LIFE IS A WHEEL BRUCE WEBER LOVE, DEATH, ETC., AND A BIKE RIDE ACROSS AMERICA. New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi SCRIBNER

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1 LIFE IS A WHEEL LOVE, DEATH, ETC., AND A BIKE RIDE ACROSS AMERICA BRUCE WEBER SCRIBNER New York London Toronto Sydney New Dehi Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 3

2 Contents Part One The West 1 Everything Up to the Beginning 3 2 The Geyser Effect 37 3 Biy Saad Joseph 53 4 The Horse Doesn t Think It s a Rea Cow 72 5 Pie 90 6 Downhi From Here If I Were Your Father Lost in the West Nowhere Is Nowhere 150 Part Two American Guiver 10 My War: Bike Pirates and an Armadio The President of the United States 190 Part Three The East, Eventuay 12 My Country Head Games What if...? The Wet Guy Life Is an Etch A Sketch Time and Distance 294 Epiogue: An Actua Thing 323 Acknowedgments 335 vii Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 7

3 PART ONE The West Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 1

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5 1 Everything Up to the Beginning Sunday, Juy 10, 2011, New York City Like you, I m growing od. It s harder to remember things, especiay good things, the things I want to remember, not so much because my mind is diminishing (hod the jokes, okay?), but because they happened onger ago than they ever did before. Days seem more aike than they used to, probaby because there is an ever-mounting tota of them and it s hard to keep them distinct. This happens to everyone, I know, but I think it s worse for peope who work at a newspaper, as I do, because our work product greets us each day, steady as a metronome, with the date pastered across the top of the front page. Tick. Tick. It s reentess Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., week after week; Juy 9, Juy 10, Juy , 2011, Egads. How ong can this go on? This week is my twenty-fifth anniversary at the New York Times. Twenty-five years! And, as it happens, for the ast three of them I ve been writing obituaries. Every day, thinking about... we, you know. So, here s what I m doing about it. Eighteen years ago this summer, I rode a bicyce, soo, across the United States and wrote about it for the newspaper. Starting next weekend, when I fy from New York to Portand, Oregon, and turn back around on two whees, I be trying to do it again. 3 Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 3

6 4 LIFE IS A WHEEL I say trying. This is not modest so much as carefu, certainy a function of being fifty-seven, my age now, and not thirty-nine, as I was when I embarked the ast time, bithey certain of mysef and without any of the quams that are now weighing down the saddebags in my mind. In short, I had no concept of the ength and arduousness of what ay in front of me. Every chaenge cimbing the Rockies, for exampe, or persisting through the shadeess, sunbaked pains of South Dakota, or ratting over the cod-heave cracks aong highways in Idaho and Minnesota that made riding a bike as comfortabe as siding down a mies-ong washboard on my ass was essentiay a surprise, and perseverance is, after a, easier for the poory informed. This time I know exacty how hard I m going to be working. Does that make me nervous? Sure. Excited, too. Among other things, assuming I do persevere, I be spending a summer and part of a fa argey outdoors, something New Yorkers in genera (and obituary writers in particuar) rarey get to do. But mosty it be a chance to reive we, maybe that s the wrong word to revisit an adventure I d thought, at the time, was a once-ony, ast-chance, now-or-never thing. I suppose I can concude that I m younger than I thought I d be at this age. Sti, a ot has happened since I ast did this, and I expect the trip wi give me the opportunity to mu things over. Experientia bookends ike this encourage you to take stock, don t they? Add up the ife detais? Off the top of my head, here s a quick summary: Both of my parents died. My brother had a son. I survived some bad episodes of depression and anxiety, but eventuay ended twenty years of therapy and fet better for it. I moved to Chicago and back to New York. I spent four years as a theater critic. I wrote a book two, actuay, if you count the short one for kids. Much to my surprise, I deveoped an affinity for country music. I traveed on a bicyce in Costa Rica, New Zeaand, Itay, Ireand, France, and Vietnam where I was arrested and spent a night in jai. A handfu of sincere and serious ove affairs began and ended. I renovated my apartment. Twice. So what do you think? How am I doing? Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 4

7 Everything Up to the Beginning 5 * * * Party because of my job, party by incination, I m far better traveed within the United States than outside it. I ve actuay crossed the country a number of times by means other than a bicyce, the first time in 1973 as a hitchhiker, just for the he of it, after I d dropped out of coege. In 2006, whie I was working on a book about umpires in professiona baseba, I drove from Forida to Arizona during spring training and, when the major eague teams (and the umpires) dispersed to start the season, back to New York. Not ong ago, I went to a conference in Caifornia and, instead of fying back, I rented a car and retraced much of the bicyce route I took in One satisfying highight: the Bates Mote, in Vae, Oregon, near the Idaho border, where I coudn t resist staying overnight back then I even took a shower! was sti there. (Need I expain to younger readers that a fictiona Bates Mote Anthony Perkins, proprietor was the scene of the crime in Afred Hitchcock s Psycho?) The cross-country trek has aways appeaed to me because as a New Yorker with a New Yorker s bias and even worse, a Manhattanite s I find much of America exotic. After a, New York may be the nation s greatest city, but it isn t representative. You don t need me to count the differences, but an especiay pertinent one is that New York is a vertica pace and America isn t. To trave on the ground from sea to sea is to have a proud encounter with its horizontaity. Even in a car, each crossing of a state border is a singuar triumph because the passage through the previous state has been earned. At ground eve you measure a state s actua breadth with your tires, you ro over its topography and ive in its weather. When you cick past the far border, you put the experience of the state in your pocket for safekeeping and reference. Of course, crossing the country by bicyce is to fee these things in the extreme, and the absorption of ong distances on the road has aways fet, to me, ike the quaifying exam for some enhanced form of citizenship. Even if you wanted to, you coudn t reay avoid andmarks and cutura shrines on my ast trip across I hit Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 5

