After biking for seventy-nine days, traveling 4400 miles, and losing 23 pounds from when he set out in Houston, planetary scientist Robbie Herrick was still moving in mid-September. He had switched from bikes to boxes as he tried to get settled in his new home and his new job at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute.

"I figured it would be pretty grueling for the first week or two," Herrick said with a far off look in his eyes, remembering how he biked through the early April snow and the weeks of rain. "I just had to suck it up, or I wasn't going to get anywhere."

Herrick had an early taste of winter as he biked north: flurries in Amarillo, Texas and an unexpected six inches of snow in Lander, Wyoming. The Wyoming "cold smoke," as it is known, came down thick, covering parked cars as Herrick waited out the storm.

The planning process had been complicated too. He had employed the help of two friends who were paid to drive a Uhaul truck north with his possessions. Then Herrick set out on a bike, chronicling the whole journey on the web. With server space in Houston, a laptop, and a digital camera, Herrick updated his site daily at http://www.ghg.net/herrick/

Days 70 and 71 were highlights for the biker scientist.  He pedaled 152 miles the first day, then 116 the next just to get to the "big city" of Whitehorse for his birthday.

"I notice that it's a fairly common thing up here," wrote Herrick in his web journal, "for people to arrange rocks on a roadside hill to write their names or make some message; sort of a wholesome, all-natural, graffiti.

"I didn't think quite as many people would follow it," Herrick said in an interview; surprised by the response he received from the site.  People wrote him encouraging emails as he biked north, and he was already well known at the Geophysical Institute when he showed up about a month ahead of schedule. "It's always fun to be popular," Herrick said with a smile.

 "I was in limbo there for about a month and a half," he said of reaching Fairbanks early. Herrick lived on campus in student housing and worked out of a temporary office in the Geophysical Institute Library. As research faculty with the Remote Sensing group (the guys who use satellites to look at Earth and other planets), he is now located in the new West Ridge Research Building. Herrick was busy unpacking boxes, both at his office and at his new home.

"I still have to learn the tips to maintain a house in winter," he said, noting that he was going from a condo in Houston to having a big house and a nice yard all to himself here in Fairbanks.

Since he's been in town, Herrick has not biked in to work.

"I've had my fill of scenery for a while," he said.

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