SOMERS — A former town resident stopped to visit her parents in the middle of a 3,500-mile, coast to coast bicycle trek for promoting clean energy and environmental issues.

Mindy Preston, 24, step-daughter of Somers Fire Chief Steven Krause, and some dozen others camped at the Krause household overnight Thursday before leaving today for Chicago. They’re all on bicycles except for a West Virginia couple driving a converted school bus powered by used vegetable oil.

The group began its trip on May 18 in Seattle, Wash. They will meet with other bicyclists from across the country, growing to some 50 by the time they roll into Washington, D.C., on July 26 to meet with various members of Congress the next day.

They plan to relay stories they gathered from citizens they met along the way about American environmentalism and wishes regarding this country’s energy policies, said Preston.

“We need to do more investing in the future than we have been doing,” she said of the country’s energy needs,” she said.

“We want our representatives to get an authentic idea of what Americans want,” added J.P. Kemmick, 24, of Seattle, who organized the road trip.

For example, Preston said, the riders met a woman from the State of Washington who talked about massive mud slides because of extensive logging, suggesting a need for better land management policies. Another person was setting an example without realizing it by growing his own food and limiting pesticide and other poisons. A resident of Three Forks, Mont. showed the bikers how he was judiciously using rain water to grow fig trees indoors.

The bike event is called Trek to Reenergize America and has a Web site at www.trektoreenergize.org.

Preston is on unpaid leave from her computer programming job with a consulting firm in Madison. She said she might bike back to Wisconsin after the D.C. gathering, although other riders have different plans.

Preston biked a 2,053-mile route during 53 days of travel last summer that included Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Canada and New York, so she’s used to the exertion.

Riding a bike thousands of miles is something you get used to, she said.

“Even with a 50-pound pack on the bike, it still feels like you’re part of the wind,” she said.