A long trek through the American West can bring out the John Wayne in a man. So it's no surprise when Greg St. Clair, eager to get back on his motorcycle on a steaming hot Kansas morning, growls, "We're burning daylight."

But when the men climb off their bikes that night in Nebraska, it's pretty clear it ain't 1860 when Jim Vota says, "I say we just stay in the Super 8."

"7 Days, 17 Hours," is the amiable documentary of a couple of cycling Pittsburghers who try to match the best time the Pony Express ever had. That was back in March 1861 when a relay of riders, mostly teenage boys, carried President Abraham Lincoln's inaugural speech from Fort Kearny, Neb., to Folsom, Calif.

The country would become the disUnited States the following month when the Civil War erupted, and the Pony Express itself would die that year, made obsolete by the telegraph lines that finally reached across the continent.

Yet, 150 years on, nearly every American has heard of this private mail-carrying company that lasted only 16 months.

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PG STORE

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Brian O'Neill's book, "The Paris of Appalachia: Pittsburgh in the Twenty-first Century," is available in the PG store.

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A.J. Minotti was one of the Duquesne University graduate students who followed these riders last June in a camera-laden van. He put it this way: "Everybody's heard of [the Pony Express] but, at the same time, nobody really does understand it."

Members of this 10-person crew, most of them students in a field production course, now understand it better than most. They left St. Joseph, Mo., where the Pony Express began its first run in 1860, and followed the old trail, far from the interstates, as best they could.

Their team didn't get to change riders and horses, but they had motorcycles that could hit 75 mph on the Utah gravel -- and they still couldn't reach California in the allotted time. They were at least 150 miles short when the clock ran out in middle-of-nowhere, Nevada.

This is the second cross-country motorcycle documentary in as many years for Mr. Vota, 38, an instructor in journalism and multimedia arts at Duquesne. "Collecting Somedays: Alternative Travels Through the Vistas of America" chronicled a trip from Pittsburgh to the mountains of Oregon.

This one arrives with the sesquicentennial celebration of the Pony Express. It began in April 1860 after a recruiting drive for "tough, skinny, wiry fellows." Museums along the roughly 2,000-mile route will want this film for its sense of just how tough those fellows must have been.

Mr. Vota had to cut short the ride the very first day, last June 22, because the heat index in Kansas rose to 115 degrees. In heavy motorcycle gear, he became so hot he stopped sweating -- the first sign of heat stroke.

Gallons of water, many pieces of fruit and a night's sleep later, they were back on the road.

It must be said they'd have matched the Pony Express time, even with nightly motel stays, had they not stopped to interview historians along the way. But those interviews, and the lingering shots of the Western landscape, make this film.

Mr. Vota handles the narration, and it becomes a story of "the vastness of our nation and the kindness of our people. ... There's no such thing as an uncomfortable silence when it comes to the people I've met around here."

Riders' helmet-cams give some sense of the bug-on-a-rug feeling that 19th century horsemen must have had as they rode arid creek beds through summer sandstorms, and through blizzards in winter, riding at full gallop and changing horses every 10 or 15 miles. A rider might do 100 miles in a day.

One thing's sure: They must have stunk. Mr. Vota came to appreciate "Bikers Welcome" signs at motels, because though they'd strip their gear and throw it immediately into the shower, he figured it would still take a day for their motel rooms to air out.

The documentary ends with the full crew on the roadside in Nevada, eight days after leaving western Missouri, and Mr. Vota making one final tribute to the young riders of the Pony Express:

"I'm content that we didn't make it. It's OK. It speaks to what happened, to what these guys did -- a little bit."

The closing credits may have been even more to the point. Mr. Minotti holds up a plastic water vessel melted by the early summer sun and his co-videographer, Bill Lyon, says off-camera, "That jug is horribly warped."

Mr. Minotti replies, "So are we."

There will be a free premiere of "7 Days, 17 Hours" at 4:30 p.m. Monday in the ballroom of the Duquesne University Power Center.