8 6 LIFE IS A WHEEL Yeowstone Nationa Park; Litte Big Horn; Devi s Tower, the remarkabe rock formation in Wyoming that was featured in Cose Encounters of the Third Kind; the Badands; the Judy Garand museum in her hometown, Grand Rapids, Minnesota; De Smet, South Dakota, where Laura Ingas Wider spent her teenage years and set five books of her Litte House series; Highway 61, the Minnesota highway aong Lake Superior that inspired a Bob Dyan song; the Mt Shasta restaurant on the Upper Peninsua of Michigan, where much of the great Otto Preminger movie Anatomy of a Murder, the forerunner of so many courtroom thriers, was fimed; Niagara Fas; the Finger Lakes; Cooperstown, New York, home of the Nationa Baseba Ha of Fame & Museum on the shores of Lake Otsego, a.k.a. Gimmergass, the region inhabited by James Fenimore Cooper s Deersayer; and Hyde Park, Frankin Roosevet s hometown not to mention the Bates Mote. An impressive ist, right? I haven t considered before the string-ofsignifiers aspect of these ong rides. But it s true, you peda and peda and every now and then more often than that, reay, intermittenty and unexpectedy you find yoursef in a pace where something has happened, something of interest beyond itsef, that has made a distinct mark in history or geography or cuture, that heps describe the country, the known word, in some sma but crucia way. Connect the dots on a bike ride the way I did then, the way I m ooking forward to doing again in the coming weeks, and you fee ike the owner of a tiny, private sice of it a. Party for that reason, one of the strongest ingering memories of my ast trip was how it fired up my patriotic instinct. You can t gobbe up the nation, mie by mie on your own power, without assimiating a sense of its greatness. You can t pass through the Badands on a bike in ninety-five-degree heat, for exampe, and not fee some sense of proprietorship: you re proud of yoursef and proud of the pace, too. It reay is a weird andscape the Badands, I mean ike another panet come to rest on earth with the spectacuar cones and spiras of ancient sediment deposits rising from the prairie. You think, or at east I did, Coo beans! I crossed that sucker! It s mine! Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 6

9 Everything Up to the Beginning 7 And you can t encounter other Americans iving ives competey different from your own without being reminded of what you share. A conversation I had in Canby, Caifornia, has stuck with me. Canby is in Modoc County in the northeast corner of the state on a pateau of roing ranchand fitted among mountain ranges to the east, west, and south, and a desert to the north. I d ridden through the pine-forested Sierras to get there, and it was probaby the first time, of many that woud foow, that I was taken by how much space there sometimes is between actua paces (paces you d find peope, that is) and by the marveous vistas that the few who ived in the region ived with. I remember thinking, as I pued into town after twenty mies of eary-morning riding, that whereas I see water tanks on the tops of buidings every day from my bedroom window, the quotidian backdrop of the ives of Modoc residents features deep back akes, grass, and scruband stretching toward foothi, and, in the distance, the snowy peak of Mount Lassen. (I ve come to think of the water-tank view as the screensaver of my ife; now there s a metaphor that I didn t have at my disposa in 1993.) I stopped for breakfast at the Canby Hote, whose sign featured the carved outine of a steer s head. A photo I found onine recenty shows the hote and sign are sti there, with the addition of a hand-drawn wooden pacard eaning against a teephone poe and decaring the pace to be the home of the word-famous Modoc-burger. Anyway, I remember the mea I had pork chops and eggs and the proprietor, a man named Charie who ooked ike the od actor Mevyn Dougas as he appeared in the movie Hud. Pretty country, I said to him. Yeah, we, country s a we got, he repied. He spoke in a resigned, ow-voume grow that I recognized; he coud have been a city cabdriver compaining about crosstown traffic. Canby, Caifornia that s another point. Entertaining the idea of a cross-country bike trip, most peope think about the ength of it, and because of that the endess stretches of empty road spanning vast swaths of the country, especiay in the West, the distances between paces instead of the paces themseves. But there are towns, too, so Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 7

10 8 LIFE IS A WHEEL many towns aong the way; you can t beieve how many towns, dozens for sure, maybe hundreds, and each one you pass through represents dozens, maybe hundreds of others you don t get to see. Each eaves a trace of itsef in your memory. A ot of them make an effort to do so. The wecome signs that greet visitors to many, many paces in this country are touching testaments to oca pride. Nyssa, Oregon, for instance, on the Idaho border (not far from the Bates Mote, actuay), cas itsef rather duy the gateway to the Oregon Trai, but aso more coorfuy, the Thunderegg Capita of the Word. (Thundereggs are geoogic formations, most of them about the size of basebas, that ook ike rocks on the outside but siced open revea intricate patterns of agate.) In Michigan, Onaway is the state s sturgeon capita, Atanta is its ek capita, Fairview the wid turkey capita. I shoud have made a ist of the towns I passed through ast time. (I wi this time.) But I remember a ot of them we, some of them: Wagontire, Oregon, popuation two, for instance, on the high desert in the southeast quadrant of the state, maybe eighty-five mies from the cosest town of any size. (That woud be Lakeview, to the south, which is known for its eevation 4,798 feet as the Taest Town in Oregon, and, with 7,000-foot promontories outside of town, as a hangout for hang giders.) Wagontire had a mote, café, genera store, and, across the road, a dirt runway with a windsock and a sign reading WAGONTIRE INTERNA- TIONAL AIRPORT. Loca recreationa piots woud and on the airstrip, taxi across the two-ane highway, and fi up at the gas station. A coupe named Bi and Ogie Warner owned the whoe pace when I went through (they were the popuation), and after seven years there they were ready to retire, buy an RV, and visit other paces, presumaby not as isoated as Wagontire. I was gad to have met them before they eft they were engaging foks with a good act, affecting an amiabe, henpecked husband weary wife routine, and they fed me very we. In 1998, they were evidenty sti there. Interviewed by the Medford (OR) Mai Tribune, Bi identified his wife as the mayor and chief of poice. Maybe I run next year, he said. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 8

