Pedaling toward Providence: En route to Brown, first-year student bikes 2,000 miles across the U.S.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Brown's newest students traveled to campus from across the world via many modes of transportation, including planes, trains and automobiles - and at least one bicycle.

First-year student Theodore Niemeyer Lam made much of the trip from the West Coast to the East Coast on two wheels, pedaling more than 2,000 miles over 38 days to complete the bulk of his journey to Brown.

Through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland, he embraced the joy in exploration while weathering blistering heat, physical and mental exhaustion, mosquitoes and solitude. An endurance athlete and amateur bicycle mechanic who raced on his high school cross-country and mountain bike teams in Berkeley, California, Lam conceived of the journey as a way to travel sustainably and experience more of his country.

"When you go into an airport and come out of another airport, you never see the people and the space and the economy when you skip what's in between," Lam said. "Now my perspective on the world is different."