My Cross Country Blog
July 14, 2021 - Beauty and Pain
Beauty
The Olympic Discovery Trail that I’ve been riding upon for most of the last two days is stunning. It routes cyclists and hikers on narrow, paved tracks or on quiet roads. I rode a 15-mile stretch yesterday and only saw one car. The conifer forests stretch up the steep slopes of the mountains. In the distance, there is still snow on Mount Olympus.
It helps that the weather has been, literally, perfect. It follows the pattern of a classic coastal Pacific Northwest summer day: early morning fog rubs out the edges of the landscape, the cool air thick with mist. By mid-day, the fog has burned off, revealing crisp blue skies and a few clouds. The air is dry and riding through the coastal forests you can smell the fir and spruce. For most of the day the temperature ranges in the mid-60s, though it might peak in the upper 70s for an hour or two on low, exposed hilltops. At night, the air cools once again.
There are stretches where I ride in absolute solitude. Of course, there are also stretches on US 101, where logging trucks scream past me (too close for comfort). The image of paradise on earth is usually represented by a tropical island with soft, gentle breezes and sunny beaches. I want to make a case that summer days in the Pacific Northwest are equally paradisaical.
Pain
Due to a combination of age and long hours on the bike, I have developed pain in a couple of areas that have been the only thing detracting from the beauty that surrounds me. I’ll spare you the details, but it involves the patella over the left knee and the tendon above the right heel. The pain has, quite abruptly, forced me to ride at a much slower pace and lower effort level. It also makes me aware of the disconnect between my body and my mind. The bike trip in my mind was that tropical island in the setting sun. The bike trip of my body is the Israelites suffering the punishing work of building the Pyramids for a heartless Pharaoh. Put another way, the mind said, “Let’s do a bike trip. It’ll be fun!” To which the body replied, “Not if I can help it.”
I will explore the topic of pain in more detail in a later post.
July 16, 2021 - Mur de Shine
Three quick notes:
First, a quick thank you to all who have either donated directly to Life with Cancer or who have committed to sponsor my ride. I am truly grateful for your support.
Today was a rest day; we are staying with our Columbus friends, Emia and Mike, who are finishing a year’s stay in the Seattle area. Emia is a trained nutritionist, which was fortuitous because (after seeing how depleted I looked and felt) she gave me some good dietary and hydration tips, tailored for my age (i.e., someone who is no longer a spring chicken). More proteins, more sugar, and an electrolyte mix that has a sufficient amount of magnesium.
Finally, yesterday’s route (thankfully) took me off of busy state route 104 before reaching the Hood Canal bridge that connects the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas. The route dumped me on Shine Road, which overlooks Squamish Harbor. It is a quiet, two-lane road with houses facing the harbor. “Great,” I thought, “If this road hugs the harbor it will be mostly flat,” which wasn’t far from the truth… for the first mile. And then I see it… a wall of asphalt, only 1/4 mile in length, but still a wall. It looked so steep that it looked as if I would ride smack into it. But Shine Road dipped a little and (too) soon enough I was climbing that Mur (wall). While certainly not as brutal as the famous Mur de Huy, which serves as the final climb of the La Fleche Wallone cycling classic in Belgium, the .Mur de Shine peaks at an 18% grade, an extremely difficult test for this not-so-spring chicken.
The first three days on the Olympic Peninsula were a good warmup for tomorrow, when I climb from near sea level to 2,500 feet over Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains.
July 18, 2021 - It gets easier
With a new approach to keeping my body fueled and balanced, I set off from Issaquah yesterday morning for my first major climb to Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains. After a short, but epically steep climb (18% for 1.2 miles!) into the new neighborhoods of the town of Snoqualmie, I flew down a steep descent into the valley to the “old” town of Snoqualmie, which sits in the valley of the same name. I rode for 5 miles on a gravel path that is the Snoqualmie Valley Trail, and, at mile 25, joined the Palouse to Cascades State Park trail and began the 25-mile ascent to the pass. The climb itself was actually not difficult as this was a “rails to trails” path. By necessity, railway lines cannot be too steep (even for the little engine that could), and thus the grade was no steeper than 3%. Mind you, even a shallow grade is difficult when you are riding on gravel and you are climbing for 25 miles. Despite the effort, I felt great.
Today was a long day, an 82-mile ride to a small (I mean really small) town called Vantage, overlooking the Columbia River. Looking at the elevation profile, most of the day was downhills, so I thought it would be easy. Descending was indeed much easier than climbing, but the first 50 miles were entirely on a gravel trail. I had to be extra cautious, especially after mile 33, when the trail’s gravel changed from packed to loose. Very loose. As I struggled at times to keep my balance, I vowed I would write a haiku about the experience:
Descending slowly
MIle after mile of loose gravel
I hear Jeff White’s* voice
We camped last night at an elevation of 2,550 feet. I descended for most of the morning and early afternoon to about 1,600 feet. From the elevation profile of today’s route, I did not appreciate that I would gain all of that elevation back (plus more) on the 10-mile climb in the hills overlooking the Columbia River. At least the ascent was on asphalt. The afternoon was hot (in the 90s) but I looked forward to the 12-mile descent to Vantage that I knew followed the climb. I had a sweet tail wind that made the climb less torturous and started the descent with glee. I tucked my head and built up my speed to close to 30 mph. But then, in one of those cruel twists of bicycle touring fate, as I progressed further to the east, the wind changed direction and I was hit with a strong headwind. After 70 miles of cycling, I was deprived of my easy downhill ride as I found myself having to work hard just to go downhill.
* This inside joke requires an explanation: After I broke my pelvis in three places in the summer of 2019 following losing my balance and falling violently on a short gravel stretch on my commute to work, my colleague and friend Jeff White would occasionally warn me to stay away from gravel. These warnings became more frequent in the weeks leading up to this trip. Now, whenever I ride on gravel, I hear Jeff’s voice. Thank you, Jeff!
July 19, 2021 - If the thunder don’t get you, the lightning will
The “plan” today was to ride first to the agribusiness hub of Othello and then on to Connell, some sixty odd miles or so. The Kamoot app directed me to the starkly picturesque road called Lower Crab Creek Road. The app showed it had an unpaved section, but it was labeled as “path.” Imagine my chagrin when the pavement ended and I was swimming, literally, in loose gravel, the kind where it took all of my effort to stay upright. There was no smooth section of the road where cars had created two sets of lines where the gravel was more packed, likely because so few cars use the road. I swam and swerved on this stretch of gravel for 10 miles. I looked at the app and saw there was another section of the same after several more miles before Crab Creek joined state highway 26. I found a detour that would avoid the gravel but add several miles to the route. I admit to hesitating just a bit. What do I prefer? A shorter but more treacherous path? Or, longer but safer? In the end, I took the road north instead of east, expecting a climb but not a long one.
I was encouraged that a railroad line paralleled the detour route, aware that the railroad grade is no more than 3%. Sure enough, the climb was easy and I felt vindicated with my choice. But then the railway diverged from its parallel track to the road, and made a long loop to the east while the road’s grade rose and rose until it topped out at 10%.
Eastern Washington is experiencing a heat wave, and though it was only late morning, the day was already quite hot as the sun bleached the arid landscape. And when you climb uphill slowly, you don’t enjoy the benefit of the air moving that you get when you are moving at 12-15 mph. The climb seemed to take forever and I felt myself overheating. Now did I feel vindicated? Good question. I was hot and tired and had to climb a monster, but at least I was upright. Then again, had I continued on Crab Creek Road, I probably would have made better time because on the ride to Othello the wind changed and I struggled against a headwind. And, it was 94 degrees.
In the end, today was probably the most difficult day thus far, thanks to gravel, steep climbs, heat, and headwinds. Othello was at mile 51, and I called it a day.
But the adventure continues. The wildfires out here have forced me to change my entry point into Idaho due to an uncontrolled blaze in Washington just south of my planned route. And I also need to adjust my riding and daily pre-ride preparation due to the heat. I apply SPF 50 gloss to my lips and SPF 50 lotion to my nose multiple times during the day but they still have suffered damage from the sun. I hope to hit the road early in the morning and get several hours in, before laying low in a shady spot (if one can be found in this tree-deprived landscape) during the heat of the day, and then riding for a couple more hours before the sun goes down.
Again, these are just plans. Thunder and lightning may have other ideas.
July 21, 2021 - Thoughts from the road…
Today I am taking a rest day, having arrived in Lewiston, Idaho. Here are some thoughts from the road.
Landscape
Even though I move slowly west to east across this part of the country, I can see the landscape change from day to day. The starkest transition was when I descended from the Cascades to the agricultural lands of central Washington. I started the day amidst pines and firs under the shadow of broad shouldered mountain peaks, had coffee in the agricultural town of Ellensburg, with well irrigated fields (thanks to the Columbia Basin land “reclamation” project-- i.e., reclaimed for human purposes), and ended the day in the Columbia River gorge, where steep, barren ridges stretched for miles on both sides of the river. The next day those same mountain ridges continued their reach eastwards, slowly melting into the brown plateau, where I heard the gurgling of running water in roadside irrigation canals as I continued riding under a relentless sun through fields that stretched for miles, rising and falling to the horizon. The day after, I passed through dry wheat country, where the autumn and spring rains drive the crop’s growth, and where air was hazy from all the combines used for the harvest kicking up the dust and powdering the air with a fine grit. A last-minute change of plans had me head south to the Snake River, where I climbed and descended stark, barren mountains, climbs that never seemed to stop, and where, in the seemingly middle of nowhere, I would see a sign for school bus stop. Off in the distance I could spot a remote farm. And then I screamed down those same mountains to the Snake River, where I expected to see some riparian greenery but instead was greeted by the same uniform brownness of the slopes. A fellow camper (and cyclist) that night referred to this area as the “scablands.”
Chafe
At the end of the other day’s ride, the dominating sensation was the burning discomfort caused by chafe. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Challenges of the Road
When I am moving down the road on bicycle, I find that I unconsciously personalize the impediments. Meaning, when encountering a steep climb, a relentless headwind, or an unstable gravel path, it is natural to view these external factors solely as how they make circumstances difficult…for me. I moan and complain (to myself, of course, because the wind doesn’t have ears) but I realize that I am just making matters worse for myself. Yesterday, I had a shift in consciousness and when the road rose steeply I just accepted it and pedaled more slowly. This change in mindset shouldn’t be hard, but I find that I need to make the effort to just accept things “as is.” For mine is not the power to level the roads and make the winds change direction. I took on this challenge and the world does not owe me anything. Which reminds me of a relevant and succinct Stephen Crane poem:
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
Maple Syrup Analogy
A cross country trip is like making maple syrup. When riding, all of life is boiled down to the sweet experience of a single moment: breathing, exerting, sensing the wind’s direction, alert to oncoming traffic, and staying upright.
Heat
I grew up in Puerto Rico and lived in Israel for 17 years, so I am no stranger to heat. And as I prepared for and set out on this Adventure, I was more concerned with how my muscles and joints would respond to the effort than I was with the heat. But with record-setting temperatures in the Northwest, I find the heat to be one of those under-appreciated challenges. I try to hit the road early in the morning and get 35-40 miles of riding done before the temperatures climb. And I thought that, after taking a long afternoon break, I could get another 25-30 miles under my belt later in the afternoon. However, the temperatures are still over 90 degrees at 6 pm! Climbing Alpowa Summit (elevation 2785) yesterday in Western Washington in the 94 degree heat took a tremendous toll on my body. It’s like that scene in the Jim Henson movie, The Dark Crystal, where the evil Skeksis suck the vital essences from the gentle Gelfling: after 3 hours of riding under the sun, I feel that my life’s energy had been sucked dry by the heat. I arrived at camp half the person I was when I started out in the cool of the morning.
Deterrent in a Bottle
The other day when riding on a remote road, I was chased by a Rottweiler. It was past its prime but gave me a good chase, barking menacingly as it approached. I took out my water bottle, aimed, and hit that mean pup square in the face. The dog slowed momentarily, and then, undeterred, continued its acceleration. I continued mine and outran the beast. That night at the campground, I was admiring the cannister of “dog spray” clipped to a fellow cyclist’s handlebars. “Oh, cool,” I said, “you’ve got a spray for dogs.” He nodded and replied, “Works good on humans, too.”
Remote Landscape Demographics
On the empty roads approaching Ellensburg, WA, I saw more kine than kin.
On the empty roads between Othello, WA and the Snake River, I saw more hawks than humans.
July 26, 2021 - How to beat the heat
I get stronger but I can’t beat the heat.
I overcome physical and mental obstacles but I can’t beat the heat.
Riding in triple digit temperatures feels quite Mordor-like. Here, the sun is the ever-watching eye. Does that make my bicycle “the precious?”
Over the past four days, I have climbed just over 13,000 feet. On Friday, 7/22, I climbed an unnamed mountain for 19 miles in the Nez Perce Reservation. The climb started gradually but for the last 10 miles it was a steady slog at 4 to 5%, with absolutely no short downhill breaks. That sucker just went up and up. At any time of the year, doing a climb of this magnitude would be a challenge for the athletically inclined. But, like a mad dog or Englishman, I did the climb in the middle of the afternoon during a record-setting week of high temperatures. I had to stop every few miles and take a break. Fortunately, cool and quick-running Lapwai Creek runs alongside the highway, and I was able to scramble down a rocky embankment and soak my weary head in its icy waters.
The next day I got a late start and after a few miles had to climb the steep western slope of White Bird Mountains (but was rewarded with a 15-mile downhill). Following my speedy descent I rode 25 miles in the exposed road alongside the Salmon River, again, smack in the heat of the day (are you seeing a pattern here?). Once again, by mile 50 I felt like gelatin that has been left on the counter too long. I still had 28 miles to go and by mile 55, resting and chewing wearily on a Clif Bar on the gravel just off the road’s shoulder, I must have looked pretty bad because a woman who had stopped at the side of the road called out to me, “Are you okay?”
I like to sleep. But I was willing to forgo sleep to get on the road before the day got too hot. I woke up yesterday and, wanting to get on the road quickly, skipped breakfast, thinking I would grab a bite at the next town, which was only 8 miles away. I was in a valley at 4000 feet, boondocking with the van in a forest, and therefore had no internet connection to bring up the Komoot app and check out the ride’s profile. “Meh,” I said to myself, “it’s only 8 miles.”
