An Air Force veteran just completed a nearly 3,000-mile bike journey across the United States to raise awareness and funds for women veterans. Ohio resident Stephie Cates began her journey in New Jersey and completed her ride in South Lake Tahoe, logging around 100 miles a day for 31 days.
Cates completed her ride on Saturday and is now recovering with family in San Francisco. She spoke with NBC Bay Area Sunday about her journey.
Cates explained that she recently retired after 24 years of active duty as a surgical technician for the Air Force. She said her deployments included going to Iraq in 2008-2009 and to Honduras in 2022 to assist in humanitarian surgeries. She came up with the idea for this bike challenge as a way to close out this chapter of her career. Cates began her trek across the country on her first day as a veteran.
"I decided there’s more that I could do to help women veterans, because I’m a woman veteran," Cates said. "I think a lot of people have a bias that as soon as you hear the word 'veteran', you think of a man who is maybe an older gentleman. But here I am, I’m a veteran."
"And that’s why I chose the charity that I did, the Foundation for Women Warriors," she said.
Cates raised around $4,000 through her GoFundMe Page for the nonprofit Foundation for Women Warriors, which is dedicated to honoring and empowering women in the veteran community.
Her journey took her through mining towns in Pennsylvania, farmland in Nebraska, and steep hill inclines in Utah. Cates said seeing the beauty of Lake Tahoe on the final stretch of her ride brought her to tears. She explained that she intended for the trek to be around 2,500 miles, but it wound up being closer to 3,000 miles long.
Local
"I think a lot of people didn’t think I could do it, I mean not just a woman, but I mean maybe anybody could do it," Cates said.
"So being able to do something like this and trekking across America, it couldn’t have been more perfect, and kind of ending my Air Force time and serving my country, and experiencing the country on a bicycle, it was perfect," Cates said.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