11 Everything Up to the Beginning 9 On the TripAdvisor website, I found a customer s restaurant review of the Wagontire Café from 2003: Good home-stye food and good service in a dumpy-ooking itte café in the midde of nowhere. And I found another artice in the Mai Tribune from 2005 that identified a different coupe as the town s owners, saying a genera spiffing-up of the pace was in the offing. Not too ong ago, though, I passed through Wagontire again in a car and everything was cosed up. I stopped and poked around. The buidings were sti standing, a itte the worse for wear but not too terriby run-down. The airport sign was sti there. No more windsock, aas. About thirty mies down the road from Wagontire is a town caed Riey, whose popuation in 1993 was six. The guy who owned the café and gas station that made up the town was actuay named Riey Rich Riey though he said he hadn t named it after himsef; it aready had the name. (I ooked it up ater. Apparenty the name has been around since the nineteenth century; Amos Riey was a oca rancher back then.) Rich Riey, who ooked to be in his thirties, had been a truck driver in a previous professiona incarnation, and he expained to me that passing through town once, years earier, on his route, he had stopped to eat and a waitress in the café was rude to him. It stuck in his craw. So he returned at some point and bought the pace, panning to put her out of work. She was gone by the time he got there, he said, but when I met him he said he was sti hoping she d appy for a job. He did acknowedge that he iked the idea of owning a pace that aready had his name on it. He moved his famiy in; that was the popuation: six. After I ate in his café I m pretty sure it was pancakes he gave me a souvenir: the ratte off a rattesnake that had bitten him two years earier. I sti have it. I didn t stop in Riey on my recent drive through the area, so I don t know if Rich Riey is sti there. The café and post office are. One addition is a biboard just beyond them, reading: WHOA! YOU JUST MISSED RILEY! Bicycing makes you wonder about paces ike these in a way you woudn t otherwise. When you drive through a pace, the windshied Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 9

12 10 LIFE IS A WHEEL is a barrier against its reaity, the speed of the car a defense against memory. Hemingway, of a peope, once made that point: It is by riding a bicyce that you earn the contours of a country best, he wrote, since you have to sweat up the his and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actuay are, whie in a motorcar ony a high hi impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicyce. On a bike, the same thought crosses my mind often as I go through a town, mundane but nonetheess mind-bogging. A the time I ve been iving my ife in New York City, peope have been going about their business here, iving theirs. The options in the word! The size of this country and what s in it! New Yorkers tend to think of Americans esewhere as provincia, but we have a hard time recognizing our own provinciaity. That s something ese I earned on my previous cross-country ride. We share the country but not much ese. It s amazing, isn t it, how so many of us can have a coective experience and see it differenty? To put it another way, Americans may disagree about what it is that makes the country we share so fabuous, but we do seem to agree on its fabuousness. I embark this time with a itte ess deight and a itte more concern over a this. We are a more poarized popuace now, with hostiity hovering as our defaut nationa emotion. The big poitica issue in June 1993 was gays in the miitary. The officia Don t Ask, Don t Te poicy was enacted just a few months ater. Now, of course, it seems just about ready to be overturned* and we re carrying on about same-sex marriage, though why it bothers anyone except maybe a jited over that anyone ese wants to marry someone is beyond me. Issues evove, but it s hard to account for the evoution of our nationa temperament, with a ratcheted-up * Don t Ask, Don t Te was repeaed in September 2011, whie I was bicycing through Wisconsin. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 10

13 Everything Up to the Beginning 11 vehemence and impacabiity that strikes me (and a ot of other peope, too) as poisonous. When I pued into itte towns ike Canby and Wagontire in 1993, ooking for a diner, a mote, a mikshake, or a cod beer, not necessariy in that order, I was received, most often, with curiosity and warmth. And now? How we wi a compete stranger on two whees be wecomed in paces he s never visited before? It s teing, I think, that this time I ve had many peope ask me if I m carrying anything for protection. In the word I m used to iving in, the impication has generay meant a condom. At this point, I don t think that s what they mean. For the record, I m not carrying a knife or a gun or mace or any other weapon or any form of contraception, for that matter. What ese might be different? In 1993, neither ce phones nor persona computers were the ubiquitous human appendages they are today. The GPS was yet to be invented; I stopped at dozens of 7-Eevens aong the way for oca maps, which turned into a significant budget item. The stories I wrote for the newspaper about once a week were scribbed onghand in a notebook then I caed them in from a mote room or a roadside phone booth, reading them aoud into a tape recorder to be transcribed by a typist and passed aong to an editor. Quaint, right? The newspaper s recording room doesn t exist anymore. Among other things, this process kept me at a remove from the peope who were reading my work, not to mention from my friends and famiy. The series generated more mai than anything I d written before for the newspaper, but I had no idea of it unti I found the stack of etters on my desk when I got back. Peope reay iked the idea of the trip; they found it romantic and I think they were amused, earning where I was popping up from week to week but I didn t know that whie it was happening. Aside from other cycists I encountered on the road occasionay and the peope I interviewed aong the way, I pedaed aong in pretty much tota isoation unti the technoogy of the day teevision intervened. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 11

14 12 LIFE IS A WHEEL After a handfu of my newspaper coumns were pubished, the Today show on NBC sent a crew a producer, a cameraman, and a driver to meet me in Rapid City, South Dakota, and we spent a swetering day cruising side by side through the Badands, I on a bike, they in a van, the cameraman eaning out of an open door and taking endess fim of my churning feet. Some three weeks ater, Today broadcast its piece, which incuded a ive roadside interview with me on the outskirts of Atanta, in northcentra Michigan, conducted by Katie Couric. (On screen they speed my name wrong, it turns out, but that was another thing I didn t know unti I got home.) Twenty minutes or so after Katie signed off, I was pedaing aong when a station wagon passed me and screeched over to the shouder of the road, bocking my path. A woman got out tugging her sma son, six or eight years od, by the arm, and sung him toward me. May I take a picture of him with you? she asked. I was sti muing over the meaning of this when I stopped for breakfast at a restaurant in the next town. I waked in carrying my hemet, and the diners began appauding. For this trip, I be bogging reguary on the Times s website and sending out brief updates on Twitter, my first ever venture into socia media. We see how that goes; ike most reporters from the Peistocene era, I m curious about and fearfu of this in equa measure, not sure what I be inviting. The whoe reader-friendy aspect of onine journaism is something that reporters often discuss. We get a ot of hepfu stuff from readers who, with the convenience of emai, now write to us, and overa the cose scrutiny of our readership keeps us we warned about ever growing azy, but we re aso heaped with a ot of scorn, disparagement, and compaint from those who ive to pay gotcha, decry the incompetence or bias of the media, or simpy send maedictions into the word. Certainy one unexpected consequence of the cyber age is how much unprovoked venom it has et oose. Pandora ives on the web. * * * Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 12

