I rode my bicycle across the country. This is my story.
CYCLES
"There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone."
-The Grateful Dead
CHAPTER ONE:
I rode a bicycle across America when I was twenty-four years old. It was a tandem mountain bike owned by my friend and riding partner, Matt. He was a housemate of mine in college. Neither one of us were ready for real jobs. We were both delivering pizzas in our college town. He was also working at a local bicycle shop. He had been using his employee discount to buy more bikes than he could afford. One of those bikes was a top-of-the-line Cannondale tandem, mountain bike he'd bought for he and his girlfriend to ride on weekend trips. He bought it because he couldn't resist the 50% discount. He and his girlfriend broke up.
Matt and I decided to ride the tandem from Seattle, Washington to Portland, Maine. He said it'd be faster in the great plains. I said okay, that way I didn't have to buy a touring bicycle for myself. We named the bike Pamela Lee, but ended up calling it, The Bike. We were usually too tired to call it anything else.
We planned to train before we embarked on our adventure. But we were lazy, procrastinating, too smart for our own good, recent college graduate, white, suburban raised, young men; we didn't train. We took it on one fifteen-mile ride a couple weeks before we flew to Seattle. We figured, once we got to the west coast we would simply pedal until we reached the Atlantic Ocean.
We had maps to get us across the northern tier of the country. Matt had bought a package series of maps from a company called Adventure Cycling. The maps gave us routes friendly to bicycles. Symbols on the maps represented hostels, campgrounds, bike shops, and grocery stores along the route. That was all we had, and all we needed.
We didn't have cellphones or google maps, we didn't ride on the pretense of raising money for kids with cancer, orphans, or old men with benign prostatic hyperplasia, and we surely didn't ride on the pretense of raising awareness for something like a blockchain social network, they didn't exist yet. The internet didn't become widely accessible for another two or three years. Only computer geeks had this weird thing called an "email address." We were on our own. We just pedaled the bike every day. We called home once a week to let our parents know we hadn't been gang raped by grizzly bears, no vlogs.
It pissed us off when we heard stories of others riding across the U.S.A. to raise money for something. They weren't riding to raise money, they were riding for themselves, and the raising money and awareness thing was only a way to fund their personal adventure. We found it to be disingenuous. Anytime someone raises money to get themselves sent on an adventure anywhere in the name of charity and/or awareness, they're doing it for themselves first, and any other benefit is collateral karma. To us it was bad karma. It was like saying, "I'm going on vacation to the Playboy Mansion's month-long lingerie party- To raise money for leukemia! Please donate! And look upon us as people to be admired... You know, for the children." Bullshit, you're doing it for yourself.
We rode because it was something we'd always wanted to do and that's all it was.
We stayed in campgrounds, bike hostels, regular hostels, people's front yards, and the side of the road. On three nights of the trip, we sprang for a cheap motel: on the first night, on a night of a torrential downpour upon arriving in a town, and on the last night of the journey. It was horribly uncomfortable and terrifically amazing.
We started the trip on the Fourth of July. Choosing that date wasn't on purpose, it was economical. The cheapest flight to Seattle was on the holiday, so we took it from Ohio, and landed on the west coast on the early evening of Independence Day 1996.
The bike was waiting for us at the baggage claim desk when we got off the plane. We'd shipped it in a box Matt snagged from the bike shop. As we dragged the box into a position in which we could open it, I looked outside the glass doors of the Seattle airport. The sun was starting its descent. We had to assemble the bike, attach the panniers, sleeping bags, bed rolls, and tent, then find the motel we'd booked for the evening two miles from the airport. This was the first time we had ever packed up the bike. I hoped no one was looking because we had no clue what we were doing.
Matt ran the blade of my Swiss army knife down the length of the cardboard box. I held the box steady as he then sliced from the top edge to the floor. Matt ripped the card board flap downward, exposing Pamela Lee in all her disassembled glory.
An airport employee dressed in clothes that looked more baggage handler than front desk employee approached us. He was tall, thin, and his hair was freckle red, like the little red-haired boy in your elementary school that was always the outcast for being different. His beard was full and neatly trimmed. He looked like he was getting the last laugh after having learned consistent self-acceptance in the face of constant public rejection. He'd grown into himself and he knew it, the strong jaw under his close-cropped beard told us so. "Woooey, that's one hell of a machine you got there."
We paused from our work and glanced up at him. I hoped that he wouldn’t ask us questions. And if he did, I hoped Matt knew the answers, because I didn't. I didn't even know the questions yet, but I was confident in my lack of confidence in being able to give any solid answer about what we were doing. I didn't even know how we were going to put the bike together.
He nodded at us, friendly-like. "You boys going on an adventure?"
I knew the answer to that one, but I didn't want to encourage him. I looked at Matt.
Matt smiled politely. He brushed his straw-like, blonde hair behind his ear and said, "Yep."
“Cool, I ride myself.” He smiled brighter. I don’t know how you can go from a genuine smile, to an even more genuine smile because it’s kind of like being more complete than complete, but he did it. “My name’s Ron.” He pointed at the stitched patch on the chest of his uniform, “But people call me Big Red!”
I felt like I was surely going to disappoint Big Red.
....
...That's all for this installment. The Chapter isn't quite over, and the adventure's just beginning.
_______________________________________________________________________________
This is a ROUGH first draft of a book based on my bicycle ride across the country. I've been restarting it every couple years, I think I finally found the right attitude/voice for it. I'll be sharing it as I write it, the final form will get edited again, and again, and again. I hope you enjoy the process.
________________________________________________________________________________
This is a great motivation for people to just go and do their adventure instead of waiting to be "ready".
Well done!
Thank you, Dandy! I hope you like it and continue to read as I write and post it.
The Hipsters Only sign did have me convinced for a second that I was looking at a photo of my beloved Seattle, so I'm glad you clarified. If you came along with a tandem bike today I'm sure they'd welcome you in with open arms.
It's a great idea to post your first draft here on Steemit - I can't wait to read more!
you do have a knack for writing....but i guess you already know that :) there is this kind of leisure to it with a pinch of nostalgia (sorry no writing skills here )...to sum it up...i like it
Thank you. (....I'm trying to take the advice of all the self-help literature in how to take a compliment. That's all I'm supposed to say...If you were here I'd be smiling and looking you in the eyes as well.)
hahahahaha...sorry in case that wasn't supposed to be funny....what can I say...welcome to the club! ....here compliments are more or less rare and if you get one you usually say ty....BUT there is always a BUT after.
Example: A: I really love your shoes!
B: Oh ty. They are very old tho...and I couldn't decide if I should buy em..I think my feet look big in em...etc.
Now if you move further down south to our neighbours, person B would be like:
Oh I know right? I look gorgeous in em and they cost a fortune.
Think I'll stop now before the stereotype police gets me (tho i was super careful not to list any countrys). :)