Category: Cycling Cross Country

Setting off tired, as had been the case of late, I took the shortcut of which I’d been informed, cutting through some little-traveled countryside. Don from Kentucky had told me that there was only one serious pass to be conquered going this way (and avoiding Dooley Mt.), but I counted at least four good climbs on the route, the last of which, Dixie Mt., resulted in a beautiful downhill ride into Prairie City.

The top of the mountain was piney and pretty, like the Oregon I had remembered from Boy Scout days. Recently we’ve had not only nice days but warm ones, and I rode shirtless for the first time in many statees during my post-lunch jaunt from Prairie City to John Day.

I called Mother from John Day, and bought a bicycling hat with a Coors logo for $6 at the decent bike shop there. The fellow also adjusted my seat so that I was it was no longer endangering my manhood.

A few miles farther on I found the Clyde Halliday campground, where the mother of a family invited me to share their camping spot for free. It would have only cost me 50 cents anyway, but 50 cents saved is 50 cents earned!

I went into Mt. Vernon proper to call Arthur’s mom and tell her that I’ll likely be to the coast by Sunday night. She said I sounded “lousy,” asked if I had a cold, and said Art might not be able to make it until Monday. We agreed that I would go to the post office in Reedsport on Sunday and, if Art wasn’t there, I would call his mom again.

It was clear that the machines were conspiring against me in this particular laundromat in Baker City. I had wasted two dimes on a dryer which previously worked. Then the Coke machine, apparently out of cups, spewed orange drink all over the floor.

I had arrived in Baker City about 3:30 p.m., completely blown away. I couldn’t recall any time during the trip when I had felt so exhausted after 30 miles of riding. I had climbed to my mail stop at Halfway (actually only about a quarter of the day’s ride), where I got a letter from Jenny. She included a clipping about how to ship a bicycle, a timely reminder.

Then, it was downhill to Rockland. Then, nothing but uphill for the last 40 miles into Baker City, all of it into a steady headwind.

I didn’t expect to find it so difficult to get motivated over these last days, they have been the most difficult so far. I figure I have about 450 miles to go.

Oregon thus far looks a lot like Wyoming. I’m looking forward to the more temperate rain-forested western half of the state.

I just made it into Oregon, spending the night camped somewhere along the Snake River (the border between the two states) near Copperfield.

Feeling none too peppy in the a.m., starting out, I covered the 30 or so miles into Cambridge by about noon where, questing for a place to eat, I saw another bike parked in front of the local cafe. Yet another Bostonian proved to be the rider. I never got his name, but learned that he had started from the Oregon coast and hoped to get to the Virginia coast by mid-October. He was pretty green; I had to show him how to use his pump! He was also riding a Fuji Royale, but it seemed like a rather small size for his 5′ 8” frame …only 21”. I hope for his sake that his legs don’t get a little cramped a long time before he hits the East Coast. He didn’t remember having met Jeff, which means he probably didn’t; Jeff is hard to forget.

After members of the Bikecentennial group caught up with me in Cambridge, I hurriedly left town. It was a long hard pull uphill for a while, but then a lot of downhill. As I wended my way along a narrow road beside the Snake River, I suddenly became aware that I was in the infamous Hell’s Canyon until I saw a sign to that effect. They’ve set up a lot of free campgrounds along the rive, perhaps a concession to conservationists bitching about all the dead fish in the river.

The entrance into Oregon was unspectacular, unmarked, and when I reached it I was ready to call it a day, but was forced to ride 11 more miles to find a campground. I got there just before the rain did. Football player, son, and Gramps returned to their tents next door and used the rain delay as an opportunity to pepper me with questions.

I retreated to my tent. As I lay there, the rain subsiding, another cyclist appeared. He was, I learned, Don, from Kentucky. He rode a Trek bearing front and rear panniers, wore jeans with Avocet bike shoes, and had just ridden 120 miles. He started in California, and is headed for Missoula. He had a tough exterior, but was a sweet guy. I was interested to learn that his dad made rocking chairs for a living.

At this point, Football and co. got more interested and invited us over to their campfire for beers. Don did most of the talking, more from discomfort than because of any natural garrulousness, it appeared to me, and we retired at 11:30.

A sample expenses list from a day on the road:

• food: apple, orange, sardines, bread, chewing tobacco $2.50
• cheeseburger, salad and pie a la mode at cafe $3.25
• lodging $2,00
• Total $7.75

It’s interesting that I grouped chewing tobacco with food. I definitely considered it a staple; it’s narcotic effects helped to power me along over many long and boring miles.

I took part in a photo session this morning with Greg Siples, one of the Bikecentennial group overseers at White Bird. He was one of the cartographers for the B.C. map set, and has personally accomplished many feats of derring-do on a bike, including a trip from Alaska to the tip of Sourth America.

Greg, joined me, snapping photos of me and the scenery, as I rode up out of the Salmon River Gorge at 7 a.m. today, the sunlight peeking over the tops of those weird grass-covered mounds that are common to the area, but unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere. They are so sculptural and organic-looking, almost animate, certainly sensuous.

There was little traffic on the way into Riggins, 30 miles down the road, but I was hating the Sunday riding, just like I have every week of this trip. There’s only more left. I don’t quite what this feeling is about. Sundays are lonelier somehow. Most stores aren’t closed on Sunday, so the problem isn’t the absence of commerce. I wonder if Sundays feel lonelier in the U.S. than they do in other countries. That’s the kind of question that only Walkder Percy and I seem to have an interest in.

Before I entered Riggins, the time zone changed again, back to Mountain, so I lost that hour I’d gained going over Lolo Pass.

One annoying aspect of the B.C. route is the way it takes one so far north (to Missoula) before heading south again to enter Oregon. I’m almost finished with the southward backtracking, but I’ve paid the price. As ever, on this second half of the trip, it’s been the winds, not the mountains, that have been the more challenging. Today I fought wind almost continuously, but especially from Riggins onward. How maddening. Most of it was uphill too.

North of New Meadows runs the 45th parallel, marking the half-way point between the equator and the North Pole, or so said the sign I passed.

The campground was nice, but it cost $2. In my opinion, that was $2 too much for a National Forest campgrounds.

At the end of the day, I, about to complete two months of this epic voyage, and on the verge of entering my tenth and final state, I reflected on states past. The states from Kansas onward left marks on my mind in ways that Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri did not.

Kansas — I kept hearing a haunting melody and seeing a storm-torn sky, infinite in size, raging over the gently-swaying fields of wheat. It’s a dull, sun-scorched land, yet generous, still something like the soul of America and, at night, awesome, with a horizon to horizon sky like a tear in the curtain separating us from the beyond. Distances are too far to even bother with, and the imprecision of man’s calculations brings him up short agains the force of the land’s inhuman size and scope.

Colorado — Ah, the Rockies! Sunny days in pure, thin air, and Coors beer all around. This is the new American, the mountain man reborn as Fitness Man.

Wyoming — Butte me no buttes, skeletons in Bell helmets notwithstanding, the moon can be a beautiful place. The Tetons are beyond words, and Yellowstone is too majestic to be diminished by even the most annoying tourists.

Idaho was harder to summarize. But it was beautiful for sure .. and wild.

Tomorrow I’m off and running into Oregon.

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.

Good boy Alex. Back up to near 100 miles a day.

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.