Cycling offers Tanya Roy ’81 “a means of discovery and adventure” that has taken her across the country and beyond. The summer before graduate school, she biked the TransAmerica Trail across the U.S. She calls this 4,400-mile journey “the foundation of her future bike excursions,” that showed her what she could accomplish on a bike. The summer after, she and her husband, then her boyfriend, spent three months cycling in Europe.
Biking any distance comes with challenges, particularly the uncertainty of weather and terrain. Tanya recalls an unexpected thunderstorm in Maine and a treacherous last hour on rural roads. On the flip side, “There are some beautiful days that you just want to bottle up and save for a day in January,” she says. The challenges only add to the sense of accomplishment and joy at the end—you’ll always get dry after the rain.
Some of Tanya’s recent trips connect to the values that brought her to Wellesley. Her family has a strong tradition of attending women’s colleges, which shaped her interest “in attending a school where women would serve as role models and mentors.” In returning to long-distance cycling trips since retiring from full-time work, Tanya has traveled with WomanTours, a woman-owned small business that hosts bike tours for women. On these trips she finds herself inspired by multitalented women guides who may be mechanics or tour chefs.
This summer, Tanya will bike the western half of the Northern Tier—the northernmost part of the contiguous United States, along the border with Canada—with WomanTours, traveling from Anacortes, Wash., to Fargo, N.D., and then she’ll likely complete the eastern half from Fargo to Bar Harbor, Maine, next year. Having biked the Southern Tier in 2024 and the Atlantic Coast in 2025, the Pacific Coast remains for Tanya to complete the perimeter of the U.S., an almost 12,000-mile accomplishment in total.
On trips or in races, Tanya only competes with herself. More importantly, being on a bike brings “a wonderful sense of freedom” akin to that of her childhood adventures from her neighborhood to the pizza shop.
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