This college student traveled 2,400 miles from Maine to Florida. On a unicycle.

National

Avery Seuter’s adventure raised more than $5,000 for the East Coast Greenway Alliance.

A New England college student just traveled 2,400 miles from Maine to Florida by unicycle on the East Coast Greenway.

Avery Seuter of Wells, Maine, raised more than $5,000 on social media for the East Coast Greenway Alliance, the nonprofit organization leading the development of the 3,000-mile walking and biking route connecting 15 states and 450 communities.

Seuter celebrated his 20th birthday during the five-month trek, made national news, and was mentioned on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

“I’m just incredibly grateful to everybody who contributed,” Seuter said. “It does make a difference in the safety of the trails and the quality.”

He left Maine on Sept. 8, 2022, and arrived in Key West, Fla., the southern terminus of the East Coast Greenway, on Jan. 28, 2023. His trip is believed to be the first unicycle ride from Maine to Florida on the East Coast Greenway route, according to the East Coast Greenway Alliance. Seuter said he met so many unicyclists on his trip that he’s not convinced he’s the first person to do it.

Seuter, a culinary student who completed the trip during a semester off, learned how to unicycle five years ago at a juggling club in Portland, Maine. He found it a great way to save money and bypass seasonal traffic while commuting to his summer job as a tour guide on a lobster boat in Ogunquit. He said he soon became known as “the unicycle guy.”

He first learned about the East Coast Greenway while at school in Florida, where he lived until he moved to Maine in the fifth grade. Then, about a decade later, he spotted an East Coast Greenway sign on the Eastern Trail Bridge in Kennebunk, Maine, and felt compelled to explore it. He was also inspired by the story of Ed Pratt, the first person to unicycle around the world in 2018.

During the journey, Seuter covered 20 to 30 miles a day, carried snacks and water, and stopped each evening before sunset for food and shelter. He documented the journey on social media and arranged lodging with strangers through an online community network of riders when he wasn’t camping or staying with family and friends.

Transportation by unicycle has its unique challenges.

“I’d reload everything into my bags,” Seuter said of his morning routine. “Which was always the hardest part of my day, to get the weight right in my front bag and back bag so it doesn’t mess up my balance.”

It also has its unique perks.

“The unicycle does have handlebars but they’re not really things you use all the time so I can use my hands while I’m riding, which is nice because you can eat and drink without having to stop,” he said.

The culinary student enjoyed sampling the coastal restaurants along the route, but also ate meals from gas stations. He marveled at the people he met and said he was rarely alone during the adventure.

“I just met tons of people along the way, strangers and other unicyclists and people that if I ever go to a city that I visited, I’ll definitely have these connections,” Seuter said.

He was touched by the kindness of strangers.

“They found out my birthday was coming up and they went out and got cupcakes and cheesecake, so I had dessert for several days on the road,” he said.

There were familiar faces on the trail, too: His father rented a bike and met him in New York for a segment of the trail, and his mother packed her bike and met him in Baltimore for another part.

“When Avery left the house the first day, it was absolutely terrifying,” Alison Griffin, Seuter’s mother, said in an East Coast Greenway Alliance video about the journey. “He took a decent spill when he was leaving the driveway and got back up and took off. He’s become very confident in his abilities and able to really represent the Greenway in a way that I think is very special.”

Seuter said his fall on that first day was the only bad crash he had during the entire trip.

As for his greatest challenge during the ride, he said: “The biggest difficulty is the lack of infrastructure in some spots … the incomplete segments where you have to be on the road. The shoulder is super narrow or the traffic is just flying by.”

In Georgia and South Carolina, he bypassed parts of the route “due to a lack of safe, protected pathways,” according to the alliance.

“One of the things I noticed was, where it’s not safe, you don’t see people out and about,” Seuter said. “You just sort of see cars. But where you have these really nice trails, you see loads of people walking their dogs, cycling, and commuting to work. I think that’s the biggest measure of how well connected and accessible a trail is, if there’s a wide cross section of people using it.”

When the unicyclist crossed the finish line in Key West, his parents and grandmother, along with many spectators, were there to congratulate him.

Seuter said it was such a positive experience that he would do the trip again, though he is currently focused on finishing his culinary degree.

Now that he’s had first-hand experience of the trail, Seuter said he’d like to push for more trail connectivity in Wells. He also hopes his journey has inspired folks to put down the car keys and get outside.

“I want people to try to move around their city or town without a car,” he said. “Even if you do a little bit by biking or by walking. I think it’s a hugely beneficial thing you can do. It definitely improved my life and my health.”