Bond Almand might be young, but he is no rookie when it comes to big-distance cycling. On 15 November 2024, when he was a 20-year-old student, he finished a 14,000-mile solo, unsupported bikepacking expedition from the North coast of Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in the very far south of Argentina, setting a new world record for riding the Pan-American Route in 75 days. In September the following year, he bagged another world record, for the fastest North–South cycle crossing of the United States.
Currently he is cycling between 170 and 200 miles a day as he attempts to ride between the 30 stadiums of the teams that populate the USA’s National Football League (NFL) before the first game of the 2026–27 season kicks off. When Cycling Weekly first caught up with Almand, by phone on his approach to Dallas, he was enduring a horrendous heatwave.
“The temperature is around 114°F [45°C],” he said. “I’m sweating out more liquid than I can possibly take on by drinking. Every day I have to sit down and just rehydrate.
I’m buying a lot of ice, and shoving it anywhere it can fit. Sometimes I walk into liquor stores and hang out in the walk-in beer fridge. Unfortunately, they usually move me along pretty quickly.”
During his mission, Almand will ride just over 11,112 miles, and it hasn’t been easy to plot a scenic or particularly safe route. “It’s hard cycling where I am now, around Dallas,” he told me. “There is just no cycling infrastructure at all. In the Gulf of Mexico there are tons of swamps and lots of highways. It can get a bit dangerous.
“And I’ve had seven punctures so far, mostly from riding on the shoulder of the highway. Before this trip, I cycled over 10,000 miles without a single puncture. I started off using tubeless, but 30 miles in I tore a tyre. I had to make an early unscheduled stop at a bike shop and I’ve been on tubes since.”
Different ball game
As with his earlier continent-crossing expeditions, Almand is cycling most of the route on his own. But the 22-year-old does have a companion of sorts: a football, which he is taking to all the stadiums.
“A lot of people ask me about the football,” he says. “You don’t often see someone biking around with a football. I had a custom-holder made from carbon. It sits behind my saddle, like a bikepacking bag. I think it’s a one off, completely unique. But people seem more interested in the football than the fact I’m cycling to all the stadiums.
He is riding a Trek SLR road bike. “It’s basically the same bike the WorldTour guys ride,” says Almand. “Except it’s got a custom paint job – purple. It feels like a shame to put bikepacking bags on it.
“I don’t carry too much, though. Extreme won’t let me camp, for liability reasons. I have one bag with gear beneath the aero bars. It weights between 5 and 8 pounds [2.25–3.5kg]. I’m carrying a basic change of clothes, some tools and that’s it.”
His current mission seems to be a very different kind of expedition to his previous endeavours, and I ask how it came about. “I was approached by Extreme Networks,” Almand explains. “They had the idea of biking a football between all the stadiums. I was supposed to be riding the Transcontinental Race, but I thought to myself ‘the Transcontinental will still be there next year, this opportunity might not be.’
He is doing the ride to raise money and awareness for GENYOUth, an organisation that promotes sporting activities and healthy diets and lifestyles for children across America.
Halftime
At the time of writing, Almand is now fast approaching the halfway mark, with almost 5,300 miles on the clock, and he is enjoying somewhat more comfortable conditions on the East Coast. “I’m riding in much cooler temperatures,” he tells me. “The roads are way more enjoyable too.”
There are tough times ahead, though, as he needs to traverse the country from east to west and cross the Rocky Mountains before the end is in sight. He’s been on his own so far, but will have some support when he gets to the deserts in Utah, Arizona and Nevada.
“Sometimes you can go for 100 to 110 miles with no access to water out there,” he explains. “My girlfriend will be with me for that part, for support, morale and to help me get water.”
The 2026 NFL season is due to kick-off with the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, playing the New England Patriots at Lumen Field in Washington on Wednesday 9 September.
Almand was born in Seattle, and supports the Seahawks, so this has a lovely symmetry to it. “It’s going to be very cool to finish there,” he tells me. He’s hoping to get the honour of kicking the ball on the field, but he sounds a bit concerned about the state of it.
“The football is filthy,” he admits. “All the dirt gets thrown up against it from the wheels, and on one side it has noticeable discolouration from the sun. It’s been bleached already.”
He sounds quite concerned about it, but refutes any suggestion that he might have started treating it like a companion. “So, you haven’t given it a name yet, or drawn a face on it?”
“Er… Noooo,” he laughs, sounding somewhat bemused.
“And you’re not talking to it yet, à la Tom Hanks and Wilson in The Castaway?”
Apparently not. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about, since I’m referencing a film that was released four years before he was born.
You can track the young adventurer’s progress via the expedition website.