15 Everything Up to the Beginning 13 Like ast time, I m starting in the West for two reasons because the prevaiing wind bows west to east (though expecting the wind to assist you is fooish) and because home is such a compeing destination. The idea of ceebrating the finish by putting my feet up on my own coffee tabe is irresistibe. In 1993, I started in Marin County, Caifornia, just north of the Goden Gate Bridge (which I actuay crossed the day before, just to be abe to say I did); this time I m pushing off farther up the Pacific Coast, riding initiay in Oregon and Washington. The pan is to stay north, mosty because it be cooer, and because the ony state I ve never set foot in is North Dakota; I want to fix that. (Fu discosure: My ony trespass in Hawaii was in the Honouu airport. I m counting it.) For some reason, I d ike to visit Lake Itasca, in Minnesota, the source of the Mississippi River. After that, we see. One concession I ve made to my age is a new bicyce, which I had custom-buit to my precise dimensions and for the precise purpose of this journey. It cost about as much as a good very good used car. Not to be coy: the price was about $8,000. As for other FAQs: I m estimating the trip to take three months, which wi bring me back to New York in time for the Word Series. The ast trip took seventy-five days; I m giving mysef an extra day for each year oder I ve gotten. The pan is to average three hundred mies a week, or fifty mies a day with one day off. A very doabe schedue, though there is a reentessness to it that I m certain wi become mentay as we as physicay taxing. I averaged about sixty-five mies a day ast time. I be seeping indoors. Against the possibiity that I be stuck without a roof a time or two, I be carrying a seeping bag and a tent, but if I never ever seep on the ground again, on this trip or afterward, I have gotten my wish. The theory is that if you carry an umbrea it won t rain. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 13

16 14 LIFE IS A WHEEL Yes, I have thought about the obvious physica question: Can my body hande this? Here s my sef-assessment: I m in reasonaby good heath and reasonaby good shape for someone getting cose to sixty. I get to the gym most mornings. (In my opinion, given the amount of time I ve spent exercising over the years, I shoud have a much better physique than I do.) I drink a itte too much bourbon is my chief vice but I don t eat many sweets. A year ago, I rode a rigorous tour in New Zeaand, somewhere north of three hundred mies in six days, incuding some pretty vertica terrain, so I m not starting from a pace of utter weakness or ineptitude. I m six one, and I weigh just about 190, precisey my weight when I began my trip in (I finished at 176.) A that is mosty to the good. So is the fact that I quit smoking three months before the 1993 trip, but it has been ten years this time. On the other hand, my knees aren t great; they haven t been since I tore an anterior cruciate igament paying basketba in grad schoo. I ve ong since given that up. Tennis, too. Don t even pay much softba anymore. I have gout, a coupe of episodes a year for the ast ten or so, though medication keeps the severity down. A tendon in my right foot is degenerating, and about haf the time it hurts when I wak. Last year, tendinitis in my eft ebow kept me from straightening my arm for about a month. I have tinnitus persistent ringing in my ears the resut of some i-advised scuba essons in the Caribbean a coupe of winters ago. I now take medication daiy for acid refux, which caused an irritation in the back of my throat that gave me a persistent, and occasionay debiitating, cough off and on for more than a year. Three years ago, I had surgery to reattach the retina in my right eye and a subsequent aser procedure to repair a tear in the retina in my eft; we caught that one before it detached. My eyesight has never been much to brag about and it is now fuzzier than ever. I ve worn gasses for nearsightedness since I was six and once had an optometrist try to persuade me to wear contact enses and gasses at the same time. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 14

17 Everything Up to the Beginning 15 This spring I was diagnosed with cervica spina stenosis a narrowing of the spina cord in my neck, which pinched a nerve and sent throbbing pains into my eft shouder and upper arm. It was treated with steroid injections cervica steroida epiduras, in medica parance and, knock on wood, it fees better. The standard joke is that I m both perfecty heathy and faing apart, and my doctors have pretty much confirmed this. The eye surgeon tod me that nearsighted peope are seriousy at risk for retina detachment after fifty. I asked the doctor who heped me with my neck probems what caused them. Gravity, he said. Most men my age are at risk for stenosis. He s exacty my age and he has it, he said. Last month I went to my ong-time internist for a fu physica, just to make sure a cross-country bike trip was ony a itte crazy, not entirey insane. I said I thought I d had an unusua string of irritating probems, and she aughed. It s a short ist, she said. Beieve me. What about the bike trip? Did she want to tak me out of it? Woud she? She aughed again. No such uck. Before I go, I need to mention two peope who have been cose to me for decades but who have ony recenty, and with starting urgency, become part of the story of this trip. The first is Jan Benze, whom I met in the Times newsroom twentyfive years ago, but who is now, remarkaby, suddeny, my girfriend. I guess it happened over a ong time you know what I mean by it but it aso happened a at once, on a trip to Provence (yes, on bicyces) that we took together in May. I can t beieve my uck. The second is my odest friend, Bi Joseph, whom I ve known since we were ten-year-od Litte Leaguers and who is dying of cancer. I went to see him ast week in Los Angees, where he is being cared for by his exwife and suffering in front of his young chidren. I can t beieve his uck. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 15

