Home Page
The Trip
Why bother & selling the idea
The Route
Why East to West
Some Highlights
The Trike
The Trice Explorer
Why a Recumbent Trike
How it Behaved
Tyres and Punctures
Fitting the sunshade
Logistics
Luggage
Getting There & Back
Trip Log
Links:
FARM Africa
Adventure Cycling (Maps etc)
ICE (The trike manufacturers)
Larry Black (recumbent dealer)
An ex Vietnam POW
“Do you do much touring on that?” This was the opening gambit from a man who cycled up just as I had had my photo taken by a passing stranger on the waterfront in St Augustine, the night before setting out.
It turned out that the boat in the background of my photo was his. He has spent the last 20 years sailing around the world, sometimes with as much as 6 continuous months at sea. And he was planning a layover while the hurricane season finished, before heading south. He bought his boat when he returned from Vietnam having been a POW for 14 months and being given up for dead. He had been piloting a medical chopper when he was shot down.
His bike, which travelled with him on the boat, was a very old single speed French machine; he explained that his only other companion was a life sized Japanese doll. (This part of the conversation was not pursued!).
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A fellow cyclist & his estranged wife
On my third day I met a couple (I’ll call them Kate and Sam) in a bike shop while asking about local accommodation. Sam, who had earlier that year done a 5,000 mile trip offered me a bed for the night but I declined because it would have meant cycling 8 miles back the way I had come and then a further 8 miles the next morning. (Writing this now I wonder what my problem was!, but at the time one is very reluctant to retrace one’s steps). Twenty minutes after they had left, the owner of the bike shop took a call from Sam saying that if I was still interested he would come and collect me and the trike in his truck, and then drop me back in the morning. Only a fellow cyclist could really understand the need to do that on a 3000 mile trip!
And so we spent a very pleasant evening together where I learned about their trial, and friendly, separation which had started after he returned from his 3 month cycling trip. It seems that he still has wanderlust while she wants to settle down. After a very enjoyable time together I said goodbye to Kate as she lived in town and good night to Sam, only to find them both there the next morning. They are a great couple and I hope that might have been the start of a coming together...
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Learning about Creation over Breakfast
Two days later I was in a B&B (this wonderful view was from a different B&B in La Mesilla in New Mexico) run by a charming couple who had spent a fortune renovating their house, once an old hotel, in a very small town. They weren’t listed in Adventure Cycling’s details, I found them by chance. I was the only guest and we had dinner and breakfast together – the latter being an extended affair since it was raining and we were engaged in earnest conversation following on from the previous evening. They are committed Christians and take the bible literally – from Adam and Eve to the flood. Now I imagine that there are many people who share these views, but not many of them will be nuclear scientists with responsibility for quality assurance of nuclear power stations. My host was a semi-retired scientist and a very straightforward individual with the logic to support his views. When I asked him how old he believes our planet to be, he answered “no older than 10,000 years”. Our debate made quite an impression.
Before each of our two meals an elaborate grace was said, including a prayer for my safe passage, for which many thanks, and they told how on one occasion one of the children asked if they could say grace – “are you feeling holy today?” asked one of the parents – “No, just hungry!”.
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My famous friend Larry Black
Made a detour the following day to buy some spare tubes from Ed who builds recumbents in a business called Fools Crow. Turns out that he is the second person I’ve met in two days that knows Larry Black of Maryland. Larry sold me our recumbent tandem, a Rans Screamer, and started my interest in trikes when we visited him last spring. He has an amazing collection of bikes of all sorts and specialises in recumbents, and later on in the trip he bailed me out when I needed spare tyres shipping to me by organising the Schwable dealer for me. His site is well worth a visit on www.bike123.com
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Dogs
We cyclists love them dearly. And most of the cyclists I met had some harrowing stories of large aggressive dogs left off their leashes in the more remote areas. I had taken the precaution of investing in a “Dog Dazer” before I left home; it emits a high frequency noise that we can’t hear and dogs don’t like. Gives you enough time to move on while the dog figures out what is happening. The first time I used I was being pursued by 2 angry dogs at high speed and I gave then a 5 second burst from the gadget. The result was wonderful. One of the dogs looked around at his mate and snarled “what did you say?”, to which his mate replied “I didn’t say anything, what did YOU say?”. By the time they had resolved this canine situation I was long gone. A great little gadget, apparently used by the US Postal service, which supposedly is in an even bigger mess than our Post Office here in the UK; but they do know and love Lance Armstrong. And talking of Lance, the route goes through the Texas Hill Country which is one of his training grounds, and with good reason!
