On Saturday August 16 1980 I completed my 50th day of riding and experienced my first serious qualms about the bike. The squeak in the headset area had been getting worse, and there was a “clump” sound emanating from the bottom bracket, keeping rhythmic time with my pedaling. Because of my fear of biking late in the day with these new developments, I managed only about 65 miles.
A couple of nasty hills chastened me too, notably eight miles of steady uphill before entering Grangeville. I had done a leisurely 30 miles to that point, stopping at the roadside to marvel at the view before leaving the “wilderness”. It was 2 o’clock by then, and I managed to fool around in Grangeville until nearly 3:30, by which time I had already decided that White Bird sounded a whole lot better than Riggins, 28 miles farther on.
After surmounting the 2.5 mile climb out of Grangeville, I was treated to a spectacular eight mile downhill into White Bird. I timed myself between mile markers at a minute and a half, or about 45 mph, plenty fast enough for a bike. Upon arrival in White Bird, I downed two Olympias and wished I had more.
A Bikecentennial group that had left Yorktown June 6 arrived at the campsite after a day of rafting. Stuck-up rich kids. Who else should be shepherding them but my friend Gary McFadden. The group is allowing 21 more days to reach Astoria. I’m allowing seven days to reach the coast!
On August 15 I was off on what really .. finally …felt like the final leg of this trip. It was a long day (over 110 miles) through some wild, lonely, beautiful country. After a fairly easy climb up to Lolo Pass, a little over 40 miles from Missoula, I coasted downhill the rest of the day along the Lochsa River, through stands of conifers.
It was downhill riding, but I felt as thoughI fought a headwind often. There was no civilization from Lochsa Lodge to Lowell, a distance of some 65 miles. I prayed that the fellow at the bike shop in Missoula had been wrong when he said that we were in for some rain soon. So far so good; an incredibly dry summer overall had been terrible for farmers but welcome to me.
Without any stores nearby, I resorted to my freeze-dried emergency meal of lasagna for dinner, and it was delicious.
The campground was great —- a place to pitch a tent and a clear mountain stream right alongside …. what more does one need, and it was free.
Sundays are often kind of blah and dead-feeling, and this one was no exception. I exchanged sad farewells (sad for me) with Jill and Margie — actually I didn’t care about not seeing Margie again. I got the addresses of both and Jill’s phone number (she volunteered it) and I promised to write. It’s funny how, in pairs of women, there may be one who’s attractive and personable, but it’s rare that both are.
Feeling more myself today, I set off in the cold of morning feeling adventuresome and glad to be going downhill, on a road splitting through an avenue of pines. Before long my energy faded, the route turned left out into boring typical Wyoming rolling hills, and it settled back into being just another day, the early morning magic gone. Now in Montana, I stopped for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich near the site of the 1959 earthquake, and some $%%# tourists hassled me with @#!@*& questions.
Stopping frequently but still making good time, I passed quickly through a lot of nothing to Cameron, a little more than nothing, which I was glad had an open cafe. There I saw the ugliest boy I’d ever seen. Truly it was so startling and upsetting that I could only imagine the horrible prison he would find himself in throughout life. I thought of the Elephant Man.
Moving along through Ennis, and the restored ghost towns of Virginia City and Nevada city, which weren’t very ghostly since there were scores of tourists roaming the streets, I met an east-bound cycling couple in Virginia City. As late as it was in the summer, I still met cyclists heading east. Tom and Elaine thought they were at the tail end, but they weren’t by far.
After coming over a seven mile climb east of Virginia City, I was pretty beat, but managed to push the eight more miles on to a KOA in Adler. Had chili for dinner, crashed early. Paid only $2.50 for the campsite.
This was another short day — only 50 miles — but I rationalized it by saying that I’d do 80 miles tomorrow, and count the two short days as one rest day. John and his father had a debilitating effect on me; I didn’t get on the road until 9:30 a.m., and then finally with the tacit understanding that we would go our separate ways.
Again I had little energy. I listlessly pedaled toward Old Faithful, then found that the post office, one of my mail stops, was closed. Finally, put off by the crowd of tourists waiting for OF to erupt, I decided I could do without witnessing the geyser, and moved on.
Sick of r.v.’s and tourists, and feeling generally physically weak, I didn’t ride well, but managed to make West Yellowstone by 3 p.m. There, the guy in the bike shop (the first decent such shop since Colorado) diagnosed my problem. I needed a new chain, as well as a couple of new rear sprockets. That did seem to make riding a whole lot easier.
From there it was a short ride to the campground, a spread-out tourist trap. After scouting out campgrounds in the area, I decided to pay the exorbitant rate of $6 for a miserable plot of grass. There were benefits; I camped next to Jill and Margie, on vacation from California, where beautiful Jill managed two women’s clothing stores and Margie was an accountant.