18 16 LIFE IS A WHEEL Sigh. I suppose every midife reckoning story is impicity about the idea of impermanence and teeters between the poes of ove and death. I didn t pan mine to be itera in that regard, but I be bringing both Jan and Biy with me, of course. Don t do it, Biy said to me ast week about the trip. Everyone who s known him forever sti cas him Biy. You did it once, he said. You don t have anything to prove. It s too dangerous, he said. For her part, Jan just wishes she coud come aong, though she knows even if she coud arrange it, I woudn t et her. I know, I know, she said the other night, though she added a good point, that we re getting started ate, that we ve aready had our time apart. Tick. Tick. Tuesday, Juy 12, New York City A bicycist not in possession of his bicyce is at sixes and sevens. Mine, brand-new, custom-made, after ony about sixty-five mies of test driving here in New York City, is now winging its way, via FedEx, to Portand, Oregon, where I pick it up on Monday. In the meantime, ike a bereft parent missing a chid, I m happy to te you about it. First of a, it s red, rather dashingy so, though with a boxy profie, not terriby seek. It doesn t ook ike an aerodynamicay contemporary machine, which was a bit disappointing to me, but it s what I asked for, durabiity before aesthetics, and anyway, the more I ook at it, the better I ike its simpicity, its unadorned form. There is something tankike about it; it emanates sturdiness. On a ride through the city the other day my friend Bobby Ba, riding behind me, reported that it remained uncommony erect on the road, with none of the anging away from upright to the right and eft, back and forth, that most bikes effect as their riders stroke their pedas. Even so, compared with the bike I rode across the country eighteen years ago, it s a featherweight. Before the addition of a rack, handebar basket, ights, water Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 16

19 Everything Up to the Beginning 17 botte cages, bike computer, or any uggage, it weighed just a shade over twenty pounds. I m an experienced cycist, though not an expert one. Or maybe a better distinction is that I m an experienced rider but not a fuy committed cycist that is, one of those peope who ives in Bikeand, who proudy decares himsef with the ugy spandex appare, who speaks in the ingo of brand names and component parts. I ove bicyces when I m on one, not generay otherwise okay, I m a diettante meaning I can sense when something is wrong but generay can t fix it. Change a tire, restore a sipped chain, or tighten a brake cabe? Sure. Repace a spoke, true a whee? Uh-uh. I know what a headset and a deraieur are, I think, but I m not going to risk my credibiity by trying to prove it. When I decided to give mysef the advantage of a custom-buit bike for this trip, I put mysef in the hands of the erudite speciaists at NYC Veo, a shop ocated in the East Viage of Manhattan and aso deep in Bikeand. The proprietor, Andrew Crooks, measured and interviewed me for over an hour the first of severa conversations before the bike was designed, the frame buit, and the components chosen. The crucia info: I wanted straight-across handebars we, didn t want them, exacty, but promised my physiatrist I d get them. (Physiatrist, what a word! So exotic-sounding I m amost proud to need one a nerve, musce, and bone speciaist who treats injuries.) He was worried about the pinched nerve in my neck and didn t want me spending weeks with my head tited back and my neck contracted. Andrew aso brought up the idea that I was going to spend a ot of money on this bike and that I woud want it to be, very ikey, the ast one I ever bought. When the trip was over, he said, I woudn t want to be riding a bike that was buit ony for ong-distance touring and carrying extra weight and that coudn t be a itte bit frisky on a casua ride. NYC Veo worked with Independent Fabrication, a frame buider in Newmarket, New Hampshire, and together they decided on titanium as the best materia for the frame, a compromise between hardiness and handing. The straight-across handebars, highy unusua for a touring bicyce, mean that the top tube the frame s horizonta beam connect- Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 17

20 18 LIFE IS A WHEEL ing the seat post to the steering coumn has to be sighty shorter than norma; and to keep me sitting at east semi-upright, the head tube essentiay the steering coumn, the vertica tube that the front fork passes through is sighty onger. Once I rode a few mies, I brought it back to the shop for some adjustments. The handebars were so wide and keeping me so upright that on my first coupe of tria rides, I fet ike a saiboat sai, my body s breadth working against me. So Andrew owered the bars sighty and cut an inch off each end. I aso had him add bar ends grips affixed perpendicuar to the handebars to give me aternative hand positions. Unike the whees on many new bikes, mine are made from separate components hub, rim, spokes which adds durabiity. (Prebuit whees tend to be a smidgen ighter in weight.) Each whee has thirtysix spokes, rather than the standard thirty-two, another strengthen- ing eement. And the tires are touring specific and essentiay fatproof, with a ayer of puncture-resistant foam between the outer rubber and the inner sea, though with the extra armor you don t ro with maximum aacrity. The bike is unique, Andrew said. It s expected to do dua duty, to get you across the country oaded with a certain amount of gear, in as fine a fashion ergonomicay as possibe. For the trip we wanted to baance the need to be ightweight, to be durabe, and to be comfortabe. But you re aso going to use it for other rides, so we wanted to make sure you had a bike that wasn t singuar in function. * * I m a itte embarrassed by how itte I know about bicyce design, bicyce components, and bicyce repair, and as I knew they woud, a fair number of readers have chastised me for being a mere tourist in Bikeand, someone without a rea grounding in bicyce mechanics who doesn t want his hands greasy. I accept their scorn, but that doesn t mean I m going to discuss the eements of bicyce buiding. For those who wish to read about that, I suggest It s A About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Whees, a 2010 voume by an accompished Engish rider, Robert Penn, who discusses, in argey readabe prose, the design and construction of his perfect bike. That said, for my gearhead readers, here is a components inventory: Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 18