Never say “Meh” on a cross-country bike trip.
Not only did the first 5 miles of the ride see me gain 1500 feet of elevation, but I did this steep climb sans caffeine, the rising sun in my eyes, on a narrow road, with weekend recreational traffic speeding past me (remember folks, American RVs can be as wide as tanks), and the day turning into a scorcher.
Ironically, as the climb peaked at 5400 feet, I saw a sign welcoming me to “Valley County.”
Today, for the first time since we left home, I set my alarm to get up before the crack of dawn (it really is a crack; I heard it) and I was on the road to begin my 70 mile ride as the sun rose over the ridges of the Boise National Forest. I put in 37 miles before 11 a.m. and did nothing except eat and drink as the day turned into a scorcher. I started the 33-mile stretch to complete the day at 4 pm and, 10 miles later, rode through Garden Valley, ID where the digital thermometer outside the local high school told me that it was 102 degrees. But it didn’t bother me so much because, earlier, I had dunked my head into the South Fork of the Payette River which ran alongside the road for the first 8 miles, soaked my neck buff in its cool waters, and filled a water bottle from the river which I later regularly poured over my helmet, and let evaporation do its cooling trick. And even though I had to climb over 1000 feet on that stretch, I never felt that I was suffering from the heat.
If I am not too tired tomorrow, I will have a go at “suffering,” which is something of a theme for this trip.
July 30, 2021 - A Day
No one day is exactly like another. Aside from getting on the bike and pedaling, each day is its own story. The terrain changes. The weather conditions change. Even the way I feel about the ride changes. Here is today’s story.
We spent the night in an RV Park in Bellevue, Idaho, south of the upscale ski towns of Sun Valley and Ketchum. Some RV parks are bucolic and have lots of space between vehicles. The place in Bellevue was the RV Park equivalent of a big city tenement. Picture a gravel lot about a half-acre in size with RVs lined up one next to another in long rows across the lot. This place also had a large share of full-time residents, some of whom looked rather shady. When I was waiting to take a shower last night, a burly, barrel chested man walked out of the shower room, looking like a character right out of a Jack London or Neil Kerouac novel (a Dharma scum?).
As I was only planning on riding 67 miles to Arco, I did not get an early start, and so helped Joanie with preparing Olympia for the road, which included dumping the black and grey water into the sewage receptacle, and then topping off the fresh water tank. Joanie drove off to the Bellevue library to use their community WiFi and I pushed off around 8:30.
For the first 16 miles I was in bike touring heaven. I had a strong tailwind, and I sped down a flat, mostly empty country road in the cool morning air, moving at an average speed of 19 mph (which I am lucky to reach even when riding my road bike). On either side of the road, irrigation systems sprayed the barley and alfalfa fields. As the miles ticked by, I could not believe my good fortune. I have been going either up or down (mostly up) the last several days, so I enjoyed this respite thoroughly. In the back of my mind, though, I did poke at the thought that surely such good fortune could not last very long. I didn’t poke for long, but swallowed and accepted; yes, on a bike trip, fortunes can change in a flash. Just enjoy the moment.
Indeed, I did enjoy.
I took a break at mile 16 in the hamlet of Picabo, a small community which was actually just a Texaco gas station and a large store which housed the post office, a restaurant, and exhibits of historical artifacts. I met a man named Fudge (a grizzled but friendly vanilla looking guy) who told me about Picabo’s history and answered my questions about the road ahead. As he left, he gave me a fist-bump.
After Picabo, I climbed 200 feet out of the valley over a hill and down into another valley towards the small town of Carey. And once in Carey, as if someone flicked a switch, the day changed. The tail wind had died. Picabo sat in a lush valley; Carey sat at the edge of the high desert. Where Picabo was well-tended, Carey had a rough, unfinished look. I headed out of Carey and was soon in a brown landscape. “Last gas for 42 miles,” read the sign. Every few miles I would see a lonely farm house, dogs baying from somewhere unseen. The sky was now overcast and the wind was no longer a help. The road rose at a steady 1 to 2% grade, and I found myself pedaling my usual bike touring speed of 12-13 mph. I was on US 20 heading northeast, and the sporadic traffic consisted of pickups pulling campers, semis carrying bales of green hay, and the occasional sedan. I couldn’t find a shaded spot to sit and eat some food, so I sat in the extra lane created for the closed weigh station. The thermometer on my GPS read 77.9 degrees.
After lunch, the road rose at a progressively steeper grade. Mountains bordered the valley to the west, and the high desert plateau rolled on and on to the east. I then entered into the Craters of the Moon National Monument, a vast tract of land managed by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The brown hues of the high desert gave way to what I can only describe as fields of basalt rock that looked as if they had been ploughed. The Craters of the Moon encompasses an area which once sported active lava vents and mini-volcanos that spewed the hot lava into the air, forming towers, buttes, and craters of hardened basalt.
The road’s grade soon became steeper and I found myself climbing in the now 92 degree heat. When I left Carey the elevation was a little over 4800 feet, and I would soon finish the climb at 5900 feet. It is slow, methodical work getting up those climbs under the bright sun, but I am able to spin in a gear that doesn’t rip my thighs to shreds and literally inch my way up the inclines. I reached the top and stopped to catch my breath, soaking in the raw, rugged beauty of the landscape. With my heart thumping in my chest loudly, perspiration dripping from just about every pore, I smiled and relished the successful effort, the scenery, and the vast, open space.
A few miles later, after stopping at an observation point I heard a swishing sound in the grass next to the road. Was that a snake? No, it sounded like air. Oh no! I checked the front tire (good) but when I looked at the rear it was clear I had a puncture. I pulled over, removed the rear wheel from the frame, got out my tool kit and removed the tube from the tire, and inflated the damaged tube to determine what kind of puncture. I found a pinch flat right next to the stem on the side facing the rim. As I sat there pondering, I looked up to see a car with Texas plates pull up and a woman lean out of the driver’s side to ask, “Do you need any help?” I smiled and waved her off.
I replaced the tube, and with the mini-pump, got the tire inflated to a respectable level of pressure. I looked up and this time, I saw a van which was labeled “Bike Gallery” stop just ahead. Out popped the driver who introduced himself as a former mechanic for a US racing team. I joked with him and asked why he hadn’t come 10 minutes earlier. But he pulled a floor pump from the van and topped off the pressure, and soon I was on my merry way, albeit it with black, greasy fingers from seating the chain properly.
I pulled into the Craters of the Moon visitor’s center a mile later to wash my hands and eat some more. I rested for about 30 minutes, and when I pulled back onto the road, the sky was blue and once again I was blessed with a magnificent tailwind, as if produced by Zephyrus, the Greek God of the west wind. I sped downhill at over 22 mph as the miles flew by. I was getting close to my destination. Surely I would arrive soon.
No such thing as surely on a bike trek.
Again, as if someone pressed a button, the winds changed direction and I was riding into a headwind. To my left, I saw ominous grey clouds and sheets of rain pouring over distant mountains. The wind shifted back and forth, and I wasn’t sure if the rain would catch up with me or if I would make it to Arco without getting wet. But looking ahead, there was rain falling in the mountains just beyond where I thought Arco lay.
Then the ride got even stranger. I looked in my mirror and saw a tornado! No, it was too small for a tornado. But it was a bona fide dust devil, spinning madly, its funnel rising several hundred feet into the air. It hit the road and dissipated. A few minutes later, I looked back again and saw a massive dust storm, a light brown mist that seemed to be getting closer with each passing moment. I pedaled faster, but the wind, once my bosom buddy, was now mocking me, blowing mightily so that I could only manage a maximum speed of 9 mph. Would I be swallowed by the storm? The wind now started blowing across the road, buffeting me left and right with each gust. I had to lock my hands on the handlebars to maintain stability (and remain upright). The last six miles into Arco was a fight with the wind, racing the dust storm (which, after a few miles, seemed to give up the chase). The destination that once surely would arrive soon now seemed to take forever to appear.
Finally, I pulled into town to await Joanie’s arrival, grey skies behind me and thunder rumbling menacingly in the distance. The wind howled like a banshee. I found a park bench and lay down, spent from the effort.
It was a good day.
July 31, 2021 - Another Day… and Grandma Lisa
Today was equally as ‘epic’ as yesterday. First, it was the longest ride of the trek so far (87.5 miles). Second, it was like three separate days packed into one full day, a day with three different Acts.
Act 1: I pushed off at 8:15 on a bright, sunny morning with the temperature reading of 59 degrees. I rode 8 miles on US 20 and then picked up ID 33 northeast. As yesterday, I had favorable tailwinds on an empty country road, nothing but the high desert landscape and the sound of the wind. I reached the small farming village of Howe after 24 relatively easy miles.
Act 2: I was overjoyed when, leaving Howe, the tailwind continued. I rode the first 5 miles out of Howe at an average speed of 15 mph. But, the wind is fickle in Idaho. In what seemed like an instant, the wind literally reversed direction, and I found myself slogging in the sun against the wind, pushing hard just to hit 10 mph. This continued for over 25 miles. The road rose and there were no trees or human structure to break the relentless wind. And the temperature rose… into the triple digits.
There was one sparkle of light in the afternoon that did not come from the sun. At mile 37, I was packing up after taking a rest when a car sped by and came to an abrupt halt. There were 2 bicycles attached to a rack on the trunk. The car had missed its turn, and so the driver pulled around to change direction. As they passed me, a young woman in the passenger seat leaned out and asked, “Are you OK?”
“I am doing great,” I responded.
With equal parts warmth and encouragement she replied, “You are doing awesome!” and as they sped away her partner in the driver’s seat let out a series of whoops and pumped his left fist in the air several times.
And this happened in the so-called middle of nowhere.
Act 3: The wind subsided somewhat and I continued to grind away the miles. As the afternoon progressed, the eastern sky became darker and I could see distant sheets of rain pouring from the clouds in the distance. At mile 66 I crossed over Interstate 15, and the wind did its thing once more. A few miles later I pulled over for a wardrobe adjustment and as I returned to the bike, the wind shifted into an even higher gear, first raising clouds of dust and then shooting them horizontally across the road, south to north. So strong was the crosswind that it effortlessly pushed me towards the road and had to lean into the wind at a 45-degree angle relative to the road just to stay upright. A few times the wind gusted and almost brought my bike to a standstill! Lightning flashed in the distance. Would I make it to Rexburg where Joanie was waiting? Was it too dangerous to stay on the road? I was determined to make it all the way. I felt I was able to compensate for the wind to remain safe, and the lightning was off in the distance, and I was still dry, so I kept slogging my way east into an ever-darkening sky. I made it to the van right as the sky erupted with rain.
What can I say? Was it hard? Yes. Did I suffer? Yes. But the internal sense of accomplishment after completing the ride made it all worthwhile.
Old World Superstition
Yesterday I made an offhand comment to Joanie that all the minor aches and pains I had prior to the trip are now gone. “Shhhh!” she replied, as if I was tempting fate with such a comment. I thought she sounded like my Grandma Lisa with her old world superstitions. And today, as I pedaled slowly in the heat, I thought how I am burning about 2800 calories each ride, and that my already thin frame has thinned even more. Which reminded me of Grandma Lisa again. I have an old memory of her trying to get me to fatten up.
“Eat, Douglas! You’re skinny as a rooster,” she would intone.
And then she would try the competitive angle. “Douglas, why don’t you eat your Corn Flakes? Your cousin Alan, he eats all his Corn Flakes.”
I swear, Grandma, on this trek I eat a ton each night but I still remain skinny as a rooster.
August 1, 2021 - Taking Stock
I’m only in western Wyoming, but it’s hard to believe that, having ridden over 1,135 miles already, this trek is almost a third complete.
Perhaps it’s hard for me to believe because, as someone with an “easterner” mentality, Wyoming is “out west.” But if you look at a map, Wyoming is about 1/3 of the distance from west to east. Also, it seemed that it took forever to complete the route in Idaho. This is because I chose the scenic route loaded with climbs, and not the most direct route east. Imagine finger painting on a map of Idaho and that would be a good approximation of my route.
Today I completed the penultimate climb in the west, Teton Pass (8,450 feet). It wasn’t a long climb (only 11 miles, which seems like a lot but nowhere near the 25 miles it took to climb Snoqualmie Pass) but the last several miles were steep, pretty much a solid 10-12% grade. I had to stop every half mile or so to catch my breath.
Teton Pass is a heavily traveled route, as it is the main entry from the west into the Jackson Hole valley, an upscale ski and winter/summer resort area. On the way up the climb, there were too many cars passing me closely as I hugged the narrow shoulder. But then some poor motorcyclists bad luck was my good fortune. A couple of miles from the summit, I saw the traffic come to a standstill. As I churned my way past the stopped cars (some with engines idling; some with engines off and passenger milling about and walking their dogs), I was able to reach the summit without the danger of cars buzzing me as I huffed and puffed my way to the top. I spoke to a Teton County Sherriff officer in his SUV right before the summit who told me that some motorcyclist took a turn too wide and hit a car. As I weaved my way around a tow truck hoisting the damaged remains of his bike (the front end was in pieces on the ground), I realized I now had the good fortune of descending the even steeper eastern slopes without any traffic to contend with. Funny how that works (or doesn’t, if you were the motorcyclist).
I have one more pass to climb (Togwotee, elevation 9,500) and then it’s basically downhill to Columbus. I decided not to over-exert and I converted a two-day ride into three days. Today’s ride was only 33 miles, and tomorrow will be even shorter, northwards to the small community of Moran. I will skip my planned rest day on Tuesday to do Togwotee and ride to the town of Dubois. From there, it’s a straight shot southeast towards the Nebraska border, where I will hook up with the 200-mile Cowboy Trail that takes me through most of the state.
But I am getting too far ahead of myself.
The only way to do this is one day at a time.
Or, in the words of my new mantra, “To get there, be here.”
