Just passing through: Filmmakers ride Segway across country

NEW BRUNSWICK — Just four twenty-somethings, a dog, the open road — and a Segway.

This is "America at 10 mph," the cross-country journey of one man on a Segway Human Transporter — an upright, battery-powered scooter — and his documentary team.

The two founding members of the team, Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell, quit their jobs in web marketing two years ago to pursue filmmaking. They started a production company called Spinning Blue. Hoping "to grab a slice of America," as Caldwell said, they are making their first full-length film about the character of the country as discovered on the world's longest Segway trip.

The Segway, a motorized, self-balancing personal transportation vehicle, travels up to 12 miles per hour. A pair of batteries lasts one hour, and the team rotates through a total supply of 16 pairs.

Caldwell first test-drove a Segway about a month and a half before the trip. Over the past 3,699 miles traveled, bad weather, a thunderstorm in Colorado, has only forced him to stop riding once.

Caldwell and Weeks said they thought the Segway would "slow things down" and act as a "natural icebreaker" in interviews for the documentary.

"It's really cool to see people tap into this concept, and we're tapping into people's concepts," Weeks said.

The team consists of Caldwell on the Segway and Weeks behind the camera. Weeks' sister Gannon is the team's artist and Alon Waisman is the navigator.

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Rose Kontak joined recently to handle publicity.

Weeks' dog Alby came along as well, riding in the Jeep Cherokee that follows the Segway.

Caldwell, Weeks and Gannon started in Seattle in early August and were joined by Waisman after he discovered the project through its website.

They plan to finish in Boston in one week after passing through Princeton on Monday night.

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They have slept everywhere from hotels to coffee shops and, now, on a dorm room floor. After eating dinner at Ivy Garden, they stayed in Dod Hall with Vinay Gupta '05, a friend of Kontak.

"Personally I'd be too scared to do something like that," Gupta said of Weeks and Caldwell's escape from corporate America to documentary filmmaking.

Gupta took the team to the C2 store in Frist Campus Center, where Weeks, posing as a University senior, shot an exposé on the price of goods at the store. He said he was surprised that a box of cereal cost $5.

The team also tested the Segway's off-road capabilities on the large leaf piles around campus and Caldwell was thrown from the scooter. Being in a university setting made Weeks reflect on their trip. "It's almost like you're in college again," he said.

Contrasting his trip experience with life inside a cubicle, he said, "People don't think in those [working] environments. When you're in college you're always striving to grow."

Much like college, when living on the road, "every day is different."

The team has had their share of adventures. In Kansas, Weeks took a local farmer up on his offer to test-drive a tractor and crashed it into a Winnebago.

A fan who found out about the trip through their appearance on Philadelphia's Y-100 radio station met the team and brought Caldwell a portable foot massager, he said.

It has been a trip of personal discovery not only for the human travellers, but also for Alby. The team discovered his exact breed, which had previously been a mystery, after encountering a nearly identical Icelandic sheepdog on the road.

After the official trip ends next week, the team will be met by a reception in New Medford, N.H., where Segways are built.

"They didn't believe we could do it," Weeks said of Segway's early disinterest in the project.

The SmartWool clothing company is a leading sponsor of the project, providing much-needed winter gear for nighttime drives.

After the trip, it will be six to eight months before the documentary hits film festivals. The team has their sights set on making the big screen in a year and a half, Weeks said.