Courthouse Challenge: How Code Official David Rittlinger Bicycled Every Corner of North Carolina

When David Rittlinger was hired as the Chief Mechanical and Fuel Gas Code Consultant for the North Carolina Office of the State Fire Marshal in 2019, he found a state transportation map in a storage room. “I pinned it to the wall of my cubicle,” he said. “The map referenced where I would be providing code interpretations throughout the state.”

Rittlinger’s father had taught him mechanical trades as a teen, and then he started his career in 1995 as a fabrication specialist, later becoming a draftsperson, mechanical designer and engineer.

As a North Carolina safety official, Rittlinger’s main role was to provide building code interpretations to other code officials, permit holders, contractors, developers, architects, engineers, businesses and homeowners in every corner of the state depicted on that map.

In addition to being a “roads scholar,” Rittlinger is a member of several professional groups, including the North Carolina Mechanical Inspectors Association, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, the Association of Energy Engineers, the American Society of Plumbing Engineers and the National Fire Protection Association. He also holds multiple educational and professional inspector and other credentials. Rittlinger is one of only 212 people in his state to achieve all five Level III standard inspector certificates.

Pedaling for Perspective

Rittlinger has been riding a bicycle for exercise about four times a week since 2009.

“As a cycling advocate and avid road cyclist, it occurred to me that I could better serve my customers if I traveled the state by bicycle,” Rittlinger said. “Plus, the variety of roads and landscapes would inspire my healthy lifestyle.”

What started as a 108-mile ride with friends from downtown Raleigh to a Henderson coffee shop became Rittlinger’s personal challenge to visit every North Carolina courthouse by bike. That undertaking became a solo endeavor at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, as “something fun to do in uncertain times,” he said.

After each ride, he would highlight the visited area on his cubicle map. “Planning routes to fill that map became a mild obsession as the effort gained momentum,” Rittlinger said.

Rittlinger created solo routes from his home in Wake Forest, first to all the county courthouses within 50 miles. He’d bring a tire repair kit, two water bottles, nutrition bars, cash, a credit card and “a smile,” he said.

But there’s “no escape from the headwinds on the flat and open roads nestled between the tobacco and cotton fields of the Coastal Plains of eastern North Carolina.”

He chronicled details of each ride, recording the architecture of each building as well as travel notes including distance, time and elevation gain, plus notes such as these from his April 25, 2020, 7-out-of-100-stop sojourn:

“It’s rare to see a light wind out of the east and no rain, so I rolled out on a touring ride to the Nash County Courthouse. This area is a buffet of rural roads, farms, crossroads, creeks and country living. The soft hum of 25cc tires on pavement echoing through my ears was especially mesmerizing today.”

A Distraction Became a Cycling Obsession

As the pandemic waned, his cycling friends Heather Bracci and David Hatch joined Rittlinger on about 80 of his rides. “I could not have completed this crazy cycling adventure without these two remarkable friends,” he said. “We became known as the ‘Courthouse Crew’ and our slogan was ‘It’s always an adventure!’” Those long day trips turned into extended weekends with those two folks plus others.

Once Rittlinger visited the courthouses close to home, he created the “satellite rule,” which used a site previously visited as a starting point to ride to those located farther away. “On average, there’s a county courthouse about every 30 miles in North Carolina,” he said. “So, I started mapping and triangulating routes to visit two or more in each ride.”

He saw modern as well as older courthouses, repurposed from Classical, Neo-Classical, Italianate, late Victorian, Beaux-Arts, Federal, Greek and Colonial styles. “The historic buildings are the true gems,” Rittlinger recalled. “And a courthouse with a cupola and clock is easy to spot when you roll into town.”

Hurricane Helene Delayed the Five-Year Touring Bicycle Project

In September 2024, the devastation that Hurricane Helene brought to the western third of the state delayed the completion of Rittlinger’s rides by six months, as he had hoped to visit 100 courthouses in five years. The final five trips in spring 2025 were in the most impacted areas of that record-breaking storm.

“Those visits were very special to me because of my work with the North Carolina Office of State Fire Marshal (NCOFSM) during disaster recovery,” he said. “And sometimes the roads were closed, so I had to improvise.”

Rittlinger’s behemoth bicycle adventure took him to Mount Mitchell in the Appalachian Mountains, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River at an elevation of 6,684 feet, plus the Piedmont, Sandhills and Coastal Plains, which “rolled by in moving pictures” but resulted in no injuries during the entire endeavor.

Many Miles and Memorable Stops Across North Carolina

The trips did result in over 5,600 miles pedaled with over 245,000 feet in elevation change. He completed 72 unique bike rides, six nights sleeping in a tent, three ferry rides, two flat tires, one viewing of the Aurora Borealis in the mountains and one broken rear derailleur caused by a can of Vienna sausages in the road.

He passed through the town of Star in Montgomery County, the geographic center of the state, as well as the location of the Halifax Resolves, where the first official action calling for independence from Great Britain in the American colonies happened on April 12, 1776. Cycling on Mount Jefferson near the Ashe County Courthouse “felt like floating, not pedaling, above the fog,” Rittlinger recalled.

His favorite building was stop #91, the grandiose Beaux-Arts-style Jackson County Courthouse in Sylva. Rittlinger’s 100th stop was Burnsville in Yancey County, “in the rain and wind, of course,” but that milestone was “a feeling of pure joy that still gives me goosebumps to this day,” he said. 

“Learning the unique history of each North Carolina county is extremely relevant and helpful to my work now as Division Chief of Codes and Interpretations at OSFM,” Rittlinger added. “I saw living samples of 240 years of American history as observed from the wheels of a carbon fiber Cannondale bicycle. I am proud of myself for completing this crazy cycling adventure, and I will carry the fulfillment of this accomplishment with me forever.”