Jill and I walked uptown for an ice cream, and it felt nice to have a date, no matter how innocuous and meaningless.
And, oh yes, today I entered Montana, my eighth state.
The Bikecentennial guidebook promised ….and delivered …the best treat for a cyclist since the 12-mile downhill into Damascus, VA ….a 32-mile “gently rolling” downhill that brought me from 6,548 feet in elevation down to 5,358 feet by the time I reached Lander.
That gave me a good jump on the day, but about five miles of road construction south of Lander ate up a lot of time. I ate lunch in Fort Washakie, then spent a hellish afternoon fighting against the wind, much of the time uphill.
At about 85 miles into my day, I passed through Crowheart, near where Washakie, Chief of the Shoshone Indians, reportedly celebrated his victory in hand-to-hand combat with the chief of the Crow Indians by cutting out his opponent’s heart and carrying it home on the tip of a spear. That’s one way to celebrate.
The terrain looks almost southwestern … lots of red sandstone buttes …and the climate out here is arid in the extreme. I’ve begun to tire of the monotony of the landscape, and am looking forward to Montana, which I should reach by Saturday (this day being Wednesday).
The 100-mile days are becoming more routine. By this point I was in peak condition. Also, in Wyoming thus far, there was little to do other than ride, so ride I did, for eight, nine, and 10 hours a day. And, while the mountains out here were higher than in the east, the riding was generally easier. In the Appalachians and Blue Ridge Mountains, the route was generally straight up and over, but the mountain crossings in the west were via switchbacks and graded inclines, affording an easier passage all in all.
There was another cycling couple at the campground this evening, Tom and Elaine, who work winters in Taos, NM. She is originally from Albuquerque, he is from Rockport, IL. They are outfitted to a “T,” having planned this trip for more than a year. They’re headed east, planning to reach Virginia by October. They left Astoria, OR in late June and have clearly taken their time! They promised me beautiful sights ahead, in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. We had a nice dinner of veggies, beef and tomato sauce. They cooked and I bought the beer.
Today I passed a tiny roadside sign along a barren, two-lane road in a landscape devoid of vegetation and was informed that I had entered my sixth state, Wyoming. The feeling I have had since crossing the state line I can only describe as delicious loneliness.
Any perceived difference from Colorado may have been more psychological than actual: the countryside did not suddenly change contrary to what the guys from Long Island had promised would occur. Those who compared the scenery with a lunar landscape were not far wrong, but that had been more or less the case since yesterday, when I passed out of the ski area bounded by Silverthorne. But, for whatever reason, northern Colorado had simply felt empty and desolate, the last dregs of a state dedicated to tourism. Wyoming, on the other hand, felt like a new beginning, authentic, with a uniquely stark grandeur. I crossed the Continental Divide again, this time at 9,000 feet, nominally putting me back in the “east.” Once over that hump, it was downhill for 8.5 miles, then rolling terrain, but with a fierce westerly wind that sometimes helped me along, but usually didn’t. During the course of the day, I met three eastbound cyclists, two touring, and one training. Then, 15 miles from Walden, CO, I caught up with two cyclists out training who were going my way. I kept up with them into Walden, though I had some of the shortness of breath that seems to affect me at altitudes over 8,000 feet. In Walden, the two bought me a Coors (pronounced “Curs” by the one originally from Marblehead, MA), and sent me off with words of encouragement. Walden was another one of those odd tourist-infected towns … essentially unsophisticated, but making random accommodations and adjustments to the passing rich … a “healthfood” store, sky-high prices, a rather jaded atmosphere. While there, I tried to place a call home. At first there was too much static to talk; then I couldn’t get through at all. How far outside civilization am I? I couldn’t help but think. Then, happily, I met more cyclists: Paul, Sue, and Cheri. Originally from New York state, they had just hopped on the trail, headed west. They got a head start on me out of town. By the time I got started, the winds were truly amazing, literally blowing me off the road a couple of times …. very discouraging. I finally caught up to the trio while climbing steadily (according to the B.C. guidebook we were in the midst of a “gradual 18 mile downhill.” Uh-huh.
When we awoke on July 4, comforted by the kindness of strangers, we felt ready to brave more of the dark underbelly of coal country, cautioned (by the Elkins themselves, no less) that Hazard County was filled with “rough folk.” The guidebook made a point of warning us about coal trucks, whose drivers were paid according to their speed in completing their routes, and who as a result were said to navigate the narrow roads with reckless abandon, and with particular scorn for cyclists.
As good fortune would have it, however, the week we passed through Hazard coincided with the week allotted for coal truck driver vacations. In retrospect, it was fortunate for another reason as well: had I known then how frightening to a plodding cyclist is a speeding truck filled to overflowing with heavy, precariously placed objects, I would have spent the remaining distance to the west coast dreading the Oregon lumber trucks.
