan of care, encouraging them to participate in goal setting, we get greater buy-in and then participation in the plan of care,” Bren said. “I ask, ‘Does that sound good to you? Are you okay with what we’re going to do?’ And they go, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m part of this. I’m in.'”
This collaborative approach, Bren noted, builds more than physical capacity — it builds confidence and body awareness that patients carry with them long after their formal PT sessions end.
“Bob will reference over and over again that he has collected an encyclopedia of exercises from us over the past 30 years,” Bren said.
But having the exercises is only half the equation. The real work — the part that makes the difference — happens at home, in the gym, in the commitment to follow through.
“You can come to Therapeutic Associates, and a physical therapist like Bren will tell you exactly what the issue is and what you have to do,” Bob emphasized. “But if you leave here and you don’t do it … that’s key. You can only get so much advice and treatment, but you’ve got to carry through. That’s important.”
That dedication and accumulated knowledge proved invaluable during Bob’s record-breaking ride. While the Guinness ride itself didn’t require direct therapy sessions, Bob relied on the cumulative knowledge, strength, and habits he had developed through years of PT.
Training for a world record
In the months leading up to his March departure, Bob’s preparation became a visible part of the daily routine at the Athletic Club of Bend. Central Oregon winters aren’t conducive to outdoor cycling training, so Bob logged his hours on the stationary bike — often the one positioned right outside the Therapeutic Associates office.
“Lots of times I’d be there before they opened. I’d get there at 6:30, 7 o’clock,” Bob recalled. “After a few weeks, I’d be out there when they got to work, and I’d be out there still on that stationary bike when they went to lunch.”
As the staff arrived each morning, they’d stop to check in on Bob’s progress, express their excitement for his upcoming adventure, and cheer him on.
“Every day, for weeks on end, I had encouragement. Toward the end, they’d ask, ‘When are you going on this ride?’” Bob recalls. “It was never formal therapy, but it was support that kept me moving.”
What lay ahead was more than just a few thousand miles in the bike saddle. The Guinness World Record attempt would require meticulous, daily documentation — witness signatures at multiple points each day, videos at the start and finish of every ride, GPS tracking data, comprehensive logs. The sheer logistics of record-keeping, combined with the physical demands of days averaging 70 miles, would require a support team.
“Without my good friend Jack [Hoker], who provided support by driving my SUV and following me for the first month, and then Kathryn for the second month, I couldn’t have done it,” Bob acknowledged. “They did witness gathering. They kept a log. All I had to do was ride the bike, really.”
3,007 miles across the southern tier
When Bob set out from San Diego, he faced the immediate challenge he knew was coming: 4,500 feet of climbing in the first 40 or 50 miles, all through urban sprawl. From there, the route dropped into the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico — isolated stretches where the landscape stretched endlessly and the elements became as much of an opponent as the miles themselves.
Bob had chosen the southern tier route for a specific reason: knowing it would spare him the mountain climbs that riddled the middle and northern routes — the Cascades, the Rockies, the Appalachians.
“I thought that at my age it would be good to not have so much climbing,” Bob explained. “That turned out not to be quite true,” he then mused. “The West Texas hills, for instance, and lots of New Mexico too, are ferocious. It’s not that they’re long climbs, but they’re steep. … I didn’t add up how many thousands of feet of elevation gain I did, but it was a lot.”
Then there were the winds. Jack remembers them vividly.
“What really showed Bob’s determination and fortitude was the fickle winds in Texas,” Jack said. “Normally, the winds blow from west to east, but we had seven or eight days of winds from the east — some moderate, others quite strong. The winds were like an invisible enemy, trying to sap a bike rider’s energy and willpower. I really felt sorry for Bob and tried to encourage him at each rest stop.”
But the ride wasn’t just about endurance and obstacles. There were moments of unexpected grace — moments that reminded Bob why he keeps coming back to these journeys.
Moments of grace and a harder reality
Early in the ride Bob stopped at the entrance to the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona. There, among the displayed tanks and artillery, he found a sign for the Army High Altitude Jump School.
