NEWBURYPORT — For four city residents, the familiarity of the sands of Plum Island was a welcome sight last weekend.
From the Pacific to the Atlantic, the quartet had just completed a ride across the country.
"It was awesome and overwhelming," said Pippa Dorfman, 22, of Barton Street. "We had goose bumps. I've never been so happy to be in Newburyport."
Sunday morning, Dorfman, along with childhood friends and fellow Barton Street residents Jeff, 22, and Erica Marcus, 25, and their mother, Elizabeth, finished their cross-country bicycle ride two weeks early.
The trip, which ended with a champagne toast on a Plum Island beach, raised money and awareness for bipolar disorder as well as lung and brain cancer, diseases that claimed the lives of their family members.
The group left Newburyport on May 15 and has since been riding up to 100 miles a day from Anacortes, Wash., to Plum Island. The riders had an endorsement from Massachusetts General Hospital for a ride they called Leave Cancer in the Dust. They have yet to find out how much money they raised for charity but expect to be pleasantly surprised.
Dorfman lost her father, Ron, to brain cancer and her brother, Jeremy, to bipolar disorder in the last five years.
"I didn't expect to connect to my father and brother the way I wanted to," Dorfman said. "But I did. They helped me a lot. I needed this trip."
From the lushness of Glacier National Park to the quaint feelings of home they felt in Stillwater, Minn., the four agree the places where they traveled now blend together into countless miles of highway and campgrounds where they slept each night. But the lessons on the road have not been lost.
"The small-town hospitality was so nice," Jeff Marcus said.
"A lot of people saw the van and contributed to our cause or invited us in for dinner," Dorfman added.
The idea started when Jeff Marcus was inspired by a professor while attending Emerson College in Boston. The professor had told stories about a trip across the country by bike, and Marcus was immediately taken by the idea. After talking with the rest of his family and Dorfman, they all jumped in.
While the three rode their bikes, Elizabeth Marcus rode ahead in the van, scouting out the route and carrying heavy equipment and rations.
Over the two and a half months they were gone, they encountered both hardship and personal victory. The first thing that took some getting used to was the often uncomfortable bicycle seat.
"It doesn't matter how padded your shorts are or if you have a gel seat," Jeff Marcus said. "If you're on the bike for 10 hours a day, it's going to hurt."
All noted soreness was a major problem during their trip, as well as sharing the road.
"This trip has opened a world of cycling advocacy," Erica Marcus said.
For the recently retired Elizabeth Marcus, adjusting to life with the 20-somethings was an adventure in itself.
"Living with 20-somethings is interesting," Elizabeth said with a laugh. "It was wonderful, and I was so impressed by their determination and their ability. They got up every day and rode in the heat, rain, cold with trucks and dogs and there was no whining."
The four are undoubtedly bonded now by an experience they will forever remember.
"It was an opportunity to connect as a family," Jeff Marcus said. "It taught us to be together again and navigate life together again."
The group took the time on the road, often a quiet and desolate place, to create five-year plans for themselves. Jeff Marcus is making plans to build a three-person bicycle, on which he will travel across the country, playing musical gigs and endorsing green living. He hopes his adventure is made into a reality television show.
Erica Marcus will go back to Utah to her job working with troubled children, but she hopes to continue to challenge herself physically and mentally with new adventures.
Elizabeth Marcus is looking forward to a luxury vacation to Key West next year and reintegrating herself into society and the causes to which she used to volunteer her time.
Dorfman said she will go back to school in the fall as a transfer student to the University of British Columbia. She plans to someday resurrect her bicycle and ride once again, from the tip of British Columbia to the southernmost tip of Chile.
"As hard as it was, this trip has started something for me," Dorfman said. "There are many more dreams to come."
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