21 Everything Up to the Beginning 19 This morning, before I took it back to Andrew for packing and shipping to Portand he s got a pa who owns a bike shop out there where I can pick it up I took a fina test ride, about thirty-five mies, up the West Side bike path and over the George Washington Bridge into Fort Lee, New Jersey. I spent the ride thinking ahead, trying to imagine iving on this bicyce for three months and more than four thousand mies, aert to the sight irritations of the moment that can baoon into future pain. The bike is comfortabe and perfecty sized, but the repetitive motion of pedaing hasn t yet worn a groove in my psyche, and the various body parts that work together on a ride, the musces and joints for which every bike is a different soar system, haven t yet described their orbits. I m sti getting used to wearing bike shoes, ocking into the pedas, and at each stop cipping out again; the aggressive twist of the anke needed to reease the shoe from the ock fees pecuiar and unnatura. Frame (titanium) and custom paint: Independent Fabrication Fork (stee): Independent Fabrication Headset: Cane Creek Brake evers: Pau Component Engineering (short-reach fat bar) Brake caipers: Pau Component Engineering (touring) Shift evers: Shimano (10-speed fat bar) Front deraieur: Shimano Utegra Tripe rear deraieur: Shimano Utegra Long cage chain: Shimano Utegra Cog set: Shimano Utegra Crank set: Shimano Utegra Tripe bottom bracket: Shimano Utegra Stem: Ritchey WCS Seat post: Ritchey WCS Handebar: fat bar Hubs: Shimano XT Rims: Mavic A719 Spokes: Phi Wood (custom) Tires: Schwabe, Marathon 700 x 32 Tubes: Q-Tubes 700 x 32 Rim strips: Veox 17 mm Sadde: Terry Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 19

22 20 LIFE IS A WHEEL For twenty years I ve been riding with sneakers and toe cips, just siding my foot back out of the cip as I coasted to a stop; I m sure an awkward fa from a standing position is in my future. I had chosen a seat with some ge padding to it, for additiona initia comfort, rather than a Brooks eather seat, which mods to your ass after a few hundred mies and woud probaby be better in the ong run; I didn t want to start out any more uncomfortaby than I had to. In spite of a recent artice in the Times about the benefits of a noseess seat, which aegedy reieves pressure on the perineum and is said to prevent a numbness in the genitas, aong with a host of other discomforts that many riders are famiiar with, mine has a rather ong nose. The proof wi be in the pedaing, and I won t be averse to changing aong the way; a sadde is easy to repace. It was a steamy day, and I was more worn at the end than I wanted to be or shoud have been. I haven t trained enough, and with no extended his on the ride, I sti found mysef pedaing comfortaby ony in ower gears. So one mistake I know I ve made aready is that I bought the bike too ate (or that I m departing too soon). I won t have broken it in before I begin the ong trek. I be starting out with a stranger and not an od friend. Sunday, Juy 17, 35,000 feet above the Midwest High above America, somewhere between JFK and Portand Internationa, I m thinking it s going to take me six hours to get across the country east to west and ninety days or so to come back the other way. Why am I doing this again? We, okay, one reason is that as a writer I tend to think in storyteing terms, and a ong bike ride is a good ong story, after a. Since I finished the baseba book two years ago I ve been waiting for another subject to seize me, and this seems ike a natura. In fact, I ve thought about a bicycing book, a cross-country bicycing book, since the ast time I made the trip, though something tod me back then that I wasn t prepared to write it, that the story I wanted to te hadn t fuy perco- Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 20

23 Everything Up to the Beginning 21 ated. I know now, of course, that that s because the story I was contempating was my own. Bicycing, the way I think of it, is soitary, and if it s going to stand for anything in a narrative, it might as we be the soitary experience of being aive. That s a bit of high and mighty ambition, I guess. But why not? I ve now got amost twenty more years of iving and twenty more years of thinking about it. There s another thing, too: For the past three years I ve been writing obituaries, each morning arriving at work and trying to condense the ife of someone ese into a coherent, meaningfu and interesting story. Sometimes I succeed and the dead come aive I say that fuy aware of the wordpay or are at east recognizabe to the peope who knew and oved them. But sometimes either the detais don t coaesce into a whoe or they don t add up to much more than a résumé and a ist of grieving survivors. I m feeing both chaenged and ready now to focus that task inward, especiay without the pressure of a daiy deadine, and the cross-country journey as a narrative spine, as a controing metaphor, strikes my writer sef as worthy. In other words, in one sense I m doing this again to consider why I m doing this again. Here s something that s aready different from the ast trip and that has me both surprised and curious. Peope are aready checking in, both in the comments on the newspaper s website and in emais to me personay, with some rather forcefu opinions, and I m finding mysef provoked by them, incined to respond. How shoud I react to the feedback to what I m writing whie I m sti writing it? How deaf shoud I be to compiments and compaints? Say I isten to good ideas and accommodate them or take criticism to heart and adjust my thinking. I wonder: Is using readers this way, as editors before the fact, interesting? Is it good for the book? Is it kosher? Anyway, here I am sti at the very beginning before the beginning but I can aready start to parse my readership and, ike a poi- Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 21

24 22 LIFE IS A WHEEL tician scanning the pos, begin to recognize where my sympathizers and critics come from. The readers who accept what I m saying at face vaue about mysef, the trip, my bike seem compeed to appaud and offer sincere advice. Matters of uncertainty for me have incuded where, exacty, to begin pedaing and in what direction. Tips have been pouring in on these issues, and my vounteer counseors are divided. Some say head east from Portand up the Coumbia River gorge to Hood River, then cross the Coumbia into Washington and ride in the direction of Waa Waa. Others te me the Washington side of the Coumbia is preferabe. Another option: I coud go south into centra Oregon and then turn east toward Bend. Or I coud begin by going in the wrong direction atogether, west toward the coast to dip a tire symboicay in the Pacific. I ve had this ast one in mind a aong, but one coo thing about a trip ike this is it doesn t reay matter. It be new and eye-opening whatever I choose. On the other hand, it s the beginning: Is any part of a journey or a narrative more important? I ve been impressed by fattered and touched by, too the encouragement and generosity that the majority of readers have expressed. I ve had offers of meas and odging in Washington, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iinois, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maine, and I hereby acknowedge that I am not too proud to ignore such hospitaity (though Maine isn t exacty on the itinerary). Severa readers have aready aerted me to cross-country cycists aready on the road, among them a group of students from St. Pau s Schoo in New Hampshire, who are riding to raise money for the rehabiitation of wounded American sodiers, and a woman who on her bog is keeping a body count of anima roadki. I ve been advised to carry Good & Penty candy (icorice is reputedy therapeutic for acid refux) and to take fu advantage of technoogy. Loneiness is the biggest probem, David Goodrich, a 58-year-od cycist wrote to me from Sumpter, Oregon, 3,800 mies into an east-west cross country trip that he s aso bogging about. Stay in touch through these remarkabe gadgets. You wi have a down pace; use your friends to hep you get over it. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 22