In 1969, while still in the Marine Corps serving in Force Recon, Bob had trained at that very location, making high-altitude parachute jumps from 13,000 to 14,000 feet.
“I took my camera, and I looked at the sky, and thought, ‘I was way up there. We jumped from up there,’” Bob recalled, his voice catching. “It just brought tears to my eyes. It really did. I took a picture.”
Later in the journey, while trying to navigate through Mobile, Alabama, Bob and Kathryn got lost in what Bob described as “a very sketchy part” of town — railroad tracks, warehouses, and an urgent need to find a bridge across the river. A car pulled up, and a man named Ricardo stopped to help. He advised that they were going the wrong way and that, as Bob had sensed, it was not a part of town they wanted to be in.
Ricardo wouldn’t just give them directions — instead he led them two miles back, Bob pedaling along and Kathryn following in the SUV, to the North Bridge, known also as Africatown Bridge. There, they came to a cemetery where slaves and descendants of slaves from one of the last documented slave ships to reach America in 1860 were buried.
“Ricardo stayed with us there for a bit,” Bob said. “And then, at one point, he said, ‘I’ve lived here all my life and my grandparents, and their parents, are in that cemetery.’”
The unexpected kindness of a stranger, the weight of history in that place, the personal connection Ricardo shared — it was a moment that transcended the ride itself.
Those moments — the personal connections to his past, the unexpected encounters with strangers who became part of his story — are what made the journey worthwhile, even if this fifth ride across America proves to be his last. Because alongside those moments of grace existed a harder reality: perhaps the most significant challenge Bob faced wasn’t the terrain or the weather, but something he hadn’t fully anticipated — the mental toll.
“A lot more than on my previous rides, I was much more stressed out at times and fearful,” Bob admitted.
“Because every day, you just can’t help but have close calls. It could be because of my age, and I’m sure a lot of it is my age. As you get older, you’re not as quick on your reflexes or whatever it might be. Sometimes two or three things would happen in a day, especially those last few weeks, and it would just scare me.”
Kathryn, following in the support vehicle during the final three weeks, felt that stress acutely.
“Watching him in some of the conditions — weather and highways with no shoulders — that’s very nerve-wracking,” she shared. “But I thought, well, hopefully this is the final one.”
For Bob, one factor helped counter that stress: the certainty that his body wouldn’t be what failed him.
“Over the years of coming to Therapeutic Associates Physical Therapy … we understand so much more about our bodies,” Bob reflected. “And part of that, that we’re so committed to exercise, is because of the knowledge we’ve gained all these years. We understand our bodies and each other’s bodies, what’s happening with us.”
That body awareness, built over three decades of physical therapy partnership, gave Bob the confidence to attempt to break the Guinness World Record in the first place — and the resilience to do it.
A record-breaking achievement
On May 11, after riding 3,007 miles over 44 days, Bob reached St. Augustine Beach. Months later, after submitting 251 witness signatures, 130 videos, and comprehensive GPS data to Guinness World Records, the confirmation came: at 85 years and 49 days old, Bob Sanders was officially named “The oldest person to bicycle across America, male.”
The celebration, though, had begun long before the official confirmation arrived. Throughout the journey, Trey, the lead administrator at the Therapeutic Associates clinic, had been following Bob’s progress closely. He’d included her on his email list of about 30 people who received regular updates and photos from the road, and she’d kept the entire staff informed of his journey.
“She always responded whenever I sent emails,” Bob remembered. “She was always so encouraging.”
When Bob returned to Bend, the whole Therapeutic Associates team gathered with him to celebrate and take a photo with Bob and his Guinness World Record certificate.
Bob is humble about the accomplishment. “The big deal is my age and that it’s official,” he said. “I’m grateful, privileged, and a little overwhelmed by the attention — but really, it’s just another ride for me.”
Yet for all his modesty, his record-breaking ride illustrates a profound truth: the combination of lifelong habits, expert guidance, and the confidence built through physical therapy can empower anyone, not just to reach personal milestones, but to keep moving, growing, and enjoying life, no matter their age.
“Coming here all these years has been a real lifesaver,” Bob says. “It’s kept us active, confident, and able to do what we love.”
