The progress of Pilgrims

Call it an interactive journey.

This summer Pittsburghers Matt Stroud, 26 of Friendship, and Bill McNelis, 34 of Shadyside, are pedaling and couch-surfing their way across the continent from Boston to San Francisco, ostensibly searching for the heart of their generation and a cohort of young men Time Magazine has dubbed "twixters."

Noting an international phenomenon of high school and college graduates postponing the stereotypical responsibilities of adulthood to pursue more self-gratifying pastimes, Time reporters speculated that perhaps today's young men are less mature than previous generations. Mr. Stroud questioned that premise, along with other articles that labels these twentysomethings as selfish "child-men."

So the two old friends and longtime bicycling buddies began hatching a plan for a journey to survey a cross-section of the country, a three-month expedition that will take them from sea to shining sea. Mr. Stroud, who has worked as a writer and editor in San Francisco and Philadelphia, found himself back in Pittsburgh with a window of opportunity before getting married this fall. Feeling somewhat stale, Mr. McNelis quit his job to allow himself the time for this "Easy-Rider" journey. After months of planning, the pair caught a train to Boston on June 23, where their trek began.

They passed through Pittsburgh last weekend on their way west after having pedaled through New York City, Philadelphia and across the mountains of Pennsylvania. When I caught up with Mr. Stroud by phone on Monday, they were battling headwinds across northern Indiana. Their rough plan is to follow blue-highway routes from Chicago to Portland, Ore., and then south to San Francisco, where they plan to arrive by Sept. 15.

But even though they are pedaling bicycles across the country, theirs is a high-tech expedition. To provide themselves both accommodations and human contacts along the way, they are relying largely on the kindness of strangers, people they meet through the online social network of the Couchsurfing Project (www.couchsurfing.com, which I covered in my column Oct. 14). Laying out their itinerary as they go, primarily using MapQuest directions, they hook up via the site with people in cities along their route who are willing to offer them beds for a night or two.

Their second high-tech aspect of their trip is to keep a running journal of their experiences and observations on their blog, www.stateofman.org, which they post using a BlackBerry and cell phones.

The entries already entered reveal both men to be of a philosophic and literary nature.

"I don't believe I'm a "child-man," Mr. Stroud has written. "I've done some fairly interesting work as a writer and editor, supported myself completely and had fun doing it. I'm also drawn -- by very real, very important forces -- toward stationary adulthood (i.e. mortgage, kids, pool membership), and, specifically, back to Pittsburgh to marry my fiancee.

"But I'm not quite ready to do that yet. I -- like many of my brethren -- am in a mutated variation of Time's Twixterism. I'm not moving back in with my folks or living less independently, but I've seen 'American Beauty' 8 billion times, and I'm not quite ready to insinuate myself into a job I hate or a corporate America that values spending over living.

"So that's what this is about. One major journey. Collecting ideas. Hoping that maybe, somehow, over the course of this trek, Bill and I can talk to enough people -- 'child-men,' regular men, women and children -- and determine how we can make lives for ourselves that encompass the inspiring parts of adulthood, without being ruined by sameness, a lack of creativity, the peculiarities of commercial American living, and, worst, the childish tendency to produce 'unenthusiastic, off-pitch indie music.' "

The trials and tribulations of spending eight to 10 hours each day rolling generally westward make up part of their blogging experience, but in addition to recording their own thoughts, this modern-day Lewis and Clark team is surveying people along the way about their views of the world.

They have devised their "13 Pressing Questions About Adulthood Survey" that they leave with their couch-surfing hosts to complete and send in. If their first posted response, from their Philadelphia couch-surfing host, is any indication, they are in the process of creating a revealing social document. Their plan is to post a new set of survey responses each week.

All in all, theirs is an ambitious expedition taken for equal parts personal accomplishment and creative curiosity. Seeing whether they validate the "twixter" trend or find America along the way will be interesting, but we also expect that in any case, they'll have a transformative experience.

After all, the best trips are less about the destination than the journey along the way.

You can follow the pair's progress and offer comments at their Web site. You can also hear a conversation I had with Mr. McNelis by following this link:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08202/897667-243.stm