25 Everything Up to the Beginning 23 Pretty sound counse, I d say. Of course, I m hearing from others, too, those who simpy know better than I do about bicycing and bicyces, certainy, but about ife in genera as we. From them I m aready hearing snorts of derision. Like most peope, I think, I tend to be more wounded by criticism than buoyed by praise, and I m nervous enough as it is. You re a tota Fred, one guy wrote, scorning my new bike as bady thought through, fooishy designed, and overpriced. I don t know what a Fred is, but surey not anything good. An onine debate has ensued regarding my choice of straight-across handebars; many reader/riders seem to think it a big mistake that I regret when I face the inevitabe headwinds or when my wrists and shouders stiffen because I won t have the aternative handhods and riding positions offered by drop bars. Aso, they say, I haven t trained enough, I haven t panned my route adequatey, I bought the wrong sadde, and my rear cassette is too sma; a arger one, with more cogs that woud make for easier pedaing uphi, a grannier granny gear, is something I m going to wish I had. (Actuay, I m pretty sure that s true.) A certain amount of resentment has accrued to the cost of the bike, and this has pissed me off a bit. I m convinced most of the attitude has come from peope who own cars I don t that cost a ot more than $8,000. And why does anyone care how I spend my money? And then there is a truy dyspeptic character from Arizona he cas himsef Thus Spake the Dancing Scorpion who just shat on the whoe idea. Nah, I wasn t one of those readers who encouraged this aging New York Times obit writer to peda across the wide dangerous spaces of a nation busiy devouring itsef these days, he wrote. My suggestion, Webber [sic], is that you stop acting out and return to work as soon as possibe. Don t you have a girfriend or OTB to keep you distracted? By the way, cinica professionas don t have a ot of nice things to say about someone backing into a frenetic past indugence to find meaning. Learn to be cam and you wi aways be happy. Most men pursue peasure, ike this stunt, with such breathess emotion that they hurry past it. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 23

26 24 LIFE IS A WHEEL What a reaction to someone ese s essentiay harmess adventure! There s a ot to pique my curiosity in that, not east Mr. Scorpion s apparent misanthropy. Why does he care so much about what I m doing that he took the time to craft such a crabby critique, not just of my work, but me? Anyway, he s probaby right. If I coud ony earn to be cam I d aways be happy. Just typing that makes me gigge. I shoud carify something. I m hardy a person you d describe as spiritua. God? Nah. For one thing, there s been too much misery too cose to home. (I no doubt get back to that ater.) I ve never been a yoga devotee a girfriend once attempted to get me interested, but as much as I iked her, it didn t take. I haven t expored enightenment through Eastern phiosophy or, for that matter, sought it through mind expansion. My one LSD trip, in coege? A disaster. It was seeting outside and I ended up osing my hat, scarf, and goves. I whined through the whoe thing, didn t seep for three days, and got a terribe cod. That said, to my mind a ong bike ride comes cose to being transcendenta. For one thing, no matter how many peope you re traveing with, cycing is a consuming enterprise, one in which you are communing a at once with your body and your bike and the road and the weather and the traffic and the scenery in other words, the whoe word as it pertains to you. The reentess pedaing is the cycist s version of chanting or prayer. This isn t the same as being contempative, by the way; to the contrary, cycing is not especiay conducive to brooding or pondering or weighing your options. Peope often ask me what I think about on a ong bike ride, as if a I have to do whie tooting aong is to meditate on grand themes, and as if part of the chaenge is fiing empty hours with fruitfu cogitation. I te them I think about the bike ride. I isten for the sound of my chain in its orbit: Is it gritty and grinding? Does it need oi? I pay attention to the keening in my thighs, the strain in my quadriceps and hammies and gutes as I pump uphi or into the wind: Shoud I sow my stroke? Gear Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 24

27 Everything Up to the Beginning 25 down? Gear up? I keep tabs on my fue eve and hydration; cycing when you re hungry or thirsty is an agony. I monitor my progress, watching my odometer/speed gauge/cock for info and entertainment as though it were a teevision set, checking on mieage, the distance to the next turn or the next town, the hours unti I rest for the night. None of this amounts to thinking so much as reease from thought. The point is that big thoughts don t happen on the bike. The contempation stuff that wi mosty happen at night. Though maybe not; then I be packing and unpacking, seeking and eating a substantia dinner, panning the next day s route, obsessivey tracking the weather. No, biking across the country for the second time is a thing I m doing to have important things to think about afterward. Tuesday, Juy 19, Astoria, Oregon The noveist Richard Ford was a teacher of mine ong ago, and among the things he said that I ve remembered is that a nove has no pace in the word except the one it makes for itsef. In fact, I stoe the thought from him when I began my first cross-country trip in Noveists wi say that one reason their work is so agonizing is that no one out there is waiting for what they do; they have to create their own wecome in the word, I wrote then.* Then I added, A cross-country bicycist fees the same way. * I don t want anyone to think I m apoogizing here or coming cean for borrowing from Ford without attribution twenty years ago. But what goes around comes around. Many years ago, when I was a high schoo Engish teacher, I tod Ford, who is sti a friend, a story about one of my students who, in a paper, referred to the competitive environment of a high-eve prep schoo as a doggydog word. That phrase subsequenty showed up in a Ford short story, and when I confronted him about it this was mock indignation, you understand Ford ooked off vaguey into the atmosphere, shrugged his shouders, and said, We, we find fiction everywhere. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 25

