Harvard ornithology professor bicycles across the U.S.
The past few days had been nothing but narrow-shouldered highways and bumpy gravel roads. Put another way, they’d been enough to make most bicyclists shake their fists at the heavens, said Scott V. Edwards, a professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. It’s a feeling Edwards had gotten to know well. After all, the 57-year-old ornithologist has been cycling across the nation since June 6 in a trek that largely began as a way to fulfill a lifelong goal but became something bigger as the nation began a reckoning with racial injustice. The journey started in Newburyport, Mass., after Edwards dipped his tires in the Atlantic Ocean. He hopes to reach the Oregon coast sometime during the second week of August. There, he plans on touching the Pacific. Covering about 50 to 60 miles a day, he’s getting closer every day, but not every mile is majestic. Some are downright...