Seattle to D.C.
On a Bicycle
Seattle to D.C. on a Bicycle is a road narrative about crossing America on a tandem bicycle, seen through the eyes of a Bangladeshi traveller. From mountain passes and empty grasslands to small towns, campsites and unexpected encounters, the journey becomes more than a test of endurance. It is an intimate exploration of America beyond its familiar images, shaped by strangers, hardship, humour, hospitality and the persistent presence of home. As the road stretches eastward, ideas about distance, identity and belonging begin to change.
In the summer of 2012, a Bangladeshi man and his friend Ujjal bhai got on a tandem bicycle in Seattle and did not stop until they reached the Atlantic.
Between them lay nearly four thousand miles — the Cascades, the Rockies, the plains of Wyoming, the cornfields of Iowa, the hollows of Appalachia — and an America that rarely appears in the news the rest of the world reads. What they found instead were strangers who became hosts, hosts who became family, and a country that revealed itself one small kindness at a time.
People who had no reason to open their doors to two exhausted cyclists — and did anyway.
This is not a story about gear ratios or elevation gain. It is a story about what it means to cross a nation slowly enough to actually see it — and to be seen in return. Told with the wry, searching voice of an outsider looking in, it is a memoir about distance: the distance between two people pedaling the same bicycle, between a visitor and a country, and between who you are when you leave and who you become by the time you arrive.
We left the tandem outside and walked into a small reception area where cyclist, simply, was the only identity that mattered — country, race, and colour all beside the point under that roof. Free ice cream, light food, water bottles, a pump and whatever else a rider might need were all just there for the taking; I’d never imagined an organisation’s office could feel like this.
On one wall, stickers from visitors ran from floor to ceiling and stretched in both directions, with room left for new arrivals to add their own. We added ours. We’d soon be lost among the thousands already there, but we’d remain on that wall regardless — somewhere in that field of names, if anyone ever thought to look, they’d find Bangladesh sitting quietly after ours.
Seeing our own sticker go up there, small and slightly crooked, mattered more to me than I expected it to. Not because anyone would ever come looking for it — but because for one afternoon, in a country that had no particular reason to know we existed, Bangladesh got to sit on a wall the same size as everyone else’s.
Author: Muntasir Mamun
- Price
- ৳ 1,800.00
- Publisher
- Ilish Books
- Publication Date
- 2026
- Pages
- 176
- ISBN
- 978-984-29671-2-2
- Weight
- 650 g
- Dimensions
- 5.5 × 1.2 × 8.5 in
About the Author
We believe important books do not always require mass production.