28 26 LIFE IS A WHEEL I m not a noveist and this isn t a nove (though I d argue that because I m generating the pot as I go aong, not as the writer but as the main character, it amounts to something pretty simiar). In any case the paraes between riding and writing are actuay substantia; it seems so, at east, for someone engaged in both of them. Like a writer beginning a book, a cycist has a ong way to go before he can envision the end. Both push off in a specified direction with hope and uncertainty. Both make wrong turns, both are prone to whimsy, serendipity, and sudden inspiration. Both come up with ideas they didn t know they had and encounter surprising characters who change the course of things. Trying to effect and negotiate a compeing path from beginning to end, both confront potentia disaster, succumb to miseading optimism, experience hubris and sef-doubt, anguish and deight. Indeed, sitting down to begin a piece of writing and cimbing aboard a bicyce to begin a ong journey are both daunting prospects, equay ikey to induce procrastination. I know something about that, too. To wit: I haven t gotten anywhere yet. In fact, I ve traveed one hundred mies in the wrong direction. On Monday morning jeez, was that ony yesterday? I picked up my bike from Erik Tonkin, who owns Sewood Cyce Repair in Portand. A former racer who, ike a ot of cyce shop owners (and ike a ot of peope who work in or just hang around in cyce shops) he is a promoter of bicycing in any form. Bicycing accommodates a subcuture of true beievers, that s for sure, and Erik was a warm and enthusiastic counterbaance to my cynica correspondents.* He and a coworker, Juie * Severa months ater, I wrote to Erik and asked him if he was surprised that I d made it. I thought I d come across to him ike a novice it s certainy how I fet and I coud ony imagine that he and Juie were shaking their heads at my foy when they eft me. He wrote back that he wasn t in the east surprised: I didn t think of you as a novice, either. Life experience can carry the day. Even if I had, I woud ve admired the courage it takes to do something new. When I teach bike riders the sport of cycocross, for exampe, I m aways impressed by Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 26

29 Everything Up to the Beginning 27 Kramer, got on bikes and rode with me from the shop aong the Springwater bike trai on the Wiamette River. They ed me over the Hawthorne Bridge and deposited me downtown where, for the first time, I was eft aone, thousands of mies from home, on my new bicyce. I was sorry to see them go. Since then I ve done some shopping; I bought a tent and a seeping bag at the oca REI, things I hadn t bought (or owned) in years. I ve never been especiay good at the minutiae of camping, which incudes matching tent pegs to eyeets, but I d assumed that during the time since I d ast tried to put up a tent on my own, the ingenuity of tentmakers had soved the ineptitude probem embodied by the ikes of me and that you coud pretty much just snap your fingers and the thing woud stand up by itsef, with the tent fap invitingy unzipped and maybe a wood-burning fire coziy abaze inside. Not so, it turns out. I tried setting up the new tent in my hote room ast night, and a Chapinesque scene unspooed. At one point I managed to catch a tent peg in the amp cord and pu out the pug. At another I snagged my foot on a tent fap and tumbed over the back of the sofa. After an hour or so I finay got the thing erect, with the rain tarp sung over it and my new seeping bag inside, though, aarmingy, there was a coapsibe poe with an eastic band strung through it ying extraneousy on the bed. Yet another reason to hope I never have to seep on the ground. This morning I packed and repacked my panniers and shipped home some cothes I aready knew I woudn t need, or at east woudn t miss. And then I oaded up the bike and rode around town for a coupe of hours, getting used to handing the extra weight, maybe thirty-five pounds, on the rear. It was raining, and the road surfaces were sick. I was a itte wobby. Gup. I knew before I arrived, of course, that Portand is about a hundred their bravery. Yes, some part of that bravery is misinformed by ignorance, but who cares? I m there to hep. I often wonder if I d be so brave if the roes were reversed. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 27

30 28 LIFE IS A WHEEL mies inand from the Pacific coast, and that Astoria, at the mouth of the Coumbia River, is a traditiona aunching site for cross-country cycists. But for reasons I m not sure of, I didn t do much thinking about how I woud get from there to here and what route I woud set off on once I did. I considered pedaing here, but two days heading in absoutey the opposite direction I wanted eventuay to go was a itte too psychoogicay onerous for me, so I decided to put mysef and my bike on a bus. Then ast night I had dinner with Laura Guimond of the Portand trave bureau, and she brought aong a teevision reporter a young woman and a cameraman from a station in the Czech Repubic who, on a imited budget, were in town to do a trave story about the American Northwest. We made a dea; they d drive me to Astoria, and I d give them an interview when we got here. Their Engish was textbook good, though sangier idioms eft them ooking puzzed. At one point I said I was bushed, and their reference point was the former president; I made a menta note to speak on camera as iteray as I coud. They wanted to shoot me doing the dipping-a-whee-in-the-pacific thing. We eft Portand the next afternoon. They were nervous on American highways, so I drove their van to Astoria, istening a the way to the voice of their GPS giving me directions in Czech. Astoria is peasant and weatherworn, a fishing and tourist hub that is not actuay on the Pacific, but on the Coumbia, a few mies upriver. (Don t te the Czechs.) It s not exacty a pretty pace, but it has an aura of admirabe ongevity; it is, in fact, od. Founded by John Jacob Astor as a fur-trading outpost in 1811, it was the first enduring American settement west of the Rockies, none of which I knew unti I got there, three weeks before the city s bicentennia ceebration, just in time to miss it. I have a newsman s timing, don t I? Anyway, the Czechs set up a shot beneath the Astoria-Meger Bridge, a gorgeous, stee-girdered viaduct that dramaticay spans the river from Oregon to Washington. I spoke into the camera, decaring my ove for Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 28

31 Everything Up to the Beginning 29 the beauty of America and my nervousness and excitement at the beginning of such an arduous journey. And we did three or four takes of a departing shot, with me riding aong the wooden boardwak in Astoria and disappearing from sight, ostensiby in the direction of New York. Then I bought them dinner. They were earnest and sweet-tempered. Probaby not yet thirty, they seemed very young to me, and a itte unnerved to be on their own in an out-of-the-way corner of a foreign country, though they surprised me a itte. After we ate I excused mysef, saying we a must be tired, and the young woman reporter smied. Bushed, she said. Weber_LifeWhee_c5P_yc-ers.indd 29