Official Site of Best Selling Author
CORY MORTENSEN
THE BOOKS
Life-Changing Journey... but this is NOT a typical blah-blah-blah memoir
Planning is for sissies. A solo bike ride across the country will be filled with sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and 80 degree temps every day, right? Not so much. The Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, an alkaline desert, and the Sierra Nevadas lay miles and days ahead. Disappointment with unrealized potential, and the thirst for what’s next drew farther away in the rotating wide-angle shockproof convex rear-view mirror.
I will ride my bike down a never-ending ribbon of asphalt wearing a backpack.
Cory Mortensen began his bike ride across the United States from Chaska, Minnesota, to Truckee, California, without a route, a timeline, or proper equipment. Along the way, he gained more than technical skills required for a ride that would test every fiber of his physical being and mental toughness. Ride along as he meets “unusual” characters, dangerous animals, and sweet little old ladies with a serious vendetta for strangers in their town.
Humor ■ Insight ■ Adventure ■ Gratitude ■ Peace
From long stretches of road ending in a vanishing point at the distant horizon, to stunning vistas, terrifying close calls, grueling conditions, failed equipment, and joyous milestones he stayed the course and gained an appreciation for the beauty of the land, the genius of engineering and marvel of nature.
Life doesn’t come with a roadmap...
And this is not a guidebook
CORY MORTENSEN rode his bike from Chaska, Minnesota, to California. The experience ultimately changed his perspective on how life could be lived. So, rather than returning home after his adventure—back to the life unwanted—and equipped with absolutely no plan and nothing tying him down, he makes a simple phone call to quit his career and hitchhike south along the Pacific Coast Highway. Destination unknown. Sounds like a pretty good idea.
One minute, I’m sitting in a cubicle, and the next, I’m haggling over a room in the Andes in a location of the world I never even knew existed.
Where does a guy go when he has no place to be? Passport, tent, sleeping bag, and a favorite pair of Chaco sandals—enough gear for meandering from the Mexican border to the southern tip of South America, right?
Humor ■ Insight ■ Adventure ■ Gratitude ■ Peace
Forty-hour bus rides, Mayan Ruins, five-dollar tattoos, mountain biking down the Road of Death, para-gliding the mountains of Mérida, trekking the Patagonian Andes. Spectacular sights, strange foods, unfamiliar smells, interesting people—and what would a trip like this be without a little dynamite?
The Third Book of the THE BUDDHA AND THE BEE Trilogy.
What happens next? We are heading to Iceland - Europe - SE Asia.
AWARDS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cory Mortensen has ridden his collection of bicycles over a million miles of asphalt, dirt, mud, and backroads. In addition to the cross-country journey detailed in his first book, The Buddha and the Bee, he has traveled to over fifty-five countries, cycled from Minneapolis to Colorado solo to raise money for children born with congenital heart defects. He’s completed sixteen marathons on five continents, and survived three days of running with the bulls in Spain.
Cory is a certified Advanced PADI diver, and has enjoyed taking in life under the waves in locations all over the world. In 2003, he took time off from roaming, and accidentally started and built a company which he sold in 2013. That same year he married his best friend, and explored the state of Texas for two years. The couple sold everything they owned, jumped on a plane to Ecuador and volunteered, trekked, and explored South America for sixteen months before returning to Phoenix, Arizona, where he works as a consultant and bestselling author.