I Can’t Help Myself
Yesterday evening, I was sitting in front of a Sinclair gas station in the small farming town of Tetonia, Idaho, sipping on a much-needed $1.09 cup of coffee (rung up by a cashier who only sported one tooth). It had been a slog riding against the wind in the well-irrigated high desert of eastern Idaho, and I was sipping caffeine so I could make the last 7 miles to Driggs, where Joanie was waiting for me. As I sat there a parade of characters stopped and entered the station’s store, and among them were two gentlemen who seemed to unfold out an old car. The first walked stiffly, betraying either an accident or years of hard labor. He looked tired. The second was very tall, and wore a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, dusty jeans, and had a long, grey mustache. He nodded at me, and like an idiot, I said, “Howdy.” As he entered the store, the first association I had after laying eyes on him was the Leadbelly song, When I was a Cowboy. I couldn’t help myself, and started singing, “When I was a cowboy, out on the western plain…”
I probably shouldn’t have sung out loud.
August 5, 2021 - Highs and Lows &
the Physical Trek vs. the Internal Trek(This was written on August 4)
Funny how the mind works. I was high as a kite after yesterday’s memorable ride, climbing for 20 miles and crossing the western continental divide and then Togwotee Pass (9,650 feet). The descent was pure heaven, and then I was blessed by an amazing tail wind all the way to Dubois, Wyoming (pronounced, Do-Boys).
But today, after a great start, became a suffer fest. I covered 41 miles fairly rapidly thanks to the descending terrain and a favorable wind. But right after lunch, the winds started shifting, and at mile 51, they blew directly in my face. A mile later, I flatted; for the third consecutive time it was a puncture right by the stem on the rim side.
That amazing feeling from yesterday? Because of today’s events, it’s almost as if it had happened years ago. I tried to recall the elation I felt and it was like bringing up a memory of a distant vacation when you’ve been back at work for a year.
But I will recall the day. The climb up to Togwotee was not as brutal as Teton Pass, but it was long. There were ramps of 7% but they didn’t last for long, and at times the road leveled off and on several occasions, gifted me with short downhills. And the alpine landscape was stunning – pinkish-red lupine flowers bordering deep green meadows with broad-shouldered peaks in the distance.
I ate my lunch at Togwotee Pass, which, in hindsight, wasn’t such a good idea, because the wind was blowing and it was a cool 62 degrees at the summit, so I got chilled form the sweat that had covered my body from the climb’s effort. The descent was a little stressful… long, straight ramps at 8%, but there were few cars and, for most of the downhill, I had the road to myself. Eleven miles after the summit, I felt weak, the result of the chill at the summit, reinforced by reaching speeds up to 37 mph in the cool air on the descent. I stopped to eat and warm up, and see how I would do with the remaining 19 miles to Dubois. At first, I felt a little uneasy, but the tailwind made the pedaling easy, and I quickly recovered. After a few miles I realized that the tailwind was like mana from the heavens; I was maintaining a 22 mph pace. At a certain point, I saw a sign that said, “Road Work – Next 7 Miles” and then hit a stretch of freshly laid blacktop which made the rolling “like butter.” As I sped down the hills towards Dubois, I asked myself “who could ask for anything better than this?”, which reminded me of the famous Gershwin song, “I’ve Got Rhythm.” In my head, I rewrote the song’s refrain:
I’ve got downhill
I’ve got fresh blacktop
I’ve got tailwind
Who could ask for anything more?
I arrived in Dubois in a state of bliss.
But then I had a rough night with dark thoughts and fears bouncing around my head. Some of the concerns relate to Devin; others relate to the tiresome logistical tasks of running the tour; mainly, operating the Camper Van infrastructure, which is ceaseless. Such is the tradeoff of having Joanie with me and not having to carry my gear up those steep passes. But once I am pedaling down the road, all those thoughts dissipate and I become very focused on body, pace, traffic, the sounds of the bicycle, and the world I am passing through.
US Highway 26 from Dubois to the southeast runs through the Wind River valley, and the scenery is stunning. The road crosses the Wind River multiple times, and each crossing reveals a loud, clear, narrow and strong-flowing river. But then the route passes through the Wind River Tribe reservation, and, as I noticed when we traveled through Montana on the way out here, the Indian reservations are on more arid soil. The landscape became less verdant, and soon I was moving through brown, almost featureless hills.
At this point, the darker thoughts surfaced once again, and I realized that I am actually on two journeys – the physical trek and the internal trek. The physical trek is that which consumes my conscious mind – the logistics of preparing for the daily ride (food, electronics, bicycle, sunscreen) and the day’s ride itself. But the internal trek happens at the subconscious level, and it is my quiet companion, always present, always filling the empty spaces. I’ve been so engaged with the physical trek that I haven’t paid too much attention to the internal trek. But today, on a difficult day, with the physical trek past the 1/3 mark, I began to pay more attention to the internal trek. And if it were an easier day I probably would have done more of the internal work as I pedaled down the road. However, the flat tire and the relentless headwind for the last 26 miles, which required all my willpower just to make it to Riverton, did not leave any mental space to address the internal trek.
The physical trek is yang, the goal-oriented, masculine-energy journey. The internal trek is yin, the soft, dark and feminine-energy journey. I still have about 2,200 miles until I reach the Atlantic Ocean. Plenty of time to walk the soft, dark paths of the internal trek.
August 7, 2021 - Douglas in Douglas
Wyoming, that is. We are staying in Douglas, a small city about 55 miles east of Casper. This is the second place this week we’ve found where the city has a park that allows overnight camping for tents and RV’s. This place even has free, hot showers. And I needed a hot shower this evening because I rode 90 miles today, 17 of which were on a beautiful gravel county road that offered nary a hint of shade.
Yesterday we spent the night in a campsite by the Alcova Dam, operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. When we awoke, the omnipresent haze from forest fires made the sun appear as a small, pale, pink orb, as if it had been rendered by an artist designing a skyscape on an alien planet.
Small Towns in the West
My route takes me through small towns, primarily. Sometimes they are just a dot on a map with a name which turns out to be nothing but a few houses. Other times, there is a post office, a gas station, which may or may not have a general store, a few hardscrabble houses, and nothing else. Some towns are small, local agricultural hubs and have businesses that cater to farmers. A few others are county seats and have an actual downtown that has not been eviscerated by a WalMart or other big-box store. A regional peculiarity is that what would be called a town back east (an incorporated jurisdiction with a population of 10,000 residents) qualifies as a city here in the west.
There are towns located close to the National Parks, National Forests, or National Recreation Areas that rely on tourism for their economic survival. These towns typically have a showy, tourist façade where you can pay way too much for food, gasoline, souvenirs, or anything else that you require or desire. You have to search to get a sense of the real town behind its tourist-attraction persona.
On the whole, people in these small towns have been very cordial to us (partly, I think, because we look like them). I have found, to my surprise, that small-town western “nice” is a few degrees cooler than the Midwestern “nice” that I have grown accustomed to in Ohio. Stanley, Idaho, seemed to be a magnet for young people, and the attitude and service I received reminded did not give me a warm feeling, almost as if they were doing me a favor by placing my order. This was in stark contrast to Lander, Wyoming, also a magnet for young people, and where the smiles were genuine.
Even though I look like the locals, it is easy for them to identify me as an outsider, especially when I enter a store in my cross-country bicycle outfit. I find that the smaller the town, the more distant the look I get from the locals. They are outwardly polite, but I am an outsider, and therefore, in their insular world, I am “the other.” For the most part, I am not traveling a well-established bicycling route, such as the norther tier or the TransAmerica trail so they are not accustomed to seeing many cyclists.
On second thought, there is the possibility that they give me a distant look because I smell and my face is smeared with zinc oxide from the sunscreen.
Many of the places that are mere dots on the map are typically run-down and sad-looking. They are often economically distressed, especially the small towns in Wyoming that grew up around an extraction industry (such as uranium, which went bust in the late 1980s) and have slowly crumbled as people departed for greener pastures. Some of these small places that are not economically distressed, such as the small farming communities, are extremely insular and conservative. To borrow a joke from Dennis Miller, these are the kind of places that if the Olympic torch were to pass through town, guys would try to light farts off of it.
Welcome to Wyoming
The other day when I was riding from Dubois to Riverton on US 26, I pulled in to a Wyoming Department of Transportation rest stop. I noticed a guy get into a van and drive away. Now, if you’ve glanced at some of the selfies I have posted on the Gallery page, you’ve probably noticed that I wear an orange neck buff, which I pull up over my nose and mouth to protect my nose and lips from getting burned. Anyway, as I was negotiating entering the rest area, I hear the guy from the van scream, “Hey!! There is no virus, you stupid sonofabitch!!”
Which makes him an idiot twice-over.
The Sounds of Pickup Trucks
On quiet roads, I can hear a vehicle coming from behind me for some distance. Typically, I can tell without looking that a pickup truck is going to pass me from the unique whine of their wide tires. Sometimes, with the help of a little imagination, the sound that a pickup truck’s tires make is the same sound made by an Imperial TIE fighter from Star Wars.
August 10, 2021 - Nebraska
“…I don’t know jack but I stay sincere…”
I grew up in Puerto Rico, the smallest of the Greater Antilles islands at 3,500 square miles. I spent about 17 years in Israel, a sliver of a country at 8,550 square miles. I’ve been living in Ohio since 1998, not a small state at 44,825 square miles, but you can drive the width of the state in a few hours. But I am overwhelmed by the size of the states “out west,” especially when crossing them on a bicycle. Wyoming is just under 100,000 square miles and Nebraska, which I just started to traverse, is 77,421 square miles.
So much space.
I’ve ridden four consecutive days since a day off in Lander, Wyoming, for bicycle repairs.
Friday: I rode through undulating terrain just north of the Great Basin (the dry area in Wyoming where water does not drain to an ocean but rather where the water that falls either sinks underground, evaporates, or flows to lakes) and got caught by a lightning storm. I had a strong tailwind and was making great time northwards, but with the sky flashing bright every few minutes, I did not wish to remain on the road as the tallest object for hundreds of meters in all directions. But there was nowhere to take shelter! I pulled on my rain jacket just as the rain came driving down at a sharp angle, and noticed a large wooden “wildlife marker” sign in a pull out area on the other side of the road. I took refuge behind the sign, which seemed to block out most of the rain. Soon afterwards, the rain stopped. But massive, dark clouds crept steadily overhead, and I could see bolts of lightning in the distance. Discretion being the better part of valor, I did not continue to ride. As the storm passed over, I could see lightning strike a hillside about a mile away from me. It wasn’t a quick strike, but, as in a black and white Frankenstein movie, I saw it connect with the ground and expand for a few seconds. All that was missing was the cheap, sizzling cinematic sound effect. A few minutes later the lightning hit the open area between me and the hill. I felt so exposed… and very small.
Then it started hailing. Within minutes my legs stung from the half-dollar sized white pellets that came down in Biblical fashion. I put on my helmet to protect my noggin. Soon the pull off area where I cowered behind the sign was full of cars that did not want to risk driving in the storm. They sat in their warm, dry seats and looked at me with a mixture of bemusement and pity.
The storm passed quickly. The sun came out. And I continued my way to Alcova Reservoir. I had to slog through 10 miles of road construction, where the crews had chewed up and removed the asphalt, leaving just an unmarked, grooved surface. And most of the 10 miles was uphill. At one point, right as a biker pulling a trailer carrying a bicycle (can you say, “cognitive dissonance?”) passed me, the trailer came unhitched and was dragging on the road, sparks flying everywhere. He pulled over and, as I passed him, he smiled sheepishly at me and said, “I’m sorry.” My reward for surviving the rain, lightning, hail, and road construction was a long descent to Alcova Reservoir.
Saturday: This was the day we awoke to hazy skies from the forest fires. But the haze provided cover from the sun, and I rode northeast alongside the North Platte River into Casper, a city known for its cowboy culture and dominated by the extraction industry. I followed a bike trail along the river lined with trees (finally, some shade!), through a funky, newly renovated downtown area, and then up through big-box store alley. I picked up US 26, which runs parallel to I-25, and therefore was relatively empty. The rough mountains bordering the Great Basin were behind me and the hills became more rounded and gentle. I was blessed by a tailwind (again) and made excellent time until US 26 ended, and the route took me through ranch lands alongside the North Platte on a gravel road that was wide and either sloped up or down. The late afternoon sun beat down as I rode under a blue sky tinged only slightly by the smoke from the fires. Ranch land stretched in all directions. Cows stared at me blankly as I passed. As during the storm from the previous day, I felt so small as I passed through the wide, oh-so open space.
Sunday: I left Douglas and the route took me on a freshly paved country road that loped ever-upwards. After nine miles, the pavement ended and I was on a gravel road similar to the one I had ridden the day before. Pickup trucks coming from the opposite would pass me, leaving a trail of dust in their wake, the drivers politely waving at me. One steep uphill section of gravel was just too loose for riding and I walked my bike up. Coal-laden trains passed slowly on tracks in the distance. Again, I was awed by the sense of space. But frankly, because I was moving slowly on the gravel, I was overwhelmed by the heat.
I got to the paved road (US 18) and chugged uphill until I got to a lost village called Shawnee (population: 4). I sat in the shade of what once was a school to cool off. I met Joanie for lunch in a park in a small town called Manville (sorry, no sister town called Womanville). Despite the drought, the sprinkler system was seeing heavy action. After a quick snooze and a cup of coffee from the Three Sisters Truck Stop (where diners came for their Sunday afternoon helping of meat loaf and gravy), I hit the road, determined to cross into Nebraska.
What followed was what I can only describe as bike trek heaven. The tailwind pushed me along briskly; the road descended and dropped me into the town of Lusk. I took a turn to leave town, and it was as just like a set change in a theater. A mile or two before town I had been riding through hilly, high desert land. After the turn, I entered a valley and the road shot straight as an arrow southeast, the hills replaced by grasslands. I hadn’t crossed the state line yet but I felt as if I had already entered Nebraska. And the tailwind! I sped along effortlessly. Under blue skies. On an empty road. Miles and miles of grasslands on either side of the road. If I had the vocal chord power I would have whooped and screamed in delight. What I did instead was to raise my arms out to the sides and glide along on the open road like a bird.
Let me tell you, Nebraska ain’t flat! I crossed the state line and started climbing. Up and down, over and over. The hills were brown and rolled out to the horizon on both sides of the road. Nine miles later, I crested a hill and saw a green oasis, the town of Harrison, where we spent the night in a public park with spaces for tents and RVs. After sunset, we could hear live music from the local saloon (open until 2 a.m., I was told; don’t these cowboys have work on Monday morning?).
