Epilogue

It has been a couple of months since the completion of the coast to coast ride and I have finally found the time to put down a few thoughts about the trip with a more distant perspective.

I learned a lot about cycle touring on the trip, the gear required, and situations to try to avoid. Gear wise I should have started with more durable tires. The bike, tools and other gear I brought were appropriate. I brought a backpacking water filter that I never used and sent home when we got out of North Dakota. I should have asked more about Nick’s bike and wheels and vetoed his use of radically laced wheels. Tim had them on his bike as well but it is much less of an issue east of the Mississippi. The electronic gear I brought including the radio, cell phone, laptop, GPS, battery chargers, digital camera, extra batteries, wires, and adaptors added about ten pounds to my load. It took a lot of time to write my log daily and attend to picture downloads, emails to post the log etc. It also took some time to properly pack and unpack those items each day as you couldn’t just toss them in the panniers and roll. In balance I am glad I carried the items necessary to write a detailed log, by doing so I will remember much more about the trip in the years to come. It also allowed me to share the experience with contributors to the Y’s Annual Support Campaign, family and friends, and some of the people who helped us along the way who I gave the link as a thank you. We met a husband and wife tandem touring couple in Little Falls, NY who had business cards printed with their web site link on them. (That is a great idea that I wish I knew before we started.) Nick’s family told me that the log was read around the world, as they shared it with relatives and friends in Europe.

We had two or three experiences with public campgrounds where inconsiderate people cost us a good night’s sleep. I guess you don’t know how it’s going to go until it’s too late when staying at a campground with lots of people close by. I got a bad feeling about one place as soon as we got there but ignored it, and we paid the price. In balance the fewer people around the better the night’s sleep. There are always other options available to a touring cyclist. It would have been better to knock on doors or find a quiet out of the way place to stealth camp than stay in questionable surroundings.

I have been in contact with both Nick and Tim and it seems that all three of us are back into the normalcy of non-touring life. While I continued to ride regularly since July this last week my legs were back to that of a mere mortal where a thirty-five mile ride on a light road bike with no gear actually was a bit of work.

People who know me, or know of me and have seen the selected log issues that were in the weekly newspaper during the trip, ask about it. I try to answer their questions directly, but find it hard not to expand on the things about it that I find exciting. I try to be brief so I do not bore them. I get a lot of congratulations and people tell me that I must feel really gratified for completing the ride and have a real feeling of accomplishment. I don’t know exactly what it is but it’s not really gratification. It was a wonderful experience for sure, one that I will cherish in my mind for as long as I live, but it will share space with other memories of other experiences and fond moments of family and friends. To me the doing seems more important than the having done. I kind of miss the day to day experience of cycle touring.

I am also told by others that they could never do anything like that mostly because of the physical effort involved. Sure it was hard at times but I know that everyone has times in their lives where some additional effort was involved, either physical or emotional, to get to, or through something. As hard as it might have been, most people get through things the same way we approached the trip, one pedal stroke at a time, keeping a positive attitude, having faith, and by trying to make decisions that would lead to success.

It is a beautiful country we live in as you could see when you looked at pictures in the log entries, but as we rode we found that it really was more about the people we met than the terrain we passed through. From Donna and Bob at the bed and breakfast the first night in Oregon who sent us on our way, to Cowboy Bob Sauke from Montana who in fifteen minutes told us everything that he thought was going wrong with our country, to Debbie (Pastor Rod’s wife of Simms Community Church in Simms, MT) who let us sleep in the church and use the kitchen downstairs, to David Eversvik of the Warwick, ND Volunteer Fire Department who let us stay in the firehouse, to Pastor Dale Clifton of Cooperstown Evangelical Free Church in ND who we shared dinner with and who let us stay in the parsonage for the night, to Eric Rydeen of Stillwater, MN and his family who let us camp in his back yard and shared touring stories of his own with us, to Trail Angel Warren Fluttrow who provides Class A city park facilities to touring cyclists in Monroeville, IN, to Dan Stinson of Stinson’s Auto Repair in Zanesville, IN who helped us with some unconventional bike tools for a repair, to Gary of Gary’s Diner in Clyde, OH who provides a good meal and service at a fair price, to the Mallores and Cains at the campground at Cross Lake, NY who shared some food and conversation with us, to the citizens of small towns in the rural America who allow touring cyclists to camp in their well kept city parks, and the many, many others who we stopped and talked with, who we shared stories with, and who wished us well along the way. The people, that is what the trip was really about. Thanks to all of you and our families who provided physical and moral support as we rode.

The two people I spent the most time with were of course Nick “Tatoo” Schroback and Tim Dearborn. I could not of had two better men to share the experience with. There were times along the way when one of us was hurting and there was always encouragement and help from the others. We had our little sayings to deal with adversity such as “if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger”. When it was time to start riding again someone would ask “Are we done screwing around?” There were constant warnings for any potentially dangerous situation that arose as we all looked out for each other’s safety. There was always friendly kidding, questions about each other, families, and experiences, and sharing of stories, cycling and otherwise. We got to know a lot about each other. I hope we continue to keep in touch over the years to come.

Nick, Tim and Jim

I also learned a lot about myself. In some ways the journey and the things we experienced along the way changed the way I think about things. I found that there is no need to expend negative energy about things that you cannot change. I guess my approach now is to seek a calmer workaround. I’ll see how long that lasts. I have a new perspective to look at the world around me. I see it from the slower speed of touring rather than the blur of a vehicle on the interstate. I concentrate more on people’s faces and what might be behind what they say and do. The trip didn’t kill me so perhaps it did make me stronger.

My fundraising efforts for the kids and families who benefit from the Y’s Annual Support Campaign exceeded my goal by a