The Long Ride Home

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

—Queen, “Bicycle Race”

Tour de Brad, my first solo, loaded bike expedition is less than one week away, and I am petrified. My fears, I tell myself, are both natural and rational. After all, as I often explain to my naïve and sometimes-bigoted high-school English students, xenophobia is fear of the strange or unknown. A blissful life without apprehension, I continue, can only be acquired through the accumulation of knowledge, wisdom, and experience. And that, class, is why we need to learn how to teach ourselves and each other, respect our fellow human beings, and conjugate verbs.

In this spirit, I have spent much of my limited free time over the past six months researching and planning for my two-wheeled adventure; I still, however, hunger for more just-in-case knowledge. During this period, I have also scrimped and saved and spent on a bevy of new gear; even now, though, I can’t shake the sense that I’m forgetting something. I’ve also been going to the gym three, five, sometimes seven days a week for cardiovascular and functional strength training; I’m in pretty good shape at this point, but I worry my body will fail me when subjected to the rigors of consecutive, daylong rides.

Yes, for almost one-hundred-eighty-two days and nights, I have harbored dreams and nightmares about spinning in and out of Flagstaff, Arizona under my own power; now that my departure date is imminent, I can’t even sleep through the night. I am anxious. I am fearful. I am afraid of the unknown: Despite all of my careful planning and preparation, this trip will remain a mystery until I actually pedal out of town, my life distilled into a few water bottles, a rack trunk, and a yawning dry bag stowed in a small trailer.

Leaving the teaching world behind for a brief vacation on a bicycle.
Click to enlarge.

Unfortunately, this kind of explanation does little to appease my friends and family, who don’t quite know what to think. When I describe the trip to them, all that most can muster is a condescending “Well . . . that sounds . . . um . . . great.” I can tell the concept of a bike tour has never crossed their minds, and, though there are exceptions, they, too, fear the unknown. Some of them also fear for me.

My mother, no surprise, and my landlord, who would really like me to survive the trip and continue my tenancy, are among the most vocal of my pessimistic supporters:

“Braddy,” Mom says. “You’re going to sleep in hotels along the way, right?”

“No, Mom. Not if I can help it.”

“What about formal campsites?”

“Nope. That’ll blow my budget if I do it too often.”

“Oh, great! So you’re just going to pitch a tent on the side of the road where anyone can see you, stop and kill you, and take all your stuff!”

“Yes, Mother, that’s the plan. Actually, I was thinking the median would be better than the side of the road. That way, psychos and kidney thieves going in either direction can take their shot. Ah, that reminds me: Do you know my blood type?”

“Very funny—“

“No, I’m serious—“

“Right. What about food?”

I go on to explain that I’ll carry dehydrated backpacking rations, buy groceries and staples along the way, and gorge myself at every all-you-can-eat dive I find. I also explain that, if I do camp near the road, I’ll head far off the beaten path to a secluded spot where no one is likely to stumble upon my site. Besides, I continue, when I pass through a town, I can always ask locals about good spots to pitch a tent; for all I know, that will land me in a municipal park, if not someone’s guest room or back yard.

Obviously, I don’t know about these possibilities through first-hand experience. However, an open mind, a modicum of outdoors savvy, and plenty of research into the myths and realities of extended trekking have given me faith that everything will unfold exactly as it needs to. That faith, in turn, gives me hope. And, to avoid sounding evangelical, let’s leave love out of it and just say that my faith and hope mitigate my fears. They have to. Otherwise, I would have no choice but to spend the rest of my summer vacation basking in the sickly glow of modern convenience, lulled to sleep each night by the quiet, sticky purr of convention.

Although I have no choice but to believe the trip will go smoothly, many of those around me do not share my faith—in themselves, their fellow man, or Mother Nature. My mom and her boyfriend, for example, think I should just drive from place to place, sleeping and eating at safe, reliable franchises: Why can’t you just spend an afternoon at the Grand Canyon? They give wonderful tours, you know, and there’s a shuttle you can take from the parking lot. Why don’t you stay at this nice resort we saw near Zion National Monument? It’s bound to be much safer than camping, and they have a full-service spa! If you want to go to the Telluride Jazz Festival so badly, why not save yourself a bunch of time and energy and just drive there? You know, you’ll never make it back from Telluride in time to start work again . . . .

My mom and her boyfriend, like so many others, are missing the point. They just don’t understand. To be fair, though, I’m not sure that I do either. Just what is the point? What is it that drives a 31-year old man (or anyone else, for that matter) to voluntarily spend four weeks of so-called vacation pedaling around on what, to many, is merely a child’s toy? To spend a month eating one-pot meals, sleeping on the ground, all—horror of horrors—without a television?

One thing I do know is this trip, despite my initial intentions, is not about frugality. The amount of cash I’ve sunk into this endeavor could have already paid for a tropical Club Med vacation to make momma proud and ignite the jealousy of loved ones and strangers alike. The only thing that consoles me is the fact that I’ll be well equipped for my next outing, be it based on biking, hiking, camping, or climbing.