Monday (today): For the first stretch of the day, I continued my tailwind heaven on empty US 20. The sweeping grasslands gave way to Butte country, and the road descended about a thousand feet in a few miles. US 20 took me through the small agricultural town of Crawford (where I had been hoping to score some good coffee at the “Perk Up Java Shop,” but the sign on the door said, “Closed indefinitely as I have to care for my mother-in-law.” Double bummer.) So I just sat on the metal chairs outside the shop and drank my electrolyte-supplement spiked water and ate two hard boiled egg sandwiches. I can’t eat enough. The wind was not as favorable over the next 24 miles to the small city of Chadron, and I was tired, so it was not a fun stretch. I had a long, gradual climb up to our current campsite in Hay Springs. I crested the climb at mile 66 and froze in my tracks out of sheer exhaustion. I inhaled a Clif Bar and continued to town, alive but depleted. Of course, the cure for depletion is lots of food and drink, and here sit I, hours later, writing these words with the intention of riding another 80 miles tomorrow.
My taiji teacher in Israel once gave us students a handout of “The Song of Taiji, which contained the line, “The mind commands and the body obeys.” This line alludes to the centrality of intention and mental focus. But the body does not obey in a vacuum. “First feed me and hydrate me,” the body says to the mind, “and then let’s talk about tomorrow’s ride.”
“Oh,” it continues, “and please shut up so I can get some sleep!”
Live Here or There?
I know a lot of people refer to these parts as “flyover country.” David Byrne. while flying over these parts, penned the words, “I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.” We in the more populated urban centers often scoff at the people who live on the farms and small towns out west. But after meeting and talking with a lot of people here, I’m guessing they look at, say, anyone living in the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C., and think, “Why would anyone want to live there (where “there” has no open sky and clean air).
August 12, 2021 - Rest Day Reflections
Yesterday was definitely a case of the mind commanding and the body obeying.
My plan was to ride over 80 miles from Cody to Ainsworth through central Nebraska. It would be the last effort of the riding week, with the intent to find a shady spot to camp in Ainsworth and take a day off. But, in the morning, my body felt tired from the week’s effort of hard riding (not to mention the cumulative effort of the last four weeks); as I set out it would be an understatement to say that the body did not rise to the occasion of the demands of having to ride the up-and-down stretch heading east from Cody. The wind was of no help as it varied from a strong cross-wind to straight out “in your face,” New York City style. To complicate matters (for the body, that is), I did not eat enough before leaving. In the back of my head I thought that I would stop in one of the several small towns that lie between Cody and Valentine and get a quick bite and a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the places on the map were small farming villages with no services. I had to settle for three Clif Bars for nourishment; they do the trick in a pinch but are not the same as a roadside rocket fuel meal loaded with carbs and protein.
As the wind and heat tormented me, I actually took out my ear buds and listened to music as I rode on a mostly empty highway US 20. The music was a successful pain mitigation strategy. Still, I arrived in Valentine depleted and unsure if I would have the strength to ride the additional 46 miles to Ainsworth.
But I was determined to get to Ainsworth, mostly for the psychological sense of accomplishment because riding those miles would have meant that I have completed over half the mileage for this trek before a well-deserved rest day. I met up with Joanie at the laundromat and ate a healthy portion of rice and lentils leftovers, a hard-boiled egg sandwich, and topped it off with soft ice cream from a Main Street ice cream shop. I also took some time to do some repairs on Joanie’s bike, so I only saddled up to leave Valentine for Ainsworth after 3 pm. By then, the temperature was in the mid-90s. Only mad dogs and Englishmen, right? Change that to “Mad Doug” and Englishmen.
Valentine is the western terminus of the Cowboy Trail, a 190-mile trail through northern Nebraska. I had been aiming to ride this trail since the planning stages of this trek as it would provide a respite from the traffic and the incessant whine of pickup truck tires and deafening roars of road hogs on their way to or from the biker gathering in Sturgis, South Dakota. But I had also heard recently from locals that the Cowboy Trail’s loose gravel surface was a little sloppy. I was fully prepared to abandon the trail in favor of US 20 if I found that riding the trail was more trouble than it was worth. So when I picked up the trail from Valentine and rode downhill towards the Niobrara River, I was pleased that the trail was in good condition. But as the land rose on the eastern slopes rising from the river, the trail became sloppy, and I was working hard to maintain progress. “OK,” I thought, “this is the uphill. Let’s see how I feel when the trail levels off.”
I found the reports I had heard about the trail’s surface to be inaccurate; it was not sloppy because of loose gravel but instead it had more of a sandy consistency, with deeper pools that seemed to grab the rear tire, requiring spurts of extra effort to move forward. And since the former railway line was cut through the earth to keep the grades at a minimal, there was no wind as I moved through the soft hills, and therefore it was like riding in a furnace. After seven miles I cut my losses, and cut back to US 20, where the going was smoother and the wind, though not pushing me from behind, at least provided relief from the heat.
Relief from the heat notwithstanding, I still had to get to Ainsworth. And this is where the mind commanded the body to work, and essentially shut down the complaints. It was hot (very). I was still riding in the Sandhills, and so while the elevation dropped as I pushed forward, the road still had the occasional half-mile/mile climbs, some at grades of over 5%. Yet there was nothing left to do but grind it out, mile after slow mile. On more than one occasion, I would finish a climb, panting and weak, only to see the discouraging site of yet another climb cut through a hill in the distance. I promised myself a break every 11.5 miles or so, but when the time came, with the sun so high and the absence of trees so predominant, there was not a shady spot where I could stop. My body had so wanted to stop (“you promised me a break,” I could hear it scream) but my mind knew that sitting in the searing sun was no true break, and I had to push a few miles more until I found a suitable place to stop (on the side of the road where the shade of a nearby tree provided maybe a few square feet of shade).
After the break, I just pushed ahead. There’s no way to sugar coat or romanticize the experience; on days such as these, existence boils down to one pedal stroke after another. The miles slide by slowly. No tailwind to rescue the day and make you feel omnipotent. Just hard work.
The minutes turn in to hours. The sun slowly moved towards the horizon but had lost none of its potency. Pickup truck drivers in cowboy hats coming the opposite way give polite waves. Trucks loaded with hay moved over to the shoulder and gave me a wide berth. Determination. Persistence. Up and down. Every so often I would stand on the pedals and coast to give my sore butt a break. On and on. We are making it to Ainsworth. Go. Go. Go! Even though every muscle fiber was begging to stop, I kept on pushing, moving forward.
Early in the evening I struggled up the incline towards the village of Johnstown after crossing a creek and I sensed the landscape had changed. The land near the road was no longer the light brown, soft rounded hills of the Sandhills but flat with neat green fields of soybeans and corn or empty fields dotted with rolls of recently harvested hay. I sensed I had moved from cattle country, with its wide open ranges, to a crop-centered farming area. Sure enough, the last 12 miles were pancake flat (finally!), and the air no longer had the dusty smell of the Sandhills, tinged with the background odor of manure, but rather had the rich smell of growth. I finally made it to Ainsworth after 7:30 p.m., the low sun creating long shadows in the streets and the fields, and a strong wind blowing that vacated the heat.
On Tailwinds
For me, a tailwind is like a drug. It acts as a stimulant, much like coffee, and creates a sense of power, however fleeting. A tailwind turns a slow moving day in the saddle into a speed festival. Much like Peter Parker after getting bit by the radioactive spider, I become giddy and thrilled with my ability to go so super-humanly freaking fast with minimal effort. And like the tricks a drug plays on the mind, I somehow believe this ability is my birthright, that it should be like this all the time. I begin to entertain thoughts of grandeur, because when you are zooming down the road at 25 mph, mysteriously, your muscles no longer ache, and you think surely that you will soon hit the coast and ride directly to Europe without stopping. Yes, with tailwinds, all things are possible.
Tailwinds erase the inherent suffering of bicycle treks and make a bad day good. You smile and wave at everyone. You scream down the hillsides and imagine the thoughts of onlookers, who surely must be thinking, “My God! He is going so fast!!”
In truth, however, winds are fickle, and as I’ve posted earlier, the wind can be your best friend and then, on a dime, literally turn on you and blow right in your face, taunting, “How do you like me now, eh?!?” And those onlookers? Well, what they’re actually thinking is more along the lines of, “Look at that crazy SOB cyclist riding down highway 20.”
On Suffering
As I wrote above, a cross country trek is, to some extent, a suffer-fest. But the suffering I am currently enduring is voluntary (another way to describe it would be “self-inflicted”). However, if you reflect on suffering even for a fleeting moment, it’s fairly obvious that suffering is a defining feature of the human experience. Leaving illness and poverty out of the equation for the time being, to be human is to suffer.
Suffering is a central concept in the Buddhist tradition. It is the first of the Four Noble Truths (Dukkha), and is commonly explained according to three different categories:
The obvious physical and mental suffering associated with birth, growing old, illness, and dying.
The anxiety or stress of trying to hold onto things that are constantly changing.
A basic “unsatisfactoriness” pervading all forms of existence, because all forms of life are changing and impermanent.
I would like to add a fourth category of Dukkha, which is the physical and mental suffering associated with voluntarily taking on an extraordinary physical challenge. And by no means am I trying to be a competitive sufferer. My bike trip is actually on the “light” end of the challenge spectrum; for the other extreme, consider Colin O’Brady and Louis Rudd, who separately trekked for two months (alone) across Antarctica for almost 1,000 miles, becoming the first people to traverse the continent from coast to coast solo, unsupported and unaided by wind. O’Brady and Rudd were engaged in a race to see who could complete the trek first. A race.
I see the outer manifestation of our consumer-oriented society as false attempt to, at best, ameliorate suffering; or, at worse, deny suffering completely. Good advertising makes us believe that we can be happy if we purchase this product or do this fun thing. While not explicitly stated, the message behind good advertising is that your life will be improved and your suffering will be mitigated if you buy our product.
With regards to how society approaches suffering, the polar opposite of good advertising is good art. What makes for good art (especially the narrative forms such as fiction, poetry, theater, songwriting, and film) is how the artist creatively provides a means for us to resonate with the limitations and pain that is the human experience. If we choose to read and engage, that is. For it is much easier to click the mouse (Cool, they even have free shipping) and get immediate, if temporary, satisfaction.
This trek is not easy. In the grand scheme of things, I was aware that I would suffer, but I did not and could not know how it would affect me. I’m not just talking about the pain of being on the bike for six to eight hours a day but the quirky physical side effects of a long-term endurance effort.
And then I stop and think about Hindy and all cancer survivors. And I shut up.
August 17, 2021 - Dukkha
I fell through a trap door of my own creation.
I had seven consecutive days of riding where I made good time, blessed by tailwinds and favorable terrain (i.e., more descending than climbing). The slow-going, grinding work of earlier in the trek had become a distant memory. I became so used to the miles sliding by relatively easily until I hit a wall on Saturday the 14th, and, in doing so, pulled the lever that dropped the terra firma I thought my feet were standing on. And so I fell, collapsing right onto my all-too human limitations.
We were camped in Ainsworth, Nebraska for our day off on Thursday the 12th. Fortuitously, I found a massage therapist in Ainsworth and arranged for a 30-minute evening massage. (It turns out that the masseuse had just returned from Tokyo where he was working as a massage therapist for the US Olympic team.) I felt I was in good hands; perhaps, too good. I rode back to the campsite and was overwhelmed by exhaustion. I felt better after eating dinner but immediately felt worse after eating 2 cookies for dessert. Went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat.
The next morning, Friday the 13th, I felt off; not sick but not well. I took my time getting the day going as I was only going to ride 65 miles to a town called O’Neill (the Irish Capitol of Nebraska). I wasn’t feeling my strongest but the roads were mostly flat and the tailwind made me feel as strong as Apollo. My average speed for the ride was my highest yet for the trek (16.4 mph). After dinner, I felt good enough to join Joanie on a short bike ride to get some soft ice cream. Ate the ice cream and felt miserable. I went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, again.
I woke up on Saturday the 14th feeling weak. I wondered if the weakness was the result of the massage. I took my time getting ready and did not feel my greatest when I left. Had I known what awaited me maybe I would have crawled back into bed. The winds had shifted. No longer were they guided by Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, who smiles benignly, waves her wand and makes the tailwind steady and true. No, on Saturday, the Wicked Witch of the West, cackling madly, threw the headwinds at me. For the entire day.
What a world.
In my weakened state, it would have been rough going if the air were still. With the winds, I felt as if I were moving backwards. After 10 miles, I took a break in the shade and felt a little dizzy. After 20 miles, I sat in on a bench in the shade in the small farming town of Clearwater, eating my two sandwiches, unsure of what to do. I was experiencing mild vertigo. I lay down and dozed for a bit. I woke up, not feeling any better. I then did the only thing I knew how to do, which was to get on the bike and keep on pedaling.
Then two things happened. Even though the winds were relentless, the more I rode the better I felt. By mile 30, I made the decision that I would ride the entire 76 miles to Norfolk, Nebraska, a small city in the eastern part of the state. But as I recuperated physically, I began to curse the winds. No longer in physical distress, I put myself into a state of emotional duress because of the winds. And that’s when I yanked open the trap door.
I didn’t realize this until the next day (with the Wicked Witch and her headwinds still blowing), but I was upset because I was holding on to something that had changed. Didn’t I just post the other day about the different categories of Dukkha? Yet, for all my intellectual understanding about the causes of suffering, for all my neat words about how fickle the wind can be, the very next time the weather was uncooperative, my stress levels increased and I was miserable. All because of the wind, an atmospheric phenomenon that no human can control.
No waking up in a bathed in sweat the next night. Whatever was ailing me had passed. But as I rode away from Norfolk, up into the rolling hills that run north to south between Norfolk and the Missouri River, I picked myself up off the floor under the trap door, changed my approach to the entire endeavor of riding, and did not curse the winds. Nor the climbs, which came on, one after the other, like waves on the ocean.
No rest for the weary.
August 19, 2021 - Iowa, Ticky Tacky, and Reactionary Livestock Al
I have left the brown pasture-lands and green fields of Nebraska for the corn kingdom that is Iowa. We crossed the Missouri River at Decatur, Nebraska, over an old steel truss bridge and I moved quickly over the flat-lands to Onawa, Iowa. Onawa bills itself as a “progressive rural community.” Still, I was a bit surprised when I pulled up to meet Joanie for a second breakfast that loudspeakers had been set up along the city’s main street and were playing a succession of 1980s rock hits. Farm trucks rolled by to the tune of AC/DC’s “TNT.” Stranger than Penny Lane.