Our departure from Pikesville was leisurely; slow starts had already become the norm for the four of us. We ran into our host (the fellow whose lawn we had occupied) at a local market on our way out of town. He and his son were consuming a breakfast of chocolate milk and cookies. They bid us safe travels, and voiced skepticism when we said we were aiming to reach Pippa Passes that day.
We reached Pippa Passes quite easily and discovered it possessed at least two notable attractions. One was a youth hostel which, by some now forgotten metric, was considered one of the two best in the U.S. (the other being in Oregon). We also took the opportunity to visit Alice Lloyd College, an unbelievably rustic little institution which (at the time at least) had an enrollment of only about 300 students, and which specialized in Appalachian Studies. After chatting with a few students who were spending their summer building homes in Appalachia, Jeff and I played some one-on-one basketball in the hostel gym.
We ate canned stew, heated up at the hostel, then finally ended our extended lunch break about 4 p.m. and pushed off. Some locals suggested a route to Hazard which they said would cut about eight miles off the 30 miles shown by the guidebook, and we decided to try it.
The route may have been shorter in miles, and with fewer hills, but we ended up taking major roads, which were extremely busy with Fourth of July traffic. This gave us a new opportunity to see the redneck-y side of the area, as exemplified by the profusion of pickup trucks and 4WD vehicles, driven by good old boys with no love for cyclists.
By 7:30 we had reached Hazard, and by 9:15 we’d eaten a hearty dinner at a local restaurant. My meal came with an unlimited salad bar, of which I took full advantage, gorging myself until I felt almost ill. Who knew, I thought, when I would again be able to eat as much as I wanted (and more)?
Our holiday celebration, we decided, would consist in taking a break from camping out; instead we elected to stay in a motel for the night. Once we had found a likely-looking place, Brenda and Carrie got us a room with two double beds. Jeff and I snuck into the room after it had been rented, forestalling any attempt by management to charge more for our two additional bodies.
The motel was nothing fancy, but it felt like an unusual luxury to take a real shower and loll about on the motel beds. Jeff and I made our way through a six-pack of Budweiser as I updated my journal and enjoyed the company of the other three.
The four of us made great time this morning, completing 45 miles before our lunch stop in Elkhorn City, just over the border into Kentucky, noting our accomplishment with a group photo in front of the “Welcome to Kentucky” sign.
Crossing our first state line was a tangible sign of progress. It never again seemed so far from one of a state to the other as it did while crossing Virginia, and not until I crossed into Oregon many miles later did I experience such keen pleasure at my accomplishment.
Our riding took us through a shockingly destitute environment. The contrast between the affluence of eastern Virginia and the poverty of eastern Kentucky could hardly have been more striking. Forced to walk our bikes over a one and a half mile stretch of gravel road, we became a bit unnerved, initially because of the terrain, then because the surroundings appeared so hostile that we worried we might be in danger. Broken-down tar paper shacks, barking dogs on chains, and strange-looking folk who eyed us suspiciously were common elements of the scenery.
The rainy overcast weather contributed to my overall impression of an industrial Hades equal to the Romantic poets’ worst nightmares. Sodden with liquefied coal dust, Jeff and I stopped in a small valley to wait for the girls late in the day, and, as the sun sank, a telephone lineman doing repairs nearby remarked matter-of-factly that he “wouldn’t want to stick around these parts after dark,” all while we surveyed the surrounding old house-trailers and jerry-built plasterboard and shingle boxes that passed for houses, as well as the pile of beer and soda cans damming an adjacent creek.
By the time the girls showed up, Jeff was ready for us to hitchhike to Pippa Passes, the next town of any size. But I wasn’t ready to abbreviate my cross-country trip, even by a few miles, and I insisted I’d carry on by bike, even if it meant riding alone.
But then things began to look up. A fellow stopped his truck as we walked along the gravel road and gave us two beers (thanks in part to Jeff’s diplomacy).
And our concerns about where to stay for the night were pacified when aother passerby offered up his yard as a camping spot for the night. The couple next door …. Wilma and Paul Elkins …were just as helpful, letting us use their bathroom, and taking us to use nearby pay phones and buy food. We also accompanied Paul on an errand to buy moonshine, .. and helped taste test it as well.
Paul told us that Pike County was the coal capital of Kentucky … and that it had the nicest people you would ever want to meet. I reckoned that he was probably right on both counts.
When this morning dawned, my energies were high. I no longer felt so lonely, especially when it turned out that I would have not one new riding companion, but three. Carrie and Brenda, the pair of female cyclists I had noticed the night before, asked me if I wanted to join their group and, when I explained that Jeff and I were new partners, they invited him to join as well.
