A week before the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, two cyclists named Stu and Tom rode their bikes from Dublin to San Francisco and on to Big Sur, where they met another cyclist named Jim.

Twenty-two years later, the journey those six bicycle tires first took along winding coastal roads has led to an epic bicycle journey that is just beginning.

Actually, it began Thursday morning, when the three cyclists ceremoniously dipped their back tires into the Pacific and set off toward the East Coast on a 60-day bicycle ride.

Thomas Fullam of Pleasanton, Stuart Coffey of Salem, Ore., and Jim Schoettgen of Sonora plan to ride 4,000 miles from coast to coast, beginning at the Pacific Ocean and ending at the Atlantic in Yorktown, Va., about Oct. 10.

They aren’t representing any cause other than their own need to take on a challenge they spoke about 20 years ago when they met.

“We have based our route on three main bicycle routes that have been established by pioneers in the bicycling community that have been carefully plotted out and documented in map form with camps, bicycle shops, grocery stores and hotels clearly identified,” said Fullam, the city of Pleasanton's lead building maintenance worker.

Via the well-documented northern, central and southern routes, the trio will travel through many states, including Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Missouri and Kentucky. Along the way, they will update a blog on the cycling website Crazyguyonabike.com every two to three days.

The title of the blog, “Bicycle the TransAmerica trail in 60 days on RuffNReddy,” is so named because Coffey’s bicycle is named RuffNReddy. Coffey has been updating the blog with training logs, photographs, gear lists and Garmin maps that show route details including distance, time, calories burned, cadence, average temperature — things that cyclists love to catalog.

Not only are the men not polluting, they will be using solar energy to charge their laptops, iPods, cell phones and GPS units.

“We will have solar panels that will be strategically placed on our bicycles to optimize the exposure to the sun,” Fullam said. “We will be alternating clean clothes and washed clothes that are drying out by ‘solar power’ as we are bicycling.”

There are dangers to riding in the open air across the country. The gear list posted on the blog includes “pepper spray,” but it’s for use against aggressive dogs, not humans.

“They can sometimes try and bite your tires or feet and send you tumbling,” Fullam said. “We are traveling on mostly back roads and highways since interstates and freeways are bicycle prohibitive.”

Despite the lack of luxury that comes with riding coast to coast on a two-wheel bicycle, the three are excited to set off.

“This will be a chronicle of my lifelong ambition to ride across country on a bicycle,” Coffey, a retired computer programmer, writes on the blog.

Coffey’s 25th wedding anniversary is two days after the cyclists are scheduled to arrive in Virginia.

“What a special silver anniversary it will be,” he writes.

His wife will meet him in Yorktown, and the four will fly back to the West Coast on Oct. 12.

Coffey signs off the introduction to the blog on an optimistic note:

“So clicking and cranking those gears down the TransAmerica trail we go. Rain or shine we don't mind.”

You can follow their journey through the blog at www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/ruffnreddy.

There’s a guestbook on the site on which you can leave comments, questions and encouragement for the three cyclists.