I ordered a gigantic stack of blueberry pancakes, but I think the maple syrup they served in a small, pourable, glass dispenser (and to which I heartily served myself) was really corn syrup disguised as the real thing because right after I left the café I felt toxic. So toxic, that after only 8 miles I had a repeat of the Clearwater, Nebraska experience where I found a bench in front of a small farming community named Turin and tried to sleep off the syrup. As with Clearwater, I didn’t feel much better after some light snoozing, but, once again, I felt better as soon as I got on the bike and I started climbing the beautiful Loess Hills of Iowa.
I was riding on Iowa state route 37 which climbed up and down those lush, beautiful hills. I didn’t mind the short, steep climbs; they seemed to help purge the toxic faux maple syrup. The hills were carpeted with fields of corn and soybean bordered by thick strands of trees. I climbed and descended for 11 miles and by the time I got to the small town of Soldier, I felt better. The winds continued their relentless gusts of 15 mph from the southeast, making the going slow, but by now I was used to it and did not try to fight. Yes, I have learned how to eat these hills for breakfast.
I have been riding for over 2,000 miles now, and I have moved from the dry highlands of the west to the more temperate, humid lands in the east. The evening I entered Nebraska from Wyoming was the first time I heard crickets. In the middle of Nebraska I noticed for the first time the whine and bite of a mosquito. And, somewhat surprisingly, it was only on Tuesday the 17th that I experienced my first humid day. Make no mistake… it was miserable.
Yesterday, as I rode towards Des Moines, the corn fields suddenly gave way to a new suburban development. After seeing only old, rural communities for weeks, laying eyes on these newly constructed boxes on treeless plots reminded me of the subversive Melvina Reynolds “Little Boxes” song, except in Iowa these boxes were not on a hillside:
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same
Look up the song and find out who lives in these little boxes and what happens to them.
The same day of fake maple syrup fame, I was taking a break in the small town of Dow City, Iowa sitting outside of a gas station cum convenience store cum general meeting place, after wolfing down a slice of cheese pizza I had purchased inside. Retired farmers and other passersby posed rhetorical questions disguised as friendly comments (such as, “Hot enough for ya?”) or made recommendations (“you should get one of these ice cream cones.”). I was gearing up for the ride to Manning, my destination for the night, which involved a fair amount of climbing.
I had put on my helmet and turned on my blinking lights when a stocky man, maybe ten years younger than me, had just got out of his pickup truck, which was pulling a long, flatbed trailer. He approached me and asked, “Where are you going?”
When I replied that I was heading for Manning, but eventually going to Virginia on a coast-to-coast ride, he smiled and exclaimed, “No shit!” He asked what my job was and a few other questions about the trip (“how many miles do you a ride a day?”). When I asked him what he did, he replied that he was a livestock consultant, working in a few states, and that he also did some work “for himself” on the side. He was full of stories about Manning (during the Prohibition, guys from Chicago would come to Iowa and “hide” around these parts, and that the Templeton Rye Whiskey distillery near Manning was a way for local farmers to supplement their income during those restrictive times). He also told me that he had lived and worked in Costa Rica, helping set up beef farms. I had visited Costa Rica in 1985, so we exchanged stories. He had lively blue eyes and seemed to relish having an audience. He also told me he helped set up farms in Venezuela, hoping to set up a “grass fed” operation, but that didn’t pan out. We both decried what a shame it was what had happened in Venezuela. I didn’t make any statement about the politics in Venezuela, or in this country, for that matter. It was just a general, nice, surface-level conversation with a stranger at a gas station in a small town in Iowa.
And then, after making some unspoken mental jump, he blurted out, “You know, we’re going to have to fight these guys. There’s going to be a war.”
This comment was so out of place that it was as if a second person was now inhabiting this man’s body. To me, it made about as much sense as if he had just blurted out, with deep conviction, “Rook to Queen 3.”
“War with whom?” I asked.
“You know,” he replied, “those guys in the Middle East… the Emirates and the Gulf countries.”
I looked at him quizzically. He continued, “Yeah, you know, Obama gave them billions of dollars in aid, and you can bet they didn’t spend it on food. They bought weapons.”
Very quickly I got a sense where this was going. This friendly, jovial, story-telling stranger was now going full reactionary on me. This country has always had people with a strong streak of such political knee-jerk antipathy towards people and ideas who don’t fit their peculiar worldview.
He started to roll.
“Yeah, they bring in 10,000 people a day illegally and give them the right to vote. If I were to move to Mexico, they wouldn’t allow me to vote.”
Mayday! Mayday! If our conversation were a jet plane, it would be spiraling down towards the ocean, black smoke pouring from the engines.
“I know what these countries are like. If all these people like communism or socialism so much, hell, I will buy them a ticket! They can leave if they don’t like it here.”
I knew there was no way to return to a dialogue. So, I quickly blurted out, “What’s your name?”
“Al V……” (in hindsight, I cannot remember his last name.)
“My name is Doug.” I put out my hand to shake his, as a means a reaching cloture. This seemed to distract him enough that he shook my hand and walked away, saying, “I have to get back to work.”
“And I’ve got to ride to Manning.”
If you had inspected the asphalt outside the gas station’s convenience store, you would have seen the ashes of what once had been a nice conversation.
August 21, 2021 - Dog Days
These are the dog days of summer… and most definitely the dog days of my adventure.
This is a feat of endurance. I’ve been on the road since July 7 and riding since July 12, and while I don’t feel that the whole thing is getting old, it requires more effort for me to get out of bed in the morning and get the day going. Some of this I attribute to the fact that, after riding almost 2,300 miles, my body is tired. But I think there are two primary reasons why I feel that these are “dog days.” The first is that I am no longer riding in the dry air and stunning vistas of the west. Frankly, I don’t have that same joyous sensation riding through humid air for miles past corn or cattle ranch pasture-lands. The second reason is the little child’s voice in my head, nagging, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” I’ve come so far and, apparently, part of me just wants to arrive, already. Likely because, like I said, I am so tired. And, OK, I get it…. there’s a lot of friggin’ corn in Iowa.
This trek is not just about the physical accomplishment of pounding out the miles. Success begins with intention and coherence of thought and energy. And understanding myself, particularly, what my mind is doing through the ups and downs.
Yesterday was a good example of how my mind responds to the dog days and, if you’ll indulge me, how I respond. Yesterday I was fortunate that the morning’s route was primarily on bike trails. At mile 14, I picked up the Chichaqua Valley Trail, a 26-mile rail-trail through Polk and Jasper counties, northeast of Des Moines. The trail provides a lot shade, and the trees double as shelter from the wind. I was making good time, and after days of riding against the wind, it felt good to move at a quicker pace (with the added benefit of not having to deal with any traffic). As I was making good time, I found myself thinking ahead to arriving in Columbus and got busy mentally with all sorts of future (i.e., not real) events. And like Leonard Nimoy’s portrayal of Mr. Spock, I found myself uttering the word, “Fascinating,” for I realized that I was no longer paying attention closely to the trail but was, for those moments, living in the future. Yes, I am aware that entertaining thoughts about the future is “natural,” but I was fascinated how my desire to get home removed me from the present moment. And, on an adventure such as this, I know it is best to be aware and alert in the present moment. For my safety. For my mental health. For appreciating the journey. (And getting home is not the end; I will still have about 600 more miles to ride from Columbus to the Atlantic Ocean.)
After a pleasant morning’s ride, I knew that the afternoon would be equally unpleasant as I was leaving the trail, its shelter from the wind, and would now be riding, exposed, directly into the wind for over 27 miles. Sure enough, as soon as I set out from the town of Baxter and headed east, the wind threw its fury at me, and I crawled along. The roads were not heavily trafficked, but there was no shoulder and I had to be super alert. Unlike the now infamous 8/14 ride in Nebraska where I faced headwinds on the flats for 76 miles, yesterday afternoon’s route covered steep rolling hills. And while I had to climb short, sharp ascents I gladly received the gift of, for short periods, not having to do any work as I rolled down equally steep descents (mind you, I never built up the speed I could have because of the wind’s resistance). And though I was not mentally fighting the fact that I had to work hard to earn every foot of those 27 miles, I could definitely hear myself thinking, “OMFG! What if I have to fight winds like these every day for the rest of the trip?!?” And then, a split second later, I heard myself say, again, “Fascinating.” I had once again left the present moment, but this time I occupied an unreal negative future space, one based on distress and fear. Dogs days, indeed. Thankfully, I recognized the childish pattern my mind had engaged in. What helped me move past that fear was recalling a quote about fear from a Swami whose name I can’t remember. He said, “Fear is taking the past and shitting it out into the future.”
And this is how I tame the dog days. Be alert to the patterns of my mind. Then bring my mind back to the present moment. Let the anticipation and fear evaporate with the heat. To get “there,” be “here.”
***
Speaking of dog days (literally): I took a lunch break in the shade of a tree at the side of the road by some remote farmer’s yard. I had just finished a sandwich and was stretched comfortably in the short grass, enjoying how the breeze was cooling my body. I was engaged in reading an article about the Taliban on my mobile phone when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what I can only describe as a moving mass of white. I looked up to see a large white dog, smiling and then immediately licking me, sniffing around my body, clearly interested in my the second sandwich in my bag. Within seconds, the dog was in my lap, on its back, with its paws in the air, looking for affection. It hung around for about 5 minutes, sniffing and pawing me as I provided the love he was seeking. Rest assured, the timing and symbolism of the dog’s visit was not lost on me.
***
I’ve been riding into the wind for over a week now, and all the time it’s been screaming in my ears not once did I hear it cry, “Mary.”
August 24, 2021 - Illinois, Emotional Patterns, and some Random Thoughts
I crossed the Mississippi into Illinois on Sunday. I’m just happy to be in a vertical state, one that I can cross in relatively short time. Those horizontal states – especially Wyoming and Nebraska – they took a long time to cross. Today was only my second full day riding in Illinois, and, with any luck (and if the weather holds) I might be able to cross into Indiana tomorrow evening.
Hot and humid today. With the relative humidity high and the dew point even higher, the air is saturated with moisture, and so it feels much hotter. After I arrived in Pontiac, Illinois late this afternoon, the temperature was 94, but, because of the humidity and high dew point, the weather app said it felt like 107. And I rode through that soup. On straight, flat roads (finally). Through the Iowa and Illinois power crop duo – corn and soybeans. From horizon to horizon. Interspersed with what seemed like a city of wind turbines.
Emotional Patterns
For the past week or so of riding, I find myself following an unscripted emotional pattern as the day unfolds.
The beauty and challenge of a bicycling adventure is, as I’ve written, that no day is the same. The road goes ever on, but each turn reveals a new view (even if it does happen to contain a lot of corn). Yesterday was different because I had to delay my departure due to a thunderstorm. It’s pretty amazing that I’ve come over 2,400 miles and there have only been three occasions of wet weather: The mist on the very first day in the Olympic Peninsula, 30 minutes of riding in the rain leaving Ketchum, Idaho, and that scary lightning and hail storm in Wyoming. This morning, as I was getting ready to leave, the radar showed a massive cell approaching, and the skies opened for two solid hours. But the sun was peeking through the clouds at 11, and I was on the road at 11:30. Yet once I turned east on Illinois State Route 17, I was slapped in the face with a headwind and I thought to myself that today would be… one of those days.
But even as each day is its own unique external journey, late in yesterday’s ride I recognized that I have recently developed an internal, emotional routine.
Before the start of each day’s ride, I feel emotionally uneasy, as if something unseen or unspoken is weighing me down. I think the reason is that I’m tired, and what I would really like is more time to sleep. But once I get on the bike and start pedaling, the uneasiness melts away as I get into a rhythm of riding. If the first few miles are easy or have great scenery, I feel much better almost immediately. If it’s a day like yesterday, where I was fighting a headwind from the get-go, then it takes more time. As the morning’s effort starts to take its physical toll, I find that I entertain what I would call are thoughts of light despair. It happens when I am covered in sweat and I look down at my Garmin GPS and see that I’ve only gone only 17 miles or so. A thought pops into my head, “Are you kidding me?!?” or “How long is this going to take??” (This typically happens when I struggle with the wind.) I recognize now (in the cool of the evening) that there’s the possibility that my brain produces this thought because I have not been giving my body enough fluids and food. And even though I have those thoughts and struggle physically against the wind, I keep on pushing. The sun reaches its zenith and only then does the day then really begins to bake… the earth and me. But I keep pushing. Yesterday, as I approached an intersection where I was to turn right (south), directly into the wind, I saw that, as an added bonus, I would have to climb a hill as well. But I pushed ahead, thinking to myself that failure is not an option. Then I chuckled to myself that I am like the little engine that could. Yesterday was yet another day of headwinds with the temperature way over 90, and while exhausted, I turned the emotional tide by repeating the children’s book refrain, “I think I can; I think I can.” And then more miles go by and soon I am no longer as exhausted and, carpe diem, I am enjoying the short downhills at 20 mph with the wind streaming by my ears, and, oh wow, look at that lake, and isn’t this stretch of empty road gorgeous, and the heavy sense of struggle is replaced by euphoria. Yes, it is hard, but I am doing this. Then I will stop for a break before the last six or ten miles, and they are the hardest because, well, it’s been over five hours on the saddle, and my butt hurts, and, to paraphrase my father’s joke, “Bicycle treks are not for sissy boys.”
Random Thoughts While Riding
As I move from west to east, I seem to see fewer pickup trucks on the road.
In Wyoming, when a car or truck would move to the left to give me room, their tires would hit the center-lane rumble strips, and the noise it made sounded like a Wookie clearing his throat.
(Which then made me think that a Wookie’s voice doesn’t have much dynamic range. It’s too bad that George Lucas and company didn’t consult with a linguist or a philologist and create more realistic vocalization sounds for the Wookies, because when you hear that Wookie sound, it could mean:I’m hungry
I’ll rip your face apart if you do that
Han, the power coupling is fried so I’m going to have to re-route power to the auxiliary so we can make the jump to hyperspace.
Lucy in the Skies with Diamonds
There usually isn’t much culinary variety in small town America.
The neat template of theory usually cannot be applied to the rough and ragged edges of reality.