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Cycling the perimeter of the USA at 65
Just short of my first camp site I met Mitch and Nancy Toto. He was a week short of completing an 11,500 mile ride around the circumference of the US on behalf of a charity, and had been on the road for 5 months. At age 65 he was seriously looking forward to a rest! Nancy was driving the support vehicle and somewhere in the US is a piece of video of Mitch and I exchanging experiences; Nancy was taping the whole trip and must have more video footage than she knows what to do with!
Mitch was the first cyclist I met and it was great to exchange views and draw comfort from other’s experiences. The second such meeting was very frustrating – he (an Alaskan in his 20s) was getting off the ferry over the Mississippi as I was getting on. You now know as much about him as I do!
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Checking into the wrong end of town
The night before my longest day of 101 miles, I had an experience I was not keen to repeat. Just after checking in I had a brief conversation with a young woman. When I enquired where the nearest restaurant was she answered that there was one in her room; and when I then said that I would cycle down the road to find somewhere she asked if she could talk to me when I got back! Being a very happily married man, and not in anyway fancying another exchange with the woman (almost a girl) or her companions, I was pleased to return under cover of darkness and make it into my motel room unnoticed. However..... at 1:00 in the morning there was a loud knocking on my door which continued on and off for a couple of minutes, and, after no response from me, was followed by a promise that “I’ll be back”. And back he/she came – at 4:00am with a repeat of the same performance. Meantime I had wedged the trike between door and bed!
At 6:00 the next morning I loaded the trike with all its baggage before opening the door to find two men sitting on the pavement outside. “If you are checking out early, can we make use of your room between now and checkout time?” With a swift “It’s not mine to give”, the door was locked behind me and I was off, making a mental note to be a little more selective about where I stay in future!
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The lady who stopped the rain
Have you ever wished you could stop the rain, or have someone do it for you? At breakfast one day in Mississippi when I was talking to some local farmers, the owner of the café came over and asked me if I would sign her book as she liked to keep a record of foreign visitors. In exchange, I asked her if she would stop the rain, which was forecast to continue for two days. We both laughed, and then 15 minutes later when I was leaving I met her coming in with a large container of salt I her hand – “just remembered an old Mississippi custom; I’ve drawn a circle of salt on the ground with a cross in the middle of it - that should do the trick for you!”.
Well, 20 minutes later the waterproofs came off and it was dry for the rest of the day! When I told this story down the road in Louisiana, they asked where this had happened – “those Mississippi rednecks!”. Tell this to a Californian and they will, of course, explain that this is the kettle calling the pot black! (For the record, I was subsequently told that this is an old American Indian custom).
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Courteous drivers + the Louisiana Wave
With one exception – a “Louisiana wave” from a motorist who had just passed me (having given me a wide berth) – I was treated with great respect and courtesy. On the back roads most drivers would wave; a number of people stopped their cars, or me, to talk; and I got a number of offers of help when I was parked by the roadside, one driver even doing a U turn to make sure I was OK. At all times I felt comfortable and in the event of a problem am sure that I could have summoned help from the first vehicle that came along.
On one occasion I was negotiating the mud left on the road from the farm trucks taking sugar cane to market when a huge, burly fellow called out “whoa, just you wait a minute”. He walked over, and as he loomed over me he called to his three mates to join him. When I was completely surrounded, a fifth man could take a group photo!
I took a hired satellite phone with me to appease the family, but the only time it was used was to request help for motorists who had broken down!
