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On the brink of his 36th birthday, Ascary Arias was all alone.

For 23 days, he pedaled at least six hours through the bottom of America toward his hometown in Mexico.

He plowed through mud in Georgia, fended off dogs in Mississippi and pedaled through nowhere Louisiana, with five vultures circling overhead. His calves knotted, his back ached and his thigh muscles felt like they were separating from the bone.

His daily menu? Fruit, water, protein bars, two cans of tuna and six 16-ounce bottles of Gatorade.

“I hate this! I hate this! I hate this!’’

Ascary thought that more than once as he rode his 10-speed bike. And more than once, he went 15 rounds with his inner critic. But he beat it. Somehow.

He thought about his wife, Liz, or their three young daughters, the girls who call him Papi.

Or he thought about Ixmiquilpan (pronounced Ix-ME-kill-pun), his hometown. It’s a beaten-down city in central-eastern Mexico where he dropped out after the seventh grade and drank, smoked, stole food and ate toothpaste when he didn’t have anything else to eat.

Or he thought about that little boy.

Ascary never got his name. But he got what happened.

At 15, sitting way past midnight inside a medical clinic in Ixmiquilpan, Ascary was nursing an upset stomach when the boy’s father burst in, cradling his son in his arms.

His son was nearly naked, his arms and legs limp as noodles.

The father had walked for a day — from his village to the clinic — looking for a doctor, a nurse, anybody who could save his son. They couldn’t. The boy died right there, on the floor of the medical clinic.

To this day, Ascary doesn’t know what killed the boy. Probably diarrhea or something like that.

He just knows what he saw, an image he can recall to this day — a father wrapping his son in a sheet and carrying him home.

When he remembered that scene, Ascary pedaled harder. When he looked down at his odometer, he saw his speed: 27 mph.

Ascary pedaled 70 miles, 133 miles, 160 miles a day. A friend followed along, pulling a trailer. Along the way, Ascary called his coach, professional cyclist Robin Farina in Charlotte. And he called and sent text messages to his wife several times a day.

He whistled, sang songs and heard Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger’’ in his head as he got closer to his city, a place where he once was chastised.

People called him a thief, a drunk, a no-good dropout. In 1991, at age 17, he left and looked toward North Carolina to find his parents and a better life.

He did. He became a husband, a father, an artist, a graduate of Greensboro College and a founder of a nonprofit.

Six years ago, Ascary founded a nonprofit he calls Vidas de Esperanza, or “Lives of Hope’’ in Spanish. Since then, Vidas has raised $80,000 and helped at least 10,000 kids and 4,000 families in Ixmiquilpan.

Vidas, run by Ascary and 19 other people in North Carolina and Mexico, has donated computers, fed families, bought school supplies, renovated schools and built a 3,500-square-foot cultural center as a place to teach and tutor.

In Greensboro, Vidas has tutored Latino children and taken students from Greensboro College, Guilford College and UNCG at least three times a year to help families in Ixmiquilpan learn how to survive and thrive.

And now, the group wants to build a medical clinic.

So, Ascary pedaled.

Over bridges and borders, past dogs and ditches, through crowded downtowns and on highways where the only sound was the rustling wind and the road seemed to stretch toward forever.

Liz, an attorney, worried he could get kidnapped or killed along some roadway. But ever since they met in 1993 at a salsa dance in Raleigh, she knew the magnitude of her husband’s willpower.

When they got serious, she told him to quit smoking. He did. The next day.

That’s Ascary. All or nothing.

In May, he got laid off from Greensboro College, where he taught courses on Mexican culture and worked as the Latino community liaison. He felt old, tired. He wanted to do something big before he turned 36. And he wanted to raise money to build a medical clinic in his hometown.

So, he figured he’d bike to Mexico.

“You mean a motorcycle, right?’’ people would ask Ascary.

“No,’’ he’d say. “A bike.’’

Often, people responded the same way: “That’s crazy.’’

A year ago, Ascary didn’t even know what to do if his chain broke. He did a little mountain biking, ran a few miles and worked out at the local Y to stay in shape.

But after he decided to take his journey, he found a coach and trained for five months. Every day.

All to bike 2,196 miles. In October.

Liz made him promise.

“Call me,’’ she told him emphatically. “I want to make sure you’re not in some hospital bed or lying on the shoulder of the road somewhere.’’

He did, on the bookends of his day — before he started and after he finished.

He also blogged, posted videos and sent personal messages to his three daughters, all 6 and younger. And like his wife, he worried. But about something else.

He already had raised $11,000, and community leaders in his hometown had donated the land needed to build the clinic. He planned the ride to help raise the rest — $90,000. And he had to finish.

All for people just like that little boy.

“It’s not that same kid, but if that story repeats itself, that kid is not going to die,’’ Ascary says now. “What’s wrong with our society if we let that happen? Maybe if I was older, I would have asked for his name. But I just sat there and watched.

“It’s the little details we need to pay attention to. That shows that you care, but sometimes I don’t think we do.’’

Back home in Greensboro, in Room 222 at Guilford Elementary, his oldest daughter, Liliana, and her first-grade classmates followed his journey in class and on the Internet.

They stared, wide-eyed and silent, at the white-board map near the door, traced their fingers over the inches between North Carolina and Mexico and thought about Liliana’s dad, the guy they often saw in their classroom.

They watched the videos and listened as their teacher, Hallie Smith, read the dispatches from Ascary’s blog and looked at the white-board map every day.

And they asked their teacher the same question over and over: “Can we see what Ascary is doing?’’

On Oct. 25, the day before his 36th birthday, Ascary pulled into Ixmiquilpan. He told his cousin, who met him at the Mexican border, not to tell anyone it was his birthday.

But just outside his hometown, a city of 50,000 people, he saw five police cars.

Then at least four motorcycle cops.

Then 20 children on bicycles. They began following him.

Then came the horns, the sirens, the fireworks and a local radio station broadcasting live. Ascary called his wife and said, “Liz, you listen to this!’’

He held up his cell phone like a flare, looped Ixmiquilpan’s main plaza and headed toward a theater where a crowd of 500 people had gathered. They sang “Happy Birthday.’’

Yes, this is his city.

For 23 days, he had eluded dogs, shooed away vultures and battled fatigue, cramps and loneliness across the bottom of America. And he lost 12 pounds.

But he made it.

All on his 10-speed Cannondale bike.

All for his city.

And that little boy.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com