I see so many white people out here.
When the road starts to climb and I look at the uphill grade percentage on my Garmin, I always call it out in Italian (as in, “cinque per cento”)
Dang, I forgot to apply more sunscreen at the last break.
I notice that as I traveled west to east through Iowa and now Illinois, on the whole, people are less hard edged and much friendlier. I wonder if it has any relationship to the landscape in which they live. The west is more arid and the terrain less forgiving; in Iowa and Illinois, the land is lush and easy to navigate.
August 26, 2021 - Beat the Heat; Dodge the Rain
We’re camped in Prophetstown State Park, on the Wabash River just northeast of Lafayette, Indiana. After weeks of relative day and nighttime silence in the west, I now hear the familiar daytime drone of cicadas; at night, the aural symphony includes the throaty repetitive rubbing sounds of katydids layered on top of the background sound of high-pitched shrill mating calls of the male crickets. I’ve ridden eight straight days and am taking a well-deserved rest day tomorrow. With 2,600 miles behind me, I feel the sense of accomplishment growing inside. Somehow, the nighttime cricket sounds reinforce this feeling. It’s like, wow, you started on the misty shores of the Olympic Peninsula and now, the crickets are saying, you’re back on home turf.
But, not done yet.
The home turf package includes sweltering, humid days. Yesterday was one, such animal. I set off from Pontiac, Illinois and admit to being surprised when I realized I had a tailwind. I have been riding on narrow county roads which are numbered and named according to a latitude and longitude grid system (for example, County Road 1730 North is a mile north of County Road 1830 North; both are intersected by County Road 300 West). There is virtually little or no traffic on these roads, and so I find myself riding in the middle of the road under a blazing sun. The road is bordered by acres and acres of King Corn to the left and an equal amount of acreage planted with The Duchess of Soybean to the right.
I had heard there was a heat warning in effect as of 11 a.m., but as I was flying down these roads in the morning I did not feel hot. Perhaps the joy of the tailwind masked the heat? After riding for over 20 miles, I was overdue for a break but there was no shade in sight. As I stood at a quiet county road intersection for a few moments, I swear I could feel the temperature rise. I spotted grain elevators in the distant east surrounded by trees, and a few miles later I arrived in at the spot, which was actually a township called Charlotte (population 13). A young farmer asked if I needed anything and produced two cold bottles of water after I asked him where I could top off my water bottles. After consulting the map (courtesy of Google, of course) I aimed for the small town of Danforth where I would stop and eat my lunch. A few miles to the west of the town I had to cross a narrow bridge over Interstate 57. As I approached the freeway I felt close to being overwhelmed by the suffocating humidity, as if I were riding in an open air sauna. I kind of dripped into “downtown” Danforth and collapsed on the lawn under the trees between a row of shops and a local community bank across the street.
While I was eating, a woman who worked at the bank walked by on her return from the post office. She asked if I needed anything. When I asked about water, she replied to come to the bank lobby and she would give me some. I thanked her and told her I would be there in about 15 minutes. But only a few minutes later I heard what sounded like a 1963 VW Beetle approaching. I looked up to see a hatless, middle-aged woman holding 2 water bottles driving a riding lawnmower. I asked her how she knew (I needed water), and she replied, “I’ve been working out here and I know what it’s like. Have a safe journey.”
As I got up to leave, the digital thermometer outside the bank told me it was 99 degrees. The weather app said the heat index was 104. Welcome to Hades. I headed for the small city of Watseka to meet Joanie. As I road east, happy to still have the tailwind, I made a point to take a deep swig of my electrolyte spiked water (courtesy of Nuun) every half mile. The air didn’t feel as oppressive as it did when I crossed over I-57, but I knew the only way to make it through the day was to drink often and continually douse myself with water (splashing it on my helmet, on the back of my neck, soaking my shirt and my neck buff).
And then, after hundreds of miles of corn and soybeans, the scenery changed. I took a right onto yet another empty county road and, after a mile, I entered what was clearly an eastern forest. The Iroquois River flows north to south into Watseka, and its banks are thick with trees. I realized I had not been in a forest like this since the first night on the road when we stayed in Lake Kashonga State Park in Wisconsin. Riding in the shade (oh, sing praises!), I was witnessing the first sign that I was moving deeper into the eastern USA. I continue to see acres of corn and soybean, but this forested riparian corner of Illinois was a reminder that, like everything else, planted fields of corn and soybean do not last forever. I took a break under the trees at the side of the road, and even though I was shaded from the sun it still felt I was in a sauna. I poured water over my head and rinsed the sweat from my eyes. Drivers passed and either nodded or waved. I could hear what they were thinking (and it wasn’t “I wish I had time to ride my bike like this gentleman. He looks so comfortable.”).
I made it to Watseka and treated myself to an uber-sweet McDonald’s vanilla shake before meeting with Joanie in the large town park. The air was still and so moist you could imagine that whenever you moved you bumped into billions of tiny droplets of water. After an hour or so, we decided to push ahead into Indiana. The forecast had a mention of a chance of late afternoon thunderstorms, but from where we were sitting in the aqueous air of the park, there was no threat of rain.
But as soon as I headed east on yet another country road lined with corn and soybeans, I could see ahead of me the towering white column of a cumulonimbus cloud ahead of the dark clouds of a squall line. Behind me, the sinking sun was about to be swallowed by a massive line of dark clouds. The once still air now whipped into action. The temperature dropped. Had I beat the heat only to get caught in a storm? I had 16 miles to ride across the state line to Kentland (sorry to say, this is not where Clark Kent hails from). The wind was not in my face, so I picked up the pace as the sky darkened. Cars passed with their headlights on. I kept pumping hard. I left the narrow country roads and turned on to US Highway 24 towards Kentland. I could see sheets of rain the distance. Would I make it in time? The miles ticked down. The sky, a deep blue only an hour before, was now covered with dark clouds. I crossed the Indiana line and the highway shot straight as an arrow into the darkening distance. With lightning flashing over the horizon, I pulled into Kentland, 76 miles after starting in Pontiac. I rode hard for those last 16 miles and for the first time in weeks I felt my thighs stiffen in complaint when I walked.
Thank You
Just a quick note to thank all of you who have been reading these posts, and special thanks to all who have donated or sponsored my ride in support of the Inova Schar Cancer Institute. I haven’t done a tally for some time, but I know that between the direct donations to Inova and the sponsorship pledges we have blown way past my original goal of raising $3,600. Thanks!
August 27, 2021 - Eating Like a Hobbit
As I’ve indicated in an earlier post, I can’t ever eat enough. It’s not that I’m always hungry, but I usually can eat more. And more. On a cross-country bicycle trek, three square meals a day won’t cut it. So, I realize that I need to eat like a Hobbit. If you’re not a Tolkien geek like me, you should know that Hobbits eat six meals a day:
Breakfast
Elevenses
Luncheon
Tea
Dinner
Supper
(In his film, The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson added a seventh meal – Second Breakfast. Though I am a Tolkien purist, and prefer to use the source material, I find that on this trek, I do actually eat two breakfasts.)
So, what do I eat on a typical riding day?
Breakfast: I start with a bowl of yogurt loaded with fruit or a bowl of Grape Nuts cereal and some fruit, moistened with cold water. (What about milk in the cereal? Milk?!? Milk is for calves. And, I must add, used judiciously to prepare cappuccino.)
Second breakfast: After the yogurt or cereal, I will prepare a cup of coffee and fry some eggs, mixed with chicken sausage.
Elevenses: Hobbits have tea or coffee with biscuits for this 11 a.m. meal. If I can find a diner-like establishment on the road I will stop for an omelet, hash browns, and toast. If no diner, I will look for gas station food such as a burrito or a grilled chicken sandwich. If I’m riding with long stretches between towns, I will make due with a Clif Bar or a mix of cashews, almonds, and raisins that I keep in my pannier.
Luncheon: I usually take a couple of sandwiches (nut butter and honey) or the previous night’s dinner (fish and rice; hamburgers).
Tea: Remember, in the UK, tea is a meal as much as it is a drink. In the afternoon, I will try to find some coffee and gas station food (a piece of pizza or burrito). If no such “luck,” I will have another Clif Bar. Or a package of salty toasted seaweed.
Dinner: If we cook, we prepare a protein (fish, chicken, or burgers) with rice, quinoa, maybe mixed with lentils and coconut milk, or potatoes and green beans, and a salad (always). If we eat out, well, there aren’t a lot of options in most small towns, but we are always game for Mexican food (where I will order beef or chicken enchilada or maybe carne asada) or pizza.
Supper: There are times when I will still be hungry an hour after dinner and will open the refrigerator and scrounge. Or eat another portion of what we prepared for dinner.
(By the way, per Meriam-Webster, dinner and supper both refer to the main meal of the day, eaten in the evening. Dinner is more a formal meal (sometimes in a restaurant) while supper is the main meal of the day, eaten informally at home.)
Though not one of Tolkien’s six Hobbit meals, there’s always dessert. Like the blue Jim Henson monster says, “Me like cookies.”
September 1, 2021 - Wet Ohio
Twice yesterday on the ride from Xenia to Columbus, I got soaked. The first time I pulled out my rain jacket and, when I got to Cedarville, OH, I took shelter under the town’s library portico to wait it out. The second time, a few miles from home, I didn’t even bother with the rain jacket. If I were to give a name to the day’s journey, I would call it, “The ride of the pruned hands.”
A few miles after I left Xenia I was passed by a group of men in matching jerseys and pants. They were firemen from the west coast doing a Los Angeles to New York ride to take part in the 20th anniversary event for 9/11. They were all riding their lightweight road bikes, their gear packed away in a SAG (support and gear) vehicle, which meets them each evening at the hotel. I dropped back to the end of their paceline and had a pleasant chat with a firefighter named Rich who lives in Ellensburg, Washington and commutes to work 100 miles away in Bellevue, a Seattle suburb (he can’t afford to live there, he said). Then the skies opened up and when we reached Cedarville, I peeled away to the library while they kept on riding.
OK, let’s hit the rewind button. Or if you are of a younger generation, let’s slide the cursor on the playback app to the left.
I was able to cross Indiana quickly. After dodging the rain the evening I crossed over from Illinois to Indiana, I rode on US highways from Kentland to West Lafayette, where I met up with Joanie. We spent the night and a rest day at Prophetstown State Park. Prophetstown State Park commemorates a Native American village founded in 1808 by Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa which grew into a large, multi-tribal community. Tenskwatawa was known as “the prophet” You won’t be surprised if I tell you that it didn’t end well for the Indians.
I continued to ride across empty (but decently paved) county roads across Indiana. I stopped at a park in Kokomo (population 58,000) and then, in search of a coffee shop, came across a 3-on-3 basketball tournament organized by the city and local sponsors. A three-block section of Main Street had been closed off and multiple half-courts had been set up, with games going on simultaneously. While I saw players of all ages, most of the games going on were being played by middle aged men. Earlier I had been riding on empty county roads; now I was witness to a fun Saturday event in a small city, with the colors and fanfare and the obligatory radio station DJ with the made-for-radio voice encouraging the crowd to support the sponsors. I sat on the sidewalk, sipping my cappuccino, absorbing the scene. But I was happy to get back where it was quieter, though I did have to stop for a funeral procession and, a few miles later, passed a cemetery with a burial ceremony in process. Then I passed another cemetery where I saw a couple of workers in bright yellow shirts placing a gigantic headstone on a gravesite. One was operating the vehicle with the winch while the other guy, right as I passed them, was trying to shove the headstone over for what I assumed was a proper fit. I saw his muscles tighten and bulge as he attempted to move that massive piece of stone. I thought that there was no way one guy could get something that heavy to move. They were out of my eyesight before I could see if he succeeded.
East of Kokomo I passed through the small town of Greentown, where the city had placed signs showing pictures of “Hometown Heroes,” local residents who had served in the military, from WWI to the present day. Now I have great respect for the men and women who have served, especially in combat, but to call everyone who donned a uniform a hero cheapens the term. What if some of these guys spent their service as a driver or a supply clerk? Does that make them heroes? And speaking of heroes, nowadays you see signs outside of medical facilities that state, “Heroes work here.” I agree with that. In my opinion, if anyone deserves the hero moniker these days it is our nation’s teachers. They are paid relatively poorly; most work in districts that are woefully underfunded, but all have jobs loaded with responsibility. And I don’t only refer to the educational subject matter they are paid to instruct but the influence they have on their charges. Every one of us remembers a great teacher. Why? They treated us like human beings and were able to make us feel valued. And bad teachers? Well, my opinion is best summarized by the following joke:
What’s the difference between a bad teacher and a bad doctor?
A bad doctor can only kill one person at a time.
Later in the afternoon, when I was flying down an empty country road on my way to the day’s destination — Gas City, Indiana — I saw vultures circling above a corn field. Under crisp blue skies and aided by the wind, I mimicked them, flapping my arms like wings, and then leaning forwards on my seat with my arms swept back as I rolled down a short, gradual descent.
Yes, doctor, I really did this.
A few miles before Gas City I saw a car approaching in my mirror and moved over. As the car blew past me I could hear the passenger yell, “Get out of the middle of the road, you idiot!” In response, I tipped my helmet and said, “And a good day to you, sir.” My sarcasm was lost in the wind.
This incident, by the way, has been the exception. The absolute majority of drivers are courteous and give me a wide berth.
The following day I left the county roads for a 24 mile stretch on the Cardinal Greenway, a trail that runs from the village of Gaston, through Muncie, and southeast all the way to Richmond, Indiana. At first I relished riding in the shade, but southeast of Muncie, with the sun overhead, the rapid shade to sun to shade transition became an annoyance. This strobe-like sensation blinded me to the bumps or holes, so I would receive an unexpected jarring buzz on my butt or hands whenever I would hit one of these obstacles. When I left the trail and rode on an empty county road with a tailwind, I actually enjoyed the ride more, despite the lack of shade.
Also, when I crossed into Ohio on one of these narrow country roads, there was no “Welcome to Ohio” sign. The only sign of jurisdictional transition was the change in the asphalt (the Ohio road was in better shape).