My first purchase for this trip was a set of route maps from the Adventure Cycling Association: I bought the Grand Canyon Connector, which extends from Tucson, Arizona to Cedar City, Utah, and all four sections of the Western Express, which runs from San Francisco, California to Pueblo, Colorado. Next, having read that panniers or saddlebags might adversely affect the balance and handling of my bike, I acquired a BOB, or Beast of Burden, bike trailer. Unfortunately, since the day my BOB arrived, I’ve been fighting a bad case of GAS, also known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I bought the damned trailer and was subsequently consumed by an almost moral imperative to fill it up.

The floodgates opened, and dollar after dollar was washed away. Padded bike shorts, wicking jerseys. A bicycle computer to monitor speed and mileage on commutes and weekend training rides. A water purifier, an ultra-light stove, a free-standing tent for one. Gear repair materials. A new medical kit. A point-and-shoot camera so I can leave behind my trusty but laborious manual SLR. Arm and leg warmers, long-fingered cycling gloves, and ear protection for those chilly mountain nights and cool desert mornings. Collapsible water tanks. Lightweight chamois to replace bulky terrycloth. For the bike, new and spare tires, tubes, spokes, and cables, plus a few other new parts to give me low enough gears that I won’t have to hop off my bike and pull it—along with my glorious collection of new paraphernalia—up mountain passes and molehills alike.

The list above could go on, but, as I keep having to remind myself, this trip is not about gear. It’s about something else. Something more important. Something more abstract, less concrete, lying in the shadows like a dog that hasn’t crawled under the porch to die, but to make itself well. I am that dog, this trip is my metaphysical porch, and I will emerge from the darkness healthier than I was before.

My illness is one that most modern worker bees share: I am afflicted by time. As a public-school teacher, I spend ten months of my year at the beck and call of my students, my administrators, and my professional conscience. 12-hour days and six or seven-day workweeks are not uncommon. By the time I see to the demands and desires of my bosses (from local principals to the federal government), my 180 individual clients (students, at least half of whom I meet with daily), and my clients’ supervisors (their parents and guardians), there is little time or energy left for me. Teaching is a soul sapping, usually thankless vocation. It often leaves me feeling empty inside, an automaton created only to serve the whims and needs of others. This trip, however, is an opportunity to change that, if only for a few weeks. Once I hit the road, I will be free to be selfish again, to relax and recharge—however, whenever, and wherever I see fit. Road time is my time, and I will return from my trip better. Faster. Stronger. We can rebuild him. We have the technology.

Most of my gear, bike included, has admittedly been spawned by the march of technology, but my personal healing process depends on avoiding certain trappings of modern life. Most of us spend considerable time hiding behind shields of concrete, glass, and steel: the homes we live in, the buildings we work in, and the cars that are so indispensable in the age of urban sprawl, when few communities are built to the scale of the pedestrian or cyclist. It makes me feel detached. Disconnected. Disoriented. Like some trepidatious Gollum who hides in his cavernous lair for fear of encountering sun, moon, or denizens of the earth. The allure of biking—and other outdoor activities—is that engaging with Nature on her terms allows me to feel part of the world again.

Inside an automobile, circumstances of climate and geography yield to other, more pressing concerns like poor radio reception or the unease of rocketing along with only a quarter-tank of gas. On a bike, however, every incline is felt, every bump is known, and every inch is earned. The wind, excluded from the consciousness of the car borne, can become a friend’s soothing reassurance, a bitter enemy’s violent shove, or a lover’s tender caress to the cyclist.

A bike is also an efficient and relatively simple machine. If stranded in the desert or the mountains with a broken down, one ton, fuel-injected marvel of modern engineering and a beat-up old bicycle, it is the bike that I would take odds on being able to make roadworthy again. The bike is also the machine I’d rather hump out of the wasteland—or leave behind in it—if I couldn’t make the repairs or find the right kind of fuel. I find it reassuring, empowering even, that I, myself, am the right kind of fuel for a bicycle.

Although a single, easily digestible rationale for my trip remains elusive, my departure date does not. It is coming for me, and the thought makes me grin. An endurance athlete once explained that he runs marathons because it feels so good to stop. Although I may share his sentiment by the end of my adventure, my real finish line is the moment I begin my journey. At that point, I can stop running through the repetitive maze of everyday life and be surprised again. I can stop being ruled by the rhythm of alarm clocks and bell schedules and downtown traffic; I can instead heed the rhythm of the open road, the outdoors, and my own internal timepiece. I can finally cease my thinking and planning and waiting and simply ride, simply be for a spell.

So what, exactly, is the point of my impending journey? The definitive answer, if there is one, awaits me on the pavement, in the desert, through the woods, over the mountains. It may come as early as next week, maybe next year, and perhaps not for another lifetime. Until that answer arrives, however, I look forward to pedaling, smiling, into the unknown.

Submitted by Brad Kamradt

Brad Kamradt submitted this article just prior to leaving on his first bicycle touring experience. This article goes a long way towards expressing the feelings that many cyclist feel just before embarking on their first life-changing, bicycle touring adventure.

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