(The Louisiana Wave is the term that some people used to define someone giving you the finger; I must say that I prefer the elegance of the American description).
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Recycling & Energy Consumption (A personal rant)
This photo is a nice example of how to do it! Re-cycling that is. Having time to think, observe and discuss as one does on a long trip like this, you see things in a different light, and although these next comments apply to America, I am very conscious of the old proverb about people in glass houses...
The topic of re-cycling bubbles quietly below the surface, with number of articles in local papers about the need to get on the case. I also met people who are very sensitive to the excessive energy consumption in the country. But try a continental breakfast in your average motel and you will come away appalled – everything is disposable, from flatware (knives etc) to bowls to jam containers. It may make for low staff costs but the costs of energy to make and transport the items, followed by the landfill implications are ignored.
And talking of energy, I was amazed at the quantity of ice that is produced every day. Even your gas station that no longer sells gas because the town is dead, has bottles of beer and coke in a huge vat of ice all day long. I realise that in the deep south you need all the help you can get to survive the heat, but it don’t come free.
America is an amazingly convenient place to cycle – you can get most things almost anywhere (although there are occasional stretches of 100 miles or so on Adventure Cycling’s route which have nothing at all), and at first you revel in it. Then you begin to ask how many trucks this apple has been in to reach you, whether anything is grown and sold locally anymore.
And then you ask what will happen when the next energy crisis arrives (I was in the States in 1973 when there were long lines for gas and you could only fill up on alternate days). This time it is going to be much worse because the country is so highly linked to the trucking industry. Costs of products will go up to reflect increased gasoline and the people who will suffer the most will be the rural poor. They have to have a vehicle to get to work and to shop and the extra cost of gasoline will take a huge slice of their disposable income.
I guess what was encouraging about this whole issue is that a lot of the people I talked to shared the same views and believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. I misquoted Churchill a number of times:
“America has the wonderful ability to do the right thing – after it has tried all the wrong things” because I believe the US does have an amazing ability to fix things once it decides to do so – witness the clean up of the rivers and cars in the 70s driven by Ralph Nader’s lobbying. I guess we just have to be patient.
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Expectations
One of the cyclists that I met just short of Austin, expounded the theory that when you expect the day to be hard it’s not; and when you expect an easy day you get ambushed by the weather or the bike. And of course some of the time that’s exactly what happens, and eventually I learned to take it as it comes in a relaxed way.
But I was disappointed when I finally got to see the Rio Grande! I had been shadowing it along the Mexican border for some days, with the Border Patrol in their 4x4s everywhere, and when I got to El Paso I took the opportunity to cross the bridge into Mexico. It’s a stream! Just like this picture which was taken several miles later; I felt decidedly cheated – next time I visit when it’s in full spate.
The aforementioned cyclist was travelling in a giant “U” from New York, down the east coast, across the Southern Tier and then up to San Francisco. At the age of 23 he spent 7 months walking 5000 miles around the US and Canada sleeping on farms when he could. Now at the age of 30 something he was on his first bike trip trying to determine what he wants to do when he grows up. I told him that at 60 I still hadn’t answered that one!
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American Hospitality
Open and generous people these Americans. On a number of occasions people would buy me lunch or press a few dollars into my hand. On one occasion in Texas I got talking to a family while waiting in line to be seated in a restaurant and they invited me to join them in celebrating their 11 year old’s birthday. In a lovely town called Silver City I was bought dinner in the evening and then lunch the next day – the former by a BBC Radio 4 producer who was on holiday with her partner, and the latter by a cyclist who I met as I left my hotel.
In Marathon I was invited by a retired cancer surgeon and his son to join them and their partners for a wonderful BBQ steak at the son’s house. We had a great evening with some robust conversation about Iraq, Israel, guns, energy. They were representative of so many of the people that I met – open minded, well informed, keen to debate the issues and curious about how the rest of the world sees them. And the majority felt strongly that the US should be in step with the UN on Iraq.
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