Thus began the first of many enjoyable days together during which the four of us sometimes covered fewer miles than I would have liked, but had a lot of fun smelling the roses along the way.
On that July day, Jeff christened me “Alpine,” for my persistence in surmounting one of the worst hills I had encountered thus far — a five mile grade of considerable steepness between Damascus and Rosedale, VA. I waited for a solid 30 minutes on the far side of Church Mountain as Jeff shepherded “the girls” up and over. Jeff and I grew to enjoy our assumed roles as protectors; it gave us opportunities to forget about our own pains and fears, and to sit by the road taking in the moment, perhaps drinking a Coke, and talking to whoever else happened to be nearby, usually because we were awaiting the arrival of “the Turtle,” as Brenda had quickly, and aptly, been named.
Carrie could hold a steady pace, but she generally hung back to encourage Brenda, who rode better as a result. Once, on a ridge next to a tumble-down miner’s shack, Jeff and whooped aloud, instantly wet beyond all caring, as rain poured down suddenly and fiercely and Brenda at the same time crested the hill, grinning from ear to ear. At the same moment, a grubby little tow-headed boy peered out from behind the plastic sheeting covering the windows of the shack, probably wondering what all the commotion was about.
What would have been grim, even scary riding was I alone became enjoyable with my new companions, and I began to feel that this journey might be fun after all.
After getting sidetracked talking to a lonely old minister, eating “lunch” (from 3 until 4:30 p.m.), and dealing with my first flat tire of the trip, we arrived at Sykes Grocery Store, and set up camp in a cow pasture behind the store. We had covered about 40 miles for the day, and were only a little more than 30 miles from the Kentucky border.
My prayers for companionship, offered up with increasing frequency as my solitary daily routine began to pall, were unexpectedly answered today.
I didn’t get away from Rural Retreat until 11 a.m. after cleaning up after a botched, burned breakfast of French toast. Once underway, however, I encountered some of the easiest riding thus far. The guidebook gave me advance notice of a 3.5 hill in the Jefferson National Forest, but even that proved not especially difficult. Following that climb, a swift downhill and a little more brought me to Konnarock. From there, I continued down for another 12 miles, finishing this easy 42 mile day by coasting into “The Place,” a large house that had been converted into a hostel for Appalachian Trail hikers and cross-country bikers.
I readily plunked down my $1.50, which bought me shelter, water, and the company of other like-minded souls, and began to mingle with my compatriots. I discovered among them 11 other cyclists who were part of a Bikecentennial-sponsored trip, two Appalachian Trail thru- hikers, and two women cycling cross-country together. Then, sometime after my arrival, another solo male cyclist showed up.
It was the latter fellow, Jeff Day, from Massachusetts, with whom I bonded. I appreciated his ironic, irreverent sense of humor , and immediately felt that I had found a kindred spirit. He too was aiming for the West Coast and shared my quest-like vision of our undertaking. We agreed to join forces.
And the great hunger for voyages rose up in him — to come always, as now at dawn, into strange cities, striding in among them, and sitting with them unknown, like a god in exile, stored with the enormous vision of the earth. Thomas Wolfe, “Look Homeward Angel”
Perhaps it was an attitude that connected us, one not dissimilar to that of Wolfe’s Eugene Gant. Both of us — Jeff, for whom things were always black and white, clear-cut, and I, for whom this trip had been a welcome relief from dithering, uncertainty, aborted plans, and closet nightmares — both of us fancied ourselves “gods in exile,” sharing a feeling of self-importance laughable in retrospect, but forgivable in a young person setting out in life.
We both appreciated that this job we had set ourselves was not only a physical challenge, but one of constant escape, constant self re-invention. Not put upon by the unfinished tasks of the static life, we were freed to flee, again and again, from rootedness. At every stop, every town, village and hamlet, we could, parasite-like, extract the essence of the place, free of any duty or obligation but to live our role of “traveler … adventurer,” our mildly risky task giving my normally staid self a welcome whiff of iconoclasm, the always-changing scene providing Jeff new ears for his jokes and stories.
That these jokes and stories would become a bit tired to my ears, or that Jeff’s over-the-top gregariousness would leave me longing once more solitude were events in the future, that night in Damascus. On that pleasant summer evening, I was looking forward to sharing my journey with a companion.
Embracing the fine weather, Jeff and I both elected to camp outdoors, rather than sleep in the house. I had become quite comfortable sleeping in my little bivy sack, an orange waterproof shelter just large enough for my sleeping bag. Folded into its stuff sack, it was very tiny and light, making it ideal for a trip such as this. On a night such as this, I could dispense with the rain fly, and fall asleep looking up through the mesh at the vast sky and stars above.