That night was the last night Joanie and I stayed in Olympia, our motor home for the summer. Joanie drove directly home the following morning while I headed for Xenia. We found a private campground west of Greenville (Wildcat Woods) with very clean bathrooms and showers. The downside was that the campground was surrounded by poultry farms, and therefore there was a rather dense fly population. Even with the screens, they managed to get in to the van, annoying uninvited guests. We, of course, went to work on them with the fly swatters. To quote Ogden Nash:
The Lord in His Wisdom created the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.
And, in keeping with the title of this post, it poured almost all night, accompanied by flashes of light and the deep rolling growl of thunder. Fortunately, the next day, as I rode towards Xenia, despite the menacing clouds, I did not get wet. I enjoyed riding on one of the Miami Valley trails from the Village of Verona to through the city of Brookville and southeast into a Dayton suburb of Trotwood. Unfortunately, I had to ride on city roads to connect to another trail in Trotwood, which turned into a theater of the absurd scene where I was presented with road closures and detours in quick succession. At one point, in downtown Dayton, a large and bulkily attired Metro Park ranger prevented me from joining the trail because a local politician was about to be filmed on the trail and they had cleared the area. Which meant I had to ride for several miles on busy urban streets, with a level of urban noise I had forgotten existed.
I rolled into Xenia under the same omnipresent, low, grey clouds served as a low ceiling to the day. I checked in to the locally owned and operated Ramada Inn, where I discovered, as I got into the shower, mold in the corner of the tub as well as the bathroom ceiling. And the ice machine was broken. And where you see a small sign announcing that you must be masked in the hotel’s public areas, but no one, including the front desk clerk, was wearing a mask.
September 2, 2021 - Reflections from Home
Tonight will be the third consecutive that I will sleep in my own bed. How novel. Tomorrow morning, I depart for the Atlantic Ocean.
After living out of the camper van for seven and a half weeks, what I felt upon entering the house reminded me of when I would come home to Puerto Rico after a semester at college. Back then, I lived in a dorm with a roommate in cold, cinderblock rooms of diminutive dimensions. When I stepped in to the apartment my parents had in San Juan, I was flooded with both a sense of familiarity and space. On Tuesday, as I stepped into our Columbus home, it was, in the words of Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again. For the first few moments, I was awash in the familiar, of how we organized and decorated our place. As I walked around and took in the wooden floors, the paintings on the walls, the plants and the abundance of light in the living room, I thought, “Wow, I live in a really nice house.” And it is so big! Of course, anyone who has been to our house will know that, at 1,827 square feet, our house really isn’t that large. However, when compared to the tight confines of the Class B Motorhome, well, it is a veritable mansion! But even opening the drawer with the silverware — the smoothness of the motion, the neatly stacked piles of forks, knives, and spoons, the visually pleasant wood storage divider — it was so comforting after having to lift and pull out the narrow drawer where the mismatched set of utensils were stored in plastic dividers.
But it is also suitably weird being home, despite its familiarity. Or maybe, because of its familiarity, I have ridden 2,874 miles to return where I started this adventure of July 7 But, In the back of my mind, I know I cannot totally relax and sink into the creature comforts of home as I still have hundreds of miles to go, some of which include many short but extremely steep climbs of the foothills leading to the Allegheny mountain range. Therefore, I am actively delaying gratification.
Not that I’m living an ascetic’s life, mind you. I’ve taken long baths and slept as late as my body allows me to. And metabolically, I am still in bike trek mode. I crave food night and day, and I have to remind myself to keep hydrating.
Tomorrow I begin the solo phase of this adventure. I will not have Joanie as my support and thus will have to carry more gear. But carrying more gear is really besides the point. I won’t have Joanie’s support, period. Meeting up at the end of the day was a luxury, physically and emotionally. I’m grateful that she stepped out of her busy self-employed routine to be with me this summer. But I am ready for this next phase and am actually looking forward to having to be more self-sufficient. And I am also looking forward to the wind on my face, the sun and clouds overhead, and the self-propelled nature of this whole endeavor. I’m also looking forward to riding through eastern deciduous forests in the late summer. And, strangely enough, I’m looking forward to the elevated heartrate, of pushing mind and body, and once again aiming for and slowly accomplishing a singular goal. Time to go, go, go!
September 6, 2021 - The Longest Day, Killer-Diller Hills, and a Whammie
Three days after leaving home for the next phase of the adventure finds me happily exhausted after reaching the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), the trail that runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland. From Cumberland, the trail becomes the C&O Canal Towpath, and continues all the way to Washington, D.C. I’ve ridden the length of these trails once and sections of both multiple times. The stretch of the GAP that I ride tomorrow runs alongside the Youghiogheny River and is stunning. The next 20-mile stretch, which runs alongside the Casselman River, is remote with woods that are dark and deep. Riding these sections is always restorative.
I left Columbus with the ambitious plan to ride to Newcomerstown, Ohio, birthplace of Cy Young and Woody Hayes. It was an 89-mile ride that turned out to be 96 miles, almost a “century,” as cyclists call a 100 mile ride. One reason for the additional miles was because I forgot to pack my non-riding sneakers that I wear off the bike in the evenings and days off. So, I took a detour into Heath, Ohio to a brick and mortar shopping mall where I found some cheap but still overpriced running shoes made in Indonesia for a famous national brand. The second reason for the extra miles was because I took a wrong turn and had to loop around to rejoin the route. Retracing my path was out of the question; I was chased by a vicious dog that I easily outpaced only because I was flying down a steep hill. There was no way I was going to climb that hill and offer myself as a slow-moving target to that nasty canis lupis familiaris.
Yesterday, I rode mostly on US highways and state roads from Newcomersvile to Steubenville. I sTopped at a Mexican restaurant for my Elevensies meal in Ullrichtown, and was sorry I did. The food tasted bad and made me feel weak. Not what I needed for climbing the hills. Fortunately, I was saved by the Connoton Creek Trail, a flat 11-mile paved trail in the shade that is a true gem. Later, at mile 52, I knew that I had one serious climb before entering the Steubenville metro area. First, I dropped several hundred feet on a screaming descent and then began the 2.7 mile climb. It was tough, peaking at 11%, but it was not, as John Lennon penned, “killer-diller.”
(Yeah, yeah, yeah!)
Now, riding into Steubenville is not an experience I wish to repeat. The quiet 2-lane road morphs from the bucolic to become a veritable Golem of a road: four lanes packed with drivers in a rush, no shoulders, and one ugly strip mall after another. I spent the night in a B&B on a quiet street near the Ohio river. The house was a Victorian, built in 1870 and decorated by the proprietor in the style of that era. Believe it or not, I was the only guest and not once did I see my hosts. I came downstairs at 7:40 this morning and breakfast had already been set out. At least the COVID threat level was a safe zero.
It rained last night and thick, low clouds floated overhead in the grey morning. I set out and crossed the Ohio River into the West Virginia panhandle. After a mile, I climbed the first of the day’s many steep climbs, up into the ridges that run like Stegosaurus cartilage through the state. There was no rain but a fine mist, similar to the first day of this adventure in the Olympic Peninsula. The firm yet commanding voice of the Google Maps app led me to a two-mile gravel stretch where I had to walk my bike twice up the steep, slippery slopes. No, I’m not that proud. Afterwards, I had the great fortune of riding on the Panhandle Trail that runs from West Virginia into Pennsylvania, a well maintained paved trail that climbed and descended, but at easily managed railroad grades. Then I picked up the Montour Trail for several miles, a smooth gravel-surfaced trail. Lady Google directed me up a private drive to the trail, which I thought couldn’t be correct, so, after consulting with a neighbor, I scrambled up a hillside and cut through a short, wild stretch of bush to reach the trail. After, my right riding sandal felt different but I didn’t give it a second thought.
An inspiring yet goofy You Tube adventure cyclist I follow, Ryan van Duzer, always begins each day with his personal mantra (which I’ve adopted). No Crashies! No Flatties! No Whammies! Meaning, here’s to creating the expectation and and energy that the day won’t see any crashes, flat tires, and “whammies,” or unexpected disasters (such as getting chased by killer bees).
Well, when I stopped for lunch in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania I noticed that the strap that goes around my heel of my right foot had ripped and was now hanging loosely, making riding a challenge. This was the result from bush-whacking to reach the Montour Trail, no doubt. Not a major whammie, yet a whammie nonetheless. After I ate, I located and rode to a local hardware store and consulted with the manager. I bought a tube of Gorilla fabric glue and was able to improvise a solution that held for the remainder of the ride. Let’s see if it holds all the way to the Atlantic.
I knew I had a couple of climbs before state route 136 dropped me into the GAP trail, and I knew they were steep. But coming at the end of three hard days of riding, they were rough! They were nastily steep: the first kept to a steady 10% climb for 1.5 miles;the second peaked at 12% for a short but torturous quarter mile. The strain and exhaustion made these climbs truly killer-diller.
What can I say but, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!”
September 9, 2021 - Pain and Gain
Pain
i managed to strain the tissue or muscles in my rib cage on the right side on Monday evening. It was minor until, a couple of hours later, I sat up in bed using just my core muscles and the pain meter jumped into the red. Actually, it was purple for a few minutes. I was so uncomfortable that I entertained doubts that I would be able to ride the next day. I had an interrupted night’s sleep (I would wake up and hear myself saying “ Ow! Ow! Ow!). I felt a little better in the morning, and now, three days later, I am managing the pain with my NSAID buddies and a couple of non-conventional self-healing modalities.
Gain
On Monday I rode from West Newton to Confluence (both in Pennsylvania) along the Great Allegheny Passage. I did not have a lot of energy, likely due to riding over 3,000 miles in 8 weeks and having (once again) high fructose corn syrup-based “syrup” on the pancakes the B&B served for breakfast. So I dialed back the effort and just rolled slowly on this gorgeous trail. There is no way words can capture the sublime essence of the trail. Even a photo is a shallow facsimile. The best way to describe it is to say it’s an organic cathedral. The experience of being in such a place is transcendent.
On Tuesday I rode (gingerly) from Confluence, Pennsylvania up over the eastern continental divide at Big Savage Mountain and then downhill for 23 miles to Cumberland, Maryland. The 19-mile stretch of trail from Confluence to the small town of Rockwood is remote and wild. The day was also sublime; the humidity was low, the temperature never got higher than 75, and the dappled sunlight through the trees made me feel as if I were riding through a Monet painting. I rested and ate at a favorite spot: a small forested area with picnic tables and a bench conveniently facing a stream that noisily falls over and slaps the rocks in its way before spilling into the Casselman River. Stunning and wondrous.
Yesterday (Wednesday), I left Cumberland, Maryland on the C&O canal towpath, which is actually a National Historical Park that runs 184 miles from Cumberland to Washington, D.C. along the Potomac River. The towpath bicyclists ride upon is where teams of mules once plodded along, towing barges and gondolas filled with coal and other goods. The towpath south of Cumberland is a bumpy ride as there are rocks, roots, and tiny jaw-jarring dips. The scenery is gorgeous but one has no time to enjoy it because if you take your eyes off the towpath for more than a few seconds you will likely hit a root, rock, or slam a wheel into a hole. After following a fellow cyclist for the first 10 miles at a rapid clip I became tired and suffered from the pain in my rib every time I hit a root or hole. But I met up with Gene, a 71-year old cyclist from Roanoke, Virginia who rode at a slow pace which suited me just fine. Gene and I rode for a few miles the day before; such is the camaraderie among cyclists on the trail that it was like meeting up with an old friend. That night I spent in a motel in Hancock, Maryland. In the canal’s heyday, Hancock was once considered to be an inland port.
It rained a fair amount overnight and I was concerned that the trail from Hancock to my planned destination at Harper’s Ferry would be sloppy, but it wasn’t too bad. The Potomac River widens and flows strongly and you can get a good feel for the river and life along its banks in one of the many campsites facing the river that the National Park service has placed every several miles. There’s something mesmerizing sitting on a picnic table bench, eating a sandwich and staring at the rapidly flowing river framed by trees and thickets of shrubs, with only the birds and the soft sound of water lapping on the river’s banks breaking the silence.
Tomorrow I will ride to Reston, Virginia, where my sister and brother live and take another well-deserved rest day before making a final push to the Atlantic Ocean.
September 12, 2021 - Hard to Believe
There goes Ezy
Ezy Ryder
Ridin’ down the highway of desire
He says the free wind
Takes him higher
Tryin’ to find his heaven above
But he’s dyin to be loved, dyin’ to be loved
-Jimi Hendrix, EZY Ryder (1969)
——————————————--
Yes, it’s hard to believe that I have only one more day of riding to reach the Atlantic Ocean. I knew that the “one day at a time” mindset that I’ve hewed to would lead to this moment, where I look up from the execution of the dream to see its fruition.
But this has not been an exercise in belief. There was a fair amount of planning, but it was more about focus and determination than anything else.
BUT
It’s not over til it’s over, so even on the eve of accomplishment I will not get ahead of myself.
I made a change to my original route to the Atlantic. I thought I would ferry hop across the southern Chesapeake Bay and ride to Chincoteague. Relative to how the crow flies, it was not the shortest path to the surf. I chose this route to the ocean because any closer alternative would require crossing the heavily trafficked Bay Bridge on US 50. And the trip would also take longer because of the ferry schedule; it requires a full day just to cross the bay because there is no direct link. The ferry traffic stops in Tangier Island, and you have to wait several hours for the ferry to Maryland. As a result, I would only land on the Maryland side of the bay at 5:30 pm. And then would be forced to spend the night nearby as there is still another 45 miles to get to the ocean. These constraints meant that the ride from Reston to the Atlantic would take almost 4 days.
I had invited my brother Mark to ride the last few days me. He didn’t have availability for the entire time it would take to ride and ferry to Chincoteague. But he offered an alternative: he suggested that I ride to Annapolis, Maryland where he and Hindy would meet me. In the morning, Hindy would ferry the two of us with our bikes across the Bay Bridge and set us down in Stevensville, MD, where we would ride to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware (90 miles). So, here I am in Annapolis, ready to ride 90 miles to the Atlantic tomorrow.
September 14, 2021 - Sea and Sand
This much is clear: Mark and I rode 91.8 miles from Stevensville, Maryland, just east of the Bay Bridge that crosses Chesapeake Bay, all the way to Delaware Seashore State Park, just south of Dewey Beach. It was a long ride but mostly it was effortless thanks to tailwinds and the flat terrain. We rode mostly on quiet, tree-lined roads and, yes, more corn fields. Most of the final miles were on trails through thick coastal forests, which was soul-soothing. We did have to navigate a steady stream of traffic to get to the quiet neighborhoods of Rehoboth, our path to the shore. Then there was the tourist-trap strip on US 1 through Dewey Beach, but soon enough we were rolling down the open stretch of highway through the Delaware Seashore State Park, where Hindy was waiting for us. I pushed my bike over the dunes and dipped my tires in the waters of the Atlantic.
