Polio survivor sets record touring states on motorcycle

Monday, June 29, 1998 | 3:58 a.m.

Mutchler, a Folsom, Calif., piano tuner, made a 15,840-mile tour of all capital cities in the lower 48 states in just 27 days, starting from Sacramento on June 2 and ending with his stop here.

Mutchler, trying to raise awareness for a Rotary International program aimed at eliminating polio, contracted the disease as an infant and can't use his legs. But his Honda motorcycle is rigged with a stabilizing sidecar and a hand-operated gearshift.

"Basically the prognosis was that I would never be a functional, active person," he said. "I have proven the doctors wrong repeatedly and I plan to continue to do so."

Mutchler said he was told by Guinness Book of World Records staffers that he set a record for the longest distance traveled continually by a motorcycle with sidecar and the shortest trip ever made between the 48 state capitals by a motorcycle with sidecar.

The computer-plotted trip took him from Sacramento through the Northwest, then to the Midwest, through New England and a final swing through the South and Southwest to Carson City.

In his quickest day, driving through New England, Mutchler was able to hit five state capitals in one day.

"It is the longest mileage ever from Sacramento to Carson City," Mutchler said.

His wife, Patti, who joined him in meeting Sunday with local Rotarians in front of the Nevada Capitol, said she's eager to return "to a normal life."

"This phone talk across the United States has been interesting but I am afraid of the phone bill," she said.