Three Ladue Sisters Log Nearly 5,000 Miles on Their Bikes This Summer

Suffice to say the Gartenberg girls of Ladue; Amy 22, Jennifer 19, and Whitney, 13 don’t let much grass grow under their feet.

Guess how they spent their collective summers? Oh, for starters, riding across the Continental United States and across Europe by bicycle.

Biking has been in the blood of these three sisters as long as they’ve been hiking up the craggy cliffs of Colorado with their mountain bikes. Biking is their transportation of choice, bar none.

Mike, civil engineer, and Susan Gartenberg, elementary school counselor have raised four daughters to enjoy a good healthy-outdoor lifestyle. However, their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, 24, was not involved in this summer biking gambit. Elizabeth works in health care, paid her own way through college, holding odd jobs including teaching spinning, and is a spinning instructor at the Jewish Community Center even now.

These were the bikes of choice for the trio:

Amy and Jennifer rode Surly LongHaul Truckers; good for supporting 50 pounds of gear for each ride. Whitney traveled on a Cannondale touring bike.

Here’s a profile of each sister and where the terrain took them this summer:

Amy Gartenberg

She returns to Indiana University to complete her senior year with a degree in Health Education. She has career plans to teach somewhere on the secondary level. She graduated from Whitfield High School four years ago. She was captain of the Division I rowing team at IU her sophomore year.

All three girls traveled under the auspices of the Overland Summer Bikes & Tours, based out of Williamstown, MA.

Amy was one of two adult team leaders to lead ten youngsters, ages 14-16 from Amsterdam to Barcelona, Spain. They traveled the high road literally, 1,500 miles riding high into the Pyrenees Mountains and the Alps. “No, we didn’t go through snow, but we saw it at higher elevations,” she revealed.

The trip was arduous, and “really rewarding, especially for the kids,” she said. They pitched tents, divvied up duties including cooking and grocery shopping; camp cleanup and road preparation. The typical day started with wakeup and breakfast by 4:30 a.m. and hitting the road by six. “We’d stop to snack in the mornings and by noon, we’d stop for lunch, about halfway through our 70 mile daily journey. By nine o’clock, the bikers were dead tired and ready for a good night’s sleep.

Jennifer Gartenberg

She is a recent graduate of Ladue-Horton Watkins High School and starts her freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C. next week. She is the equestrian in the family and was a member of the school’s National Honor Society. She has a room full of ribbons and trophies recognizing her accomplishments in horse back riding.

Jennifer was a part of a bunch of high school students who ventured 3,200 miles, dipping their tires first in the Atlantic at Tybee Island, GA and at trip’s end at Santa Monica Pier in the Pacific Ocean in California.  A shifting knee cap patella injury cut Jennifer’s trip short after 2,500 miles. She flew home from Denver, only to fly back to California to be with her team at journey’s end two weeks later.

The group took the southern route, cutting through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona and California. “At one point, we traveled 10 miles on an interstate highway. That was the only way we could keep going,” said Jennifer, raising some eyebrows from her dad, hearing that news for the first time.

Their daily wakeup call came at 3:30 a.m. and they would put in a good 80 miles per day. They had one particularly scary moment in Colorado. “We were caught in the middle of a bad electrical storm. We found a cattle ranch with no one around so we ducked inside an unlocked door. It turned out to be the ranch’s slaughter house.” All told, this group was on the road for six consecutive weeks.

Whitney Gartenberg

She heads into the eighth grade at Ladue Middle School, trains for half marathons and is president of the National Junior Honor Society. She is ranked in the top 50 cross country runners in the U.S. in her age group.

She was on the two week 275 mile trip from Williamstown to the Canadian border in Vermont. She traveled with seven boys, four other girls and two adult leaders. They were all 13 and 14 years old.

“We’d get up at 7:45 a.m. and we didn’t hit the road until 9:30,” she recalled. They would be back to camp daily by 3 p.m.

The trips were scintillating. “I learned a lot about teamwork,” said Jennifer. “I learned so much about bike maintenance,” said Amy. “Often, when we were traveling at high elevations, our riders would find ‘mountain buddies.’” They would sing together, do brain teasers, tell jokes, anything to keep going,” said Amy.

Need to learn how to fix a flat tire or replace gears on a bike? The Gartenberg sisters would be glad to show you how. Nearly 5,000 collective miles of traveling by bike would tax just about anybody’s biking abilities.