TrojanHorse

At 560, I don't think you have to try particularly hard to taco wheels.

I wonder what his wife weighs. She looks like she's going to have to also really worry about wheel strength, so they won't have to try very hard to taco those too.


mmmmm tacos.

Haff

i trike would probably make sense, especially a recumbent. Less strain on the ass, back, shoulders, etc. Would be easier to get some miles done.

This assumes riding is actually the goal here.

Johnny Mullet

They should get a tandem

Haff

now THAT would be a reality show! "1/2 ton of love" (I'm assuming she is around 4 bills) TLC could pick it up.

I agree with the above. I really hope i'm wrong and they start to put on some serious miles... but my magic 8-ball is saying "my sources say no"

Rhites

She's 4'11". She's about 275-285lb

Rhites

This is his wife Angie.

billyymc

If he rides even one mile it will prove me wrong. Barring any evidence that he's actually ridden anywhere at all, I don't think he has. No pictures of him riding, no videos of him riding. Just pictures of a broken bike, pictures of food, pictures of him with a new bike. Not a single picture of him ON a bike anywhere. He isn't riding anywhere. He will leave RI in his wife's truck, under doctor's orders or something like that.

What happened to his rear derailler on that old bike anyway? I've taco'd rear wheels before, and didn't f up my derailler.

bassjones

He claims he's been riding daily in the area he's in right now. Claims 180 miles total...

Beachgrad05

Yeah right!

where are you seeing said claim?

trailangel

There are 124 Dunkin Donuts in Rode Island

SHBR

Ugh, this pity party train wreck has to stop.

This is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with society.

As more people jump on the bandwagon, it will encourage more fraudulent behaviour in the future,

Who needs self respect when the public gives you 15G for being pathetic?

Reminds me of the movie Leap of Faith (1992) - IMDb

Lunchbox1987

Well, this has turned out to be an interesting turn of events. It's a better twist than any m night shyamalan movie I've ever watched (excluding unbreakable). So anyone free to take a ride to RI and see what's going on? Happy I never gave monies and now it makes sense as to why I could never get him to respond to me.

PhotoJoe 

I'd rather see him run strava than a spot.

beakersbike

It's definitely getting interesting. Eric replied that the live feed thing is not going to happen, worried about his safety. This Brett guy replied he's an investigative reporter and he's got his sights set now on Eric - It will be VERY interesting to see what happens from here if this is truly the case. Deleting his comments isn't going to make this guy go away.

TrojanHorse

I noticed he said newport bike is going to drive him across the bridges. Plural. I guess that means he'll be hanging out in Narragansett for a month.

There is a serious shortage of any meaningful updates coming out of that guy. Don't you think he'd at least post a paragraph a day "Rode to the grocery store to get 4 more bottles of coke. Took a cab to pick up Angie but that's OK because the cab took me back to the starting point (as if that matters). Picking up her bike tomorrow, catch you later."

Boom done. Is that so hard?

That Brett Miller is going to get hisself banned, which is going to torque him up and he'll start really digging into this whole mess. That's my first prediction. And he makes it to Connecticut no earlier than Sept. 30 is my other.

Rowan

Mwahahahah... I am hatching a plan that will make me a millionaire by the end of the year, and I won't even have to do a thing except press buttons on a keyboard and a camera.

The old saying still holds true: A fool and their money are easily parted. I just didn't realise there were so many fools.

Rowan

It does show, however, that social media has entirely removed from many people the ability to think critically. They take things at face value because everything on the internet must be true.

People like our Eric Hine can see that, and can exploit the gullibility and lack of critical thinking and really, what comeback is there? It's not as though they are skimming credit cards, or theiving bank account details or people's identities; rather, they are promoting their activity, and leaving it to people to decide whether to make contribution through whatever the funding media might be.

Deceptive advertising happens all the time, but at the end of the day, there is no real contract involved, so there is no obligation on Hine's behalf to do anything except sit and count what is now his money.

As a by the by, do a google search on Belle Gibson, an Australian fraudster who claimed to have cancer, then cured herself and raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting her new bogus way of living.

indyfabz

That sort of things has happened in the U.S. and it's illegal, at least to the extent you accept gifts/donations. It's typically called theft by deception. In this case, it would be hard to prove.

JohnX

as George Bush quipped: "You can fool some of the people all of the time...and those are the ones you want to concentrate on"

I notice the original story on this was the Vineyard Gazette. Pedaling Cross-Country for Love and a Desire to Change | The Vineyard Gazette - Martha's Vineyard News

wherein FGAA threw off on somebody else raising money similarly. said he wasn't going to stoop that low. wonder how low is low. also the 4 month window to finish was delusional. and the frequent $300 minimum DJ fees. interesting.

"Mr. Hites estimates that his trip to the West Coast will take around four months. He’s planning on paying for the trip through a GoFundMe account he has set up and any odd jobs he might be able to find. Mr. Hites frequently freelances as a DJ, and his minimum rate is $300.“I probably won’t stoop to the fat man walking,” he said, of another campaign by a different man. “He did some weird commercial thing or something. So not that.” Mr. Hites has created a website called fatguyacrossamerica.com where he blogs about his journey."

beakersbike

Guess he's got to step it up then since he's only got about 2 and a half months left

RollingBlubber

There's a certain "celebrity" cyclist (had his "story" covered on NPR) that has a dwindling fan base that says he weighs 305lbs from a high of 570lbs. The only problem is that every picture this guy has out there he looks exactly the same and, total red flag, says he doesn't weigh himself and doesn't care.

People don't look for the truth and even when it's staring them right in the face choose to ignore it. I really can't wait to see this whole "Fat Guy Across America"/"Fat Grifter in Rhode Island" saga crash and burn. Wishful thinking on my part, but I hope it gets people to stop taking these fantasy stories by unreliable narrators seriously.

Fahrradfahrer

Oh, they usually don't stick around to find out. They will have moved on to the next "uplifting story of the week" and will, when asked, perpetuate that a 600-pound man cycled across the USA.

Fahrradfahrer

"I'm trying to, riding everyday for conditioning, once my wife is here with bike I can head out. But I got a heck of a summer cold that hit me last night l, feel like crap"

And so it begins...

Haff

where did he post that?

bassjones

Begins********** That's all it's been the whole time. When she gets there, she's going to have to get a bike and then get in condition. Now there's another month before she can manage 5 miles a day so now we're in the middle of September before they leave the East Coast... Now, it's just too cold to ride of course, and camping is out of the question... So, they'll hole up in Rhode Island or Connecticut until Spring or whenever this whole thing blows over, whichever comes first.