The sisters descended from Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States. In 1916, 24-year-old Augusta and 22-year-old Adeline Van Buren, or Gussie and Addie as they were known, were in their 20s and active in the national Preparedness Movement. America was about to enter World War I, and the sisters wanted to prove that women could ride as well as men and would be able to serve as military dispatch riders, freeing up men for other tasks.

Van Meerbeke is described at a young athlete from the New York City area who, Karl Kron (Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle, 1887) believed, was born about 1865. He must have been a dedicated cyclist for, although it was not given press coverage at the time, he is thought to have made a round trip ride between New York and Denver in 1885 (Kron, xcvii). Not wishing to cover much of this route again on a transcontinental ride in 1886, he took a southern route west. He began the ride from the New York City Hall at noon on March 1 on a Columbia ordinary with the hope of reaching San Francisco in 150 days.