Beast of Main Street

Beast of Main Street is a dazzling, original angle on how ordinary people are living in Covid times. Meet people on America's Main Street talking about love, loss and the meaning of life in a pandemic.

   Join award-winning journalist Michael Sean Comerford as he bicycles along the fabled Route 66. It's a 2,500-mile ride from Chicago to Los Angeles into a deadly pandemic surge claiming more than one million lives.

   Comerford talks to people who rely on religion, folk wisdom, conspiracies and science to survive. He finds compassion and life-affirming stories are contagious too.

   The ride is touched by adventure as he overcomes snow storms and five bicycle breakdowns while crossing Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

   View more than 100 people videotaped for the YouTube channel The Story Cycle, edited by the University of Florida's Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.

   It's a spectacular ride to capture the spirit of a pandemic.

   Let's ride!