At age 14, after seeing the film “Breaking Away” in 1979, Wyoming real estate agent Patrick Graham fell in love with cycling.
“My best friend and I watched that movie, and we were just fixated on road biking and racing,” Graham said.
He worked during the summer of 1980 to buy a bike that he used for his first long-distance ride of around 30 minutes.
“Cycling just kind of took off from there, and it's always been in my blood,” Graham said.
Now Graham is the leader of the Our3:23 Team, powered by eXp Realty, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Before getting his real estate license in 1999, Graham worked for the state government.
In 2015, Graham started riding his bike across the country.
His first cross-country ride was from Cheyenne to San Francisco — 1,300 miles in 13 days. Next came a solo trip from Cheyenne to Orlando to raise money for charity and attend a National Association of Realtors conference, covering 2,000 miles in 18 days. Later, he biked to Canada, roughly 1,700 miles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he flew to Oregon, assembled his bike, and began traveling the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail, a network of paved roads spanning from Oregon to Virginia.
During that trip, he worked from his laptop while biking across the country. He bikes daily, takes a cross-country bike trip every year and works wherever necessary.
For Graham, the best aspect of cycling is the movement and adventure on the back roads.
“You discover things that you would never see in a car or on a plane,” he said.
Additionally, he said people are kind and encouraging, recalling a time during his ride to Orlando when he inspired some fellow travelers to get strawberry milk as he was getting some. They all chatted and the travelers ended up donating funds to the charity Graham was cycling for.
Graham enjoys the people he meets as a real estate agent and the freedom it offers him to ride his bike.
“The fact that I can be on my bike and take vacations like this. Every day is a little bit different, but I'm not stuck at a desk all day,” he said.
He hopes to take on more of a mentorship role going forward.
“The biking is never going to stop. I'll do that till the day a car runs me over.”
The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How do you work while you're literally on the road?
In real estate, all we need is a tablet, basically, or a laptop. So, I've got a small tablet. I carry everything with me. Then, to keep things charged, I built a custom front wheel that's got a generator on it. So as long as I'm pedaling, I've got a USB port so I can keep my phone charged the whole time. I've got power all the time. I just stop whenever I get to a hotel or any place in town where I have Internet service. I can just talk on, write contracts, do amendments, inspection disclosures, anything like that.
What is your home like?
I live east of town on six acres. The house was built in 2006 and is 3,500 square feet. I have more cars than brains, so I've got a 1,000-square-foot garage and a shop that I use for my workshop. Lots of trees. I’ve got a creek behind my house and a reservoir back there, which is very unique for Cheyenne because we don't have a lot of water activity out here. I have seven beautiful bikes.
What advice do you have for first-time homebuyers?
Don't get so focused on the perfect house; focus on getting the house that you can afford. Owning a home is an investment, and if you don't own property, you're not going to build wealth if you're just waiting for the perfect home. So, get it. Live in it. Let that equity start building up. Do some improvements. Then don't sell it if you can't. Hold onto that property until you can find another property and keep that one as a rental.
What are your other hobbies in addition to cycling?
I have a wood shop, and I love building stuff. I like to build furniture. I cook every night, and I'm trying to be very creative with it. In a former life, I was a drummer from grade school all the way up into my 20s. I played in a band. I sold my drum set, but I'm about to start playing on the worship team [at my church].