Nicholas Scolari and Sophie Marro of Nice, France, stand on Main Street Haines, about 750 miles in to their journey to Bolivia.
On Friday afternoon, Nicholas Scolari and Sophie Marro stood outside Talia’s Treasures thrift shop on Main Street, Haines, their faces bright red from sun and wind burn.
The 26-year-olds from Nice, France, arrived in Haines the day before, lugging all their camping gear and food in rainproof panniers draped over their carbon-fiber gravel bikes through the Alaska Range and the Yukon Flats.
They’d traveled more than 750 miles and spent more than 81 hours in the saddle. They still had thousands of miles to go to their ultimate destination: Bolivia.
Still, they said, they felt the hardest part was behind them.
“The biggest challenge was leaving home,” said Scolari. “The first day we just did a few kilometers, because I was in such a bad mood.”
But the couple gained steam since then. They’d stopped in Gakona for a few days, staying with a family there with six kids who fed them moose burgers and showed them their homestead lifestyle.
From Haines, Marro and Scolari planned to cycle all the way to Mexico City. From there, they would fly to Ushuaia, the southernmost town in South America, and bike back up to Bolivia.
Their stop in Alaska was just the beginning, but so far, they said Alaskans had impressed them with their warmth and hospitality.
“Alaskan people are very nice, sometimes they even give us food,” said Scolari.
In Haines, they found a host who let them stay at their house and fed them — even brought them to their sauna. Marro said a warm sauna was a big improvement from their usual way of bathing.
“For example, we go in the lake and take a bath,” she said.
The idea for their journey started about a year ago. During the pandemic, they had planned a trip through the African continent with a camper trailer. COVID prompted them to cancel that trip, and during their pandemic time in the town of Nice, in Southern France, they got hooked on biking while commuting to work. Scolari is a chiropractor and Marro works at a renewable energy company. They met a few cyclists who had done long-distance trips around the world on bicycle. It sparked an idea.
“One day Nico, just woke up and said, ‘Sophie we can do America by bicycle!'” said Marro, “I just said ‘yes, for sure.'”
They sold their camper trailer and got to work training on their bikes and saving money. They’re hoping the 25,000 euros (around $27,000 USD) would be enough to get them to Bolivia.
“It’s the price of the camper,” said Marro. “The most expensive is the air travel.”
A few weeks before they began their bike trip from Anchorage, Marro went to Juneau to work for a family through a work-exchange program mowing their lawn. From Haines, they plan to the ferry to Juneau to visit the family. They’d stopped at Talia’s Treasures to buy a few puzzles as gifts for the family.
So far, they said everything has gone smoothly. They haven’t had any major mechanical issues or personal injuries. Still, there have been challenging times, like the desolate stretch of road near the Canadian border.
“There was nothing between Tok and Beaver Creek,” said Scolari. “It was three days and we didn’t see anybody except a lot of construction.”
Still, they were excited to run into a fellow bike adventurer, a Spaniard who they had met earlier. They ended up riding together for another two days.
Another challenge was the road into Haines, where they were met with strong headwinds.
“With the rain and the front wind — that was hard,” said Marro.