The distance from the Canada border to the Mexico border of the United States along the Pacific Coast is around 1,650 miles. The route features an elevation gain and loss of nearly 80,000 feet.
Lifelong cyclist and Eugene middle school teacher Tanner Faris was unfazed.
He set his sights on smashing the fastest known time on the route — nine days and 14 hours by Tyler Pearce at the time of his decision — and to do it by himself with no material support. Starting December 2025, Faris kicked off a rigorous training regime that put in the miles needed to complete the trip in June after summer break started for Kelly Middle School.
While many Americans were resting and recharging over the Christmas holiday, Faris began the Rapha Festive 500, a challenge running from Dec. 24 to 31 to encourage cyclists to traverse 500 kilometers (310 miles).
This, he said, often feels like the toughest time to train: the days are short and the weather poor. Each workday he also biked to and from the middle school, racking up 10 miles per round trip.
But Faris’ biggest days were Saturdays, where his most concentrated efforts are slotted. His Saturday trips started at 100 miles, increasing in distance until they peaked in the form of a 250-mile trip to and from a Jollibee restaurant in Portland about three weeks before the big Pacific Coast attempt.
“After that, it’s just tapering and making sure that you are 100% ready to go and you rest into the point where you’re almost bored, where your body is just ready to hit it that first day out on the road,” Faris said. “It always takes about six months to get my legs under me — to get my mind right.”
‘The next big accomplishment’
MJ Faris, Tanner’s spouse, said their biggest reaction when Tanner told them he intended to complete the Canada-Mexico route in record time was support, adding that often came in the form of caring for their two children while Tanner was away.
“He’s always shooting for the next thing — the next big accomplishment with his cycling,” MJ said. “I’m here to just help make it happen, help whatever will work out best to make sure that his ride happens the way he wants it to happen.”
Tanner’s college friend Jonathan Sullivan, who became closer with Tanner after getting more into cycling two years ago, said he still remembers the moment Tanner told him about his aim for the record. The two were going to watch a football game at Sullivan’s house — which Tanner had, of course, biked to.
“We had gone out to put his bike on a bike rack on his car, and I asked if he had any big rides planned, and he sort of soft-launched the idea that he was going to set the record or aiming to set the record,” Sullivan said. “I was kind of just in awe, almost. But I had known what he’d done before — he’s done these rides from Eugene to Seattle. Earlier this year, he did the record for the Oregon Coast north to south in 36-ish hours or so. He’s gone from Seattle to Sacramento area before — he’s done some of those long rides, so I knew it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I think it was kind of jarring to hear that that’s what he planned to do.”
Sullivan added Tanner was very helpful in giving him guidance both on cycling itself and routes that were good for biking and said he joined Tanner on part of at least one leg of his Saturday rides.
A new record, a new goal
With just one month to go before MJ dropped Tanner off at the U.S.-Canada border in Blaine, Washington, cyclist Dirty Dan burst through the route, setting a record of six days and 15 hours.
Tanner turned his attention to breaking the new record instead, adjusting his schedule so he would cover more miles than Dan did each day.
Tanner and MJ arrived in Blaine on June 17 after a two-day road trip. Tanner set off June 18 at 7 a.m. MJ said dropping Tanner off was bittersweet, but being able to spend time with him one-on-one prior to his journey was special to them.
“The actual experience of dropping him off — I’ve done that several times and it’s always really hard for me — it’s always like, I feel really, really sad,” MJ said. “It’s this weird feeling of like, emptiness. Like I have him with me and then all of a sudden, I’m just standing alone on the side of the road, and there’s nobody in the car with me on the way back. So at first, it’s a lot of sadness, but I’m also really happy for him because he gets to do what he loves.”
With a wedding to attend June 26, Tanner needed to complete his journey to the other U.S. border with time to spare.
He reached Astoria, Oregon, at the end of the first night, surpassing Dan’s day one destination just north of the Oregon border. On night two, Tanner hit Coos Bay, around 30 miles past Dan’s stopping point of Reedsport. But he soon realized he was getting two hours less sleep than Dan had, with a lower average speed.
‘A zombie in hero mode’
Although Tanner had raced through the night on little to no sleep before, those rides had been shorter. He soon realized his usual tactics for staying awake, such as singing entire Pink Floyd albums out loud or slapping himself in the face, were ineffective.
“I was getting to the point where I was hallucinating — I was starting to see shadows on the road and I was starting to see things, thoughts that you have right before you’re about to fall asleep,” Tanner said. “And so there are some descents that I took in the dark that I feel like I don’t even remember, that I was just flying down a hill and keeping the bike upright, and I realized that that was not safe or sustainable.”
Tanner recognized it was time for proper rest. On the fifth day, he reached Monterey, opting to spend 12 hours there to recuperate after 30 hours of straight cycling.
All the while, MJ, Sullivan and members of Tanner’s community, online and off, were tracking his GPS dot, which was posted to his website.
“It’s kind of fun for my wife and I to, every now and then, be curious, ‘Where’s Tanner?’” Sullivan said. “Hop on, check where he was, and just do the math from there and see if he was going to hit the record. … Just making sure that his GPS dot wasn’t stopping for too long. It’s hard to feel completely secure (when) someone’s riding 1,700 miles on the coast.”
Tanner added because his location was trackable, he welcomed anyone following along to catch up to him and say hello. Two people took him up on it: An acquaintance in the Central Coast region of California and a roommate from college he reunited with after 10 years, who rode alongside him on the Long Beach pier.
Although Tanner’s ride was not materially supported, meaning he sourced his own food, water and places to stay, he received the support of five local businesses, including three cycling-related organizations, Bicycle Way of Life, Rolf Prima Wheel Systems and Eugene GEARs. Support also came from Sy’s New York Pizza, the pizza shop he worked at in college, and Cascade Health. Over 70 people donated as well.
“I always wanted it to be a celebration of us and the community and putting as much of my hometown into this ride as possible,” Tanner said. “It was technically an unsupported effort in that I didn’t have people handing me water bottles out the window driving down the highway, but I felt the support of every single person who threw in any kind of money or sent me some kind of message or anything.”
Tanner’s prolonged stay in Monterey meant he couldn’t crush Dan’s record, but he stayed motivated to finish strong. Tanner took the energy he regained to speed through the last 500 miles within 48 hours. He hit the finish line at 3 a.m. on June 25 with a total time of seven days and 19 hours and met up with MJ, who was waiting at the border, just in time to make it back to Eugene for the wedding.
“I was so proud of him,” MJ said. “Not surprised because I know who he is and what he’s capable of but just so proud that he persevered through something that was so difficult and such a big thing. I was so excited to see him and kiss his cute face and bring him home.”
One day and four hours stand between Tanner’s finish and Dan’s record. Tanner said he’s certain he will return to the trail sometime in the future with the lessons he learned from this completion.
“A big thing I took away from this is that I had spent so long trying to ignore my body signals, trying to push through the discomfort, that I wasn’t doing enough of listening for when those things were really telling me that I needed to stop for the sake of self-preservation,” Tanner said. “Maybe riding around like a zombie in hero mode, as I call it, wasn’t the best way to go.”
Tanner added now that he has seen the full length of California, a state he had less exposure to compared to Washington and Oregon, he will know how to adjust to the terrain better in his next attempt.
In the meantime, he has a few more biking events in the works for summer, including the Blackberry bRamble hosted by GEARs, and is looking forward to spending time with his family.
Bettina Wu is a summer reporting intern at The Register-Guard. Reach her at bwu@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Eugene teacher bikes Pacific Coast from Canada to Mexico in 7 days
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