What is not clear is how I can begin to make sense of the entire trek. Frankly, I cannot comprehend or put into context the significance of what I just completed.
I admit to becoming emotional and tearing up at several points on this last day’s ride. But once I got to the beach, the emotion was was snuffed out by an emptiness resulting from being overwhelmed by trying to reflect on the entire nine week journey.
I will be posting an epilogue of sorts in the coming days and have many photos to add the the gallery. Please check back soon.
September 19, 2021 - Travelogue Epilogue
WHOOSH-WHOOSH
There are now several days separating the trek and these immediate post-adventure recovery and wind-down days. Clearly, life goes on and I must transition from the singular, goal-oriented physical and mental efforts of the ride to the more mundane tasks and no less important responsibilities of day-to-day living. It can be a sharp transition. On the beach, after I finished, a woman who had just learned of what I did asked, “What do you do next?” I didn’t respond, but an appropriate answer might be the eastern (Buddhist?) saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood and fetch water. After enlightenment, chop wood and fetch water.”
This trek was not about enlightenment; though, on a physical level, one look at me and you can clearly see that I have been ‘lit up:’ Riding under clear, bright skies at high elevations in the western states, the sun burned the crap out of my nose and lower lip. And my skin tone reveals the 9-weeks of being radiated by the sun; I haven’t been this tan since my college winter breaks where I would spend hours on the beach in Santurce, PR.
But I am not walking around feeling or looking enlightened, as depicted in the Buddhist tradition like some Bodhisattva or, in the modern Tolkien mythology, as a Middle Earth Noldor elf. This adventure was many things, but if there are common themes, they are the paring down of body and mind, taming anxiety and fear, and a subtle but significant change in perception.
Body
As evident in my early blog posts, I was genuinely concerned about whether or not my body could handle the endurance effort of a cross-country bicycle trip. My left knee ached so much initially that I wore a knee brace for several days during the first week. And I was energetically depleted until I changed my diet to include more protein in the form of red meat and electrolytes in the form of a supplement to my water. But, over time, my body adapted to the demands of almost daily riding up steep inclines in blazing heat. The ride pared me down literally as I lost a fair amount of weight. At the same time, the ride honed me to the point where I would “eat hills for breakfast” and enabled me to cover 45 to 90 miles a day without any debilitating injury. Naturally, after each day my quadriceps would be sore but a good meal and rest allowed the muscle fibers to do the same thing, day after day. And there were several points during the trip when I would have some odd physical symptom that caused me to fear that it would lead to a cessation of riding — tightness in my chest, a weird vibrating sensation in my sphincter muscles, and the muscles I pulled over the ribs under my armpit. Except for the pulled muscles, these symptoms were signs of a body that was being asked to endure a lot of repetitive stress, and when I made sure to eat a lot, hydrate frequently, and take a rest day, these symptoms generally subsided. Yes, I admit to being “bone tired” on numerous occasions, especially towards the end, but I knew the antidote for this weariness was to complete the journey.
Mind
Completing this journey required a lot of determination, self-discipline, and focus. I was never bored while riding long, flat stretches through the corn fields; nor did I spend the hours in meditative contemplation of my life and the nature of the Universe. This is because when riding, I found myself — by necessity — focused solely on being in the moment. This present-mindfulness was required simply to stay upright and alive, especially on busy roads with 18-wheelers passing close by. But even on empty stretches, I had to be on alert for changes in the road surface, little critters scurrying across the road at inopportune times, or a pickup truck emerging suddenly on a dirt access road from the cover of tall crops.
If there was a meditative element to my daily rides it was in the rhythms of motion and breath. All the sensations of riding melded into one supra-physical experience, with any one particular sensation superseded by the whole. In the moment, my senses were attuned to body, bicycle, road, air, and the organic and inorganic that I would pass or would pass me. The sustained hum of the tires on asphalt and the soft mechanical noise of the chain sliding on and off the cogs became a background drone, similar to the effect of the droning sound a Tanpura makes in classical Indian music. But the most salient sensation (aside from a headwind) was my own breath. Sometimes it was deep and rhythmic; other times it was short and loud (picture the cardiovascular effort required to climb a long, steep climb). For mile after mile.
The cumulative effect of this experience is that the mind becomes highly alert and sensitive to any changes to this background drone and breathing, such as a sudden change in the wind or the cacophony of a mechanical issue. When this happens, to borrow a phrase, you get “in the zone.” I am aware that for non-athletes and the literal-minded, this phrase doesn’t mean much or is annoying. But let me attempt to describe this zone: It is a mental state where bodily effort becomes either non-existent or secondary and the mind becomes hyper-focused on the present moment. The “zone” has physical attributes, such as when the body releases endorphin molecules that serve to relieve pain and produce a sense of euphoria. But for me, the “zone” is more a mental state of being that accompanies exercise where extraneous thoughts and their ancillary emotions are stripped away and you are left only with yourself, yourself, yourself.
When you have this experience for 54 days of riding over the course of nine weeks, it does not leave you unchanged. And I am still figuring out how I have changed.
Perception
In or out of the zone, you rely on your hearing when riding a bike. I spent nine weeks doing a lot of listening. The beneficial side effect of listening for safety and security’s sake is that, no surprise, you become a better listener. Wait, I better qualify that statement. A bike-riding narcissist does not become a better listener, so maybe I should say that if you are so inclined, riding a bike, especially long distances, can make you a better listener.
Over the course of days and weeks of riding, my listening abilities were sharpened. Consequently, my capacity to listen in social situations off the bike were honed. (This may also may be due to the fact that, immediately off the bike, I was so out of breath and tired that it took too much energy to speak.) And I found that in my encounters with people on the road, from shop keepers to farmers to fellow travelers, everyone has a story to tell or point of view to share. The need to be heard and validated is a strong and defining human trait. At that same time, I found it that people who actively listen are a rare breed.
I cannot make a general statement about my perceptions of the United States. Even though I rode coast to coast, I traveled along such a narrow sliver that, truly, what I saw and who I interacted with reflected only that specific corner of the country. For example, I rode across the length of Nebraska, but was far removed from the political power and monied areas of the state’s southeast around the cities of Omaha and Lincoln. The pasturelands of the Sand Hills in the state’s north-central area are very different than, say, the flat croplands in the southern part of the state, to say nothing of other regions in other states. This is a huge country. But since this is one country, our country, it would be fair to ask if I can paint a broad picture based on what I perceived in these many separate regions across the thirteen states though which I traveled. So, here’s my two centavos:
There is abundant physical evidence that shows how we have reshaped the land to fit our needs, in ways which are both fantastic and ugly. We pull waters from the Columbia River watershed in central Washington to irrigate lands that don’t receive a lot of rainfall to produce food for ourselves and other nations. We have reshaped the plains by murdering all the bison, pushing off the First Nations into the least desirable lands, destroying the prairie ecosystem and replacing it with large barbed-wire tracts to raise cattle for meat and milk. There are architectural wonders in the form of gorge-spanning bridges. There are thousands of dead and dying small towns, some on the wrong side of an extractive boom and bust cycle; others where economic opportunity no longer exists due to “rational actors” competing in markets near and far that result in a dearth of local, well-paying jobs for young people; and where the center of the town’s commercial and consumer activity is not a local shop but the ever ubiquitous, corporate-owned Dollar General store.
I found that people, on the whole, are warm, polite, and quickly return a smile. I learned that many people in the western states want to be left alone and live their lives without over-regulation, and view outsiders with suspicion. The “nice” factor seemed to increase as I rode from west to east, peaking in Ohio and then gradually decreasing as I approached the eastern coast.
I also perceived that we are all living in an artificially sustained dream land. There is the United States that exists today, with its widening gap of wealth, the pernicious mix of money and politics, and the ever-increasing tribalism. Then there’s the mythical United States of our dreams, where everyone is created equal, that we are entitled to life, liberty, and happiness, and where we are the good guys who practice justice for all. Add to this myth the influence of mass media, from legacy broadcast networks, to cable TV channels, and now social media empires, and how they create and sell an ideal image of who we are and what we should aspire to be. And all of us seem to select some aspect of this image, this dream, and try to build our lives. I don’t think most Americans are truly content and many have strong opinions who is at fault, but a true conversation about what’s going on is drowned in the churning sea of messages and images on our billboards, TV and computer screens, or in our echo chamber of choice.
TAKEAWAYS?
There was no doubt in my mind that I would see this adventure through to the end, although I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult. Ultimately, the challenge inherent in the audacious nature of a cross-country bicycle trek at my age came down to just one key factor: me. I enjoy cycling, I enjoy being on the road, and I enjoy a physical challenge. But the challenges presented by taking on this task at this mid/late middle age stage of my life were both new and the most difficult tests I encountered. I am happy to report that I passed those tests; I was able to vanquish my fears and tame the runaway mental chatter.
I learned that with sustained focus and determination, the body can rally and accomplish tasks that are objectively very difficult. There were several occasions, on the side of the road, where I felt completely spent, but through mental effort and desire, I was able to continue and complete the day’s ride. It helps to eat good food and avoid eating unhealthy items, such as the artificially manufactured colored, viscous liquid that passes as syrup in most restaurants. But getting up a 20-30 mile climb in the searing heat requires more than just eating well and staying hydrated. I found that I had to veto the body’s desire to call it quits so that I could reach my goal. And I can see the parallels between the mental determination required to climb a mountain for 20 miles on a bicycle and accomplishing more complex, non-physical tasks that present themselves in life in the sense that both require silencing the doubts and fears and that derail their respective efforts.
At the same time, another takeaway is to respect the body. As I sit and write these words, I recognize and accept that it’s going to take more than a day or two to recover from this trek, and I need to be kind to myself and resist the urge to, say, tackle long-standing house chores. I am tired. I asked my body to do a lot, and it pulled through, but now is the time to give my physical form its due.
A question I am now asking myself is how can I apply these victories in my day-to-day life. Surely, I should be able to view the mundane tasks for what they really are — small stuff. This outlook demands that I consistently apply the same “bike trek” attitude in my daily living; which, in turn, requires a great deal of mental fortitude not to get tripped up by the countless small things that can “ruin” my day. Worse things happen at sea.
I think the bigger question for me is how I can apply these victories to the non-trivial aspects of my life that require me to change. Stay tuned.
FUN FACTS and METRICS
I rode 3,541.42 miles over 54 riding days
I took 8 rest days
I climbed over 98,860 feet (the exact number is unknown because on 2 occasions my Garmin’s battery died before I completed the ride)
I traveled through 13 states: Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware.
I had 7 flat tires, three in the front wheel and four in the rear wheel
The first set of three flats (front) all happened on Day 8 of the trek and was due to a singular cause - a tiny thorn embedded in the tire that I had missed when I inspected the tire after the first flat.
The second set of three flats (rear) was one of those “stump the chump” mysteries: the tube would puncture on the rim side of the wheel about a centimeter from the valve stem. These flats would occur every 5-9 days of riding. In Lander, WY, the bike shop mechanic changed the rim tape, thinking that would do the trick. Unfortunately, the tire was flat the very next morning. Luckily, he opened the shop at 7:30 a.m. We scratched our heads. He added a second layer of rim tape and I bought I new tire. I thought this solved the problem until I flatted again nine days later. In West Lafayette, IN, I bought a new rear wheel and that seemed to solve the problem (which was, it turns out, the rear wheel — a replacement wheel and not the original wheel that came with the Fuji — was too narrow at 13 mm to handle the rigors of touring).
The seventh and final flat happened on day 60 of the trek (riding day 51) in the rear tire. No mystery this time: A piece of glass had become embedded in the tire.
I only had 2 falls!
The first occurred on Day 21 after descending Teton Pass. I was stopping in Wilson, WY to get my bearings. The bike came to a standstill but I couldn’t unclip my shoe from the pedal, and so I fell at 0 mph.
The second occurred on Day 60 when, after descending a muddy construction detour successfully, my front wheel slide out from under me on the last, short drop. I was going a grand total of four or five miles per hour.
THANK YOU’S
Thanks to all of you who donated to Life With Cancer. Thus far, we have raised over $14,000 dollars. If you have read this far and still haven’t donated, click here to access the Donate page of this site.
Thanks to Jeff White for taking on the responsibility of handling the administrative responsibilities for my direct reports at work and for being such a great cheerleader and anti-gravel advocate.
Thanks to John Stephan, who initially greenlighted the approval of my leave from work, and to Dan Whetstone and Tom Harris for following through with that request.
Thanks to many of you who selected supportive emojis or commented on Joanie and Mark’s Facebook page about my ride.
And thanks to my friends in the Sukkat Shalom community who showered me with support and praise, especially JodiK.
I want to call out and thank two close friends who fully comprehended the essence of this trek and who provided continued and frequent support through texts and conversations: Ronnie Dunetz in Kadima, Israel and David Myers in New Jersey. Your words of support and understanding helped me to put things in perspective and keep on going. Dave, you were a good guide because you knew from first-hand experience what I was going through having ridden across the USA (via Canada) in 1987.
Thanks to Andy and her partner Alan, and to Mark and (especially) Hindy. You all helped directly and indirectly, particularly when I stayed with you in Reston and spent most of the time eating.
Thanks to my children, Tenara and Devin. Tenara understood from the beginning what this trek meant to me and supported me, even when I was too tired for conversation. Devin deserves special gratitude because he stayed at home and took care of the house in our absence, something he had never done before for such an extended length of time. When we returned the cat looked healthier. And he only flooded the kitchen once!
I reserve my most special thanks and appreciation to Joanie, who traveled with me for most of the trek and drove our mobile home and SAG wagon. Her sacrifice enabled me to complete this trek, as well as providing me with the added benefit of eating wholesome, home-cooked meals and doing the laundry. Most of all, as my partner and best friend, she gave me the gifts of a warm hug when I was down, an open ear to my concerns, and the strong bonds of unconditional love. I couldn’t have done this without her.
Thank you all!