Month: November 2013

Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

368 Days Later.

And it’s done! What a week. 363 – 368! Ithaca to NYC.

It’s been odd, this week more than most, knowing that it’s coming to an end in the coming days. There were moments of About time! excited, and moments of Maybe just one more loop? apprehension. The biking’s been good. Nothing has gone wrong and closing in on the end goal provided an easy way of falling into that dreamed-of zone where cycling becomes effortless. That’s not to say there weren’t crazy climbs, because there was (looking at you Pennsylvania), but with the momentum of a year coming to an end they weren’t enough to cause any delays.

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Being in gung-ho mode, necessary to make the end in time, there’s been a lot of saddle time. That’s often lead to nights in the farmland of NY, PA and NJ states, riding at night on the empty roads. It was surprising how remote it can be considering how close it is to the biggest city in the US. One of those nights lead, by coincidence, to a roadside invitation to crash at a lakeside cottage where Marianna and Elizabeth, two Buddhists, were staying. They were awesome, insisted on making some amazing food, and it was an amazing place to chill out when most moments recently had been a bit of a head-spin.

A few days of cycling later, and it was the final day. So close to being done. So close that something was bound to happen. ‘Course it was. I got sloppy and stumbled onto the highway. In parts of North America you’re allowed on the highway, in others you’re not. In New York you’re not. It was a blast – flying down the shoulder, knowing that this was the fastest route, seeing the New York skyline for the first time and realising it was so close.

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Oops. The police weren’t happy. Fortunately the officer was hilarious and other than an insistence to get off at the next exit, he wasn’t all that fussed. 90 minutes later I rolled into New York via George Washington Bridge and met my folks. It was like an ultra high definition skype call and amazing to see their faces after so long. And it was the end. 

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If you’re reading at this point, thank you! The emails and blog comments in the tough parts were a massive motivator, it played a huge role in seeing the trip through to the end. So thank you. And to everyone who donated or helped with a place to crash along the way or agreed to be featured in this project – I’m still blown away by how awesome you all were.

So that’s it. So much has happened that it’s a flurry, but it’s clear this was something special. The one-more-loop-thought has faded (for now) and it’s exciting to think about what happens next. Hopefully you’ll stick around as the blog will now get pretty fun – snippets of unpublished interview, retrospective articles, footage of getting blasted by sprinklers at 3am – but that’ll all start in a couple of weeks – for now I’m off to catch up on a years worth of half-sleep and wonder around the city until the flight home. And if anyone knows where to get the best slice of pizza here do just shout. Because pizza’s great. Thanks!

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy

Moving The World?

Last week I drafted a post that talked about how contentment and future questions and all that stuff was on hold as with only a couple weeks left everything was simple – there was only one thing left to do. Then I backtracked because approaching the finish, doubts and questions are actually churning away more than they ever have. This is one of those posts where I held off and held off and didn’t push the button. Wasn’t sure why. Then this video came along ↧ (link), and Neil Gaiman sums up the fear:

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”

So let’s try it.

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“It reaffirmed that I could do anything I put my 100 percent effort into. When I got back, I felt like I could move the world.”

I read this article months ago straight after finishing the section from Florida to California. It’s about Jackie Loza’s ride down the West Coast of the US. She was let go from her job and her trip was a way to figure out the next move.* And because of that it was more than a bike trip – it was a time that real decisions were made. Decisions that influenced where she is right now.

After the ride she described feeling like she could “move the world”. You know when you read something or watch something or hear something and can’t get it out of your head? I’ve thought about that article ever since. Finishing the ride across the southern tier, I could totally relate to the moving the world thing. You get into trouble or have a bad day, you fix it. At the end of each day you know it’s been a good day. That adds up and over time really makes you think that much bigger things are possible and that hurdles are made for crushing.

To end the trip there maybe would have been ‘the sensible option’. It would have been a euphoric end, all highs. The cross country trip had been a success. Mountains would have been quivering at the thought of getting moved. Just kidding. But of course that stretch marked a small part of this overall journey. Reaching the Pacific, I thought – if you feel this bold / upbeat after three months, jeez, imagine what it will be like after 6 or 9. This is gonna be rad.

But it’s not like a 45 degree graph where the good keeps rising. It rose to 90 days and then the ruler stopped working or the drawer got bored and decided to start a squiggle-spree. It hits the top of the page then the bottom, bottom then top. As the weeks and months go on you go from empowerment / bring it on, to fuck this / what a loser, back to mountain moving / boulder lifting in this bizarre cycle of being confident and determined, to having no confidence and wanting to hide in a cave for 10 years, back to being stoked.

I could relate to Jackie using the trip as a vehicle to make big decisions. Over time, especially after a long day pedalling, your mind clears and you begin to slot pieces together. If I do x then maybe y will become a possibility.

In those high ‘move the world’ moments everything seems amazing, really like anything is possible. Like the cards on the table going forward shine more than they ever have before. Nothing is intimidating.

And then on the down days I’ve felt literally sick about time spent away, debt and potential irresponsibility (the trip was originally meant to be 6-9 months), and whether there were opportunities left behind. But so many of the people I’ve spoken to started by going all in and taking a shot, taking a risk in the hope that opportunities down the line would bring more value than staying still. I should remember to cling on to that.

I haven’t got the faintest idea what happens next. It’s kind of wide open. Some days that’s a scary thing, and other days it’s really invigorating, despite the questions that sometimes kick in.

But we all have doubts – whether what we’re doing is what we should really be doing. That’s natural. And those questions are good, because they make you think and possibly change.

The cliche’s are true – journeys like this do open your eyes. In tough ways and in the best ways.

My head’s all over the place at the moment, processing the end of a bizarre year. How squiggly can a graph get in five days?

Today, the thought of finishing this thing is strangely nerve wracking. There’s an anxiety there for sure.

Tomorrow might be completely different – it has a tendency to be. Holla’ at ya from NYC. Here we go. [UPDATE: THE TRIP IS COMPLETE!]

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* “Overall, people who do these trips are people who are at a turning point in their lives. Or, they have a lot of spare time, which usually means one thing… They are involved in some challenge in their lives that they want to overcome… When I look at the last few years, I’ve heard stories of people’s trials and tribulations, of people reinventing themselves.” Winona Bateman, of the Adventure Cycling Association.

** Wanna shoot the S about work/projects/publishing?

Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

Explosions, Kindness & Waterfalls

355 – 362: Toronto, ON – Ithaca, NY

The ticking clock meant I didn’t stick around too long in Toronto. The bike had issues leaving the city (someone should design a bike that doesn’t break). This time a split tyre near Hamilton. Tried to blag it and ride to Niagara Falls anyway. It didn’t work, at all. Should’ve known.

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Do you know what happens when you ride with a split tyre and your inner tube sticks out? The split gets bigger. And bigger. And then it EXPLODES. It shocks you and anyone nearby. BANG.

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So it exploded. But if you believe in fate, it then made an appearance. Glumly walking along the side of a quiet road on the outskirts of St Catherine with a post-explosion flat, the night drawing in, a car pulled up. Turned out to be a Niagara Falls local called Mike, an avid cyclist who spotted the tyre and offered a lift for the 10 miles to Niagara. So yeah, fate? He never drives home, this was an exception. On the rare times he does, he doesn’t take the route through St Catherine’s. And to top it off they’d taken the seats out of the car the night before, so by chance there was space for a broken bicycle.

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During the ride to town Mike invited me over for food and to meet his wife Heather and his British mother, who in a weird ‘it’s kind of a small world’ moment, used to live in Workington, England. She lives with Mike and Heather and after 40+ years in Canada still has a strong accent.

They offered up their spare room for the night, and I woke up the next day to a bike with a new tyre, oiled chain, you name it. Totally unexpected. You guys are awesome. Pretty cool. We found out later that, coincidentally, it all happened on ‘International Random Act of Kindness Day’. Huh.

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After checking out Niagara Falls (a weird cross between epic, amazing nature and Blackpool pleasure beach depending on the time you visit) and getting grilled at customs, I was on US turf once more. Big sigh of relief whilst ignoring the freezing hail. [thanks to Portage House Motel in Lewiston for a room, awesome place] Out of any markers / state lines etc, this was the biggest. It meant the Canada section was done, and there really wasn’t much left. Kind of weird to process.

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Day one of riding back in the US was a shock. Upstate New York is incredibly colourful at the moment but the clocks went back the previous nights, and Canada to US means a switch from kilometres back to miles. That doesn’t sound like much, but it took some getting used to. An hour less light and distance mind games. You forget that riding 10 miles is harder and takes longer than riding 10 kilometres.

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It’s been a few days of riding along through Rochester, sections of the Erie canal, and through NY wine country with another (different) tyre explosion. There’s still a bit of pedalling to go yet but it’s getting close. Approaching the end there’s some definite and unexpected internal havoc going on right now. A new article is taking shape around that so hopefully there’ll be something new to read pronto.