Two Toronto twenty-somethings are travelling across North America on a trip fuelled by pedal power and plenty of good will.

Carpenter Paul Myers, 24, and videographer James Hughes, 26, departed on a cross-continent adventure in mid-September aboard human-electric hybrid bikes they constructed. They’re calling their journey the Tumbleweed Project because “we are just tumbling along and figuring it out as we go.”

Their goal is to explore and showcase eco-communities and innovative forms of living as they pedal from Midland, Ont., to California, crossing through many Canadian provinces and U.S. states. Along the way, they’ve been filming video updates highlighting the sites they’ve seen and the people championing sustainable practices that they’ve encountered.

The three-wheel, steel-framed bikes with wooden seats are steered by a person pedaling them with the assistance of a motor and an electric battery to provide additional power.

Aboard the bikes, Myers say they have visited Whole Village, a self-sustaining village in Caledon, Ont., with a co-housing residence and farm operating free from pesticides and other chemicals; Grailville, a spiritual and ecological sustainability community in Ohio, and Enright Ridge Urban Ecovillage in Cincinnati.

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Each location is pioneering a way of living more sustainably in an effort to tackle issues like global warming, climate change, food shortages and landscape degradation. Touring the locations has helped Myers and Hughes notice that the ubiquity of urban sprawl is causing “unnecessary stress on nature and spirit, hindering our progress towards realizing our full potential and moving towards a brighter future.”

In a call from Nashville, Tenn., where the pair were stuck after vehicle malfunctions, Myers said he was first inspired to build his bike, and take a trip with it, after spotting an image of a man pedaling a rig with a trailer hitched to it.

30-foot tall trebuchet

“Everything broke down about 90 miles north of Nashville and the computer broke down so we couldn’t make videos anymore,” says Myers. “James’ bike’s motor broke down and there were a bunch of repairs to do on my bike.”

The pair say they pulled into Gainsboro, Tenn. seeking assistance.

“The ladies of the town hall were excited. They suggested we go see a lady next door who loves travelling,” they say, of a woman who allowed them to camp on her property and then drove them into town to help them find parts to fix the bikes.

Though the pair are always soliciting online donations to help them cope with the cost of unexpected repairs, they say they are relying on good will to keep them going.

“One person leads to the next,” they say. “We have given up on planning ahead.”

Despite their dedication to “tumble along” without any concrete plans, they suspect it will take another three months and much more money for them to complete their route and find their way home.

In a few days, they intend to stop at The Farm in Summertown, Tenn. The Farm is a “hippy commune” that developed a sustainable community advocating for “green living” in the late 1960s. Since that time, Myers and Hughes say, the community has been “struggling” with financial difficulties, but they intend to use their video blogs to delve into what happened and why mistakes were made.

Although they are unsure what the rest of the journey has in store for them, they say “we’ve surprised ourselves.”

Myers says, “I wasn’t sure we would make it out of Ontario, but here we are over 1,000 miles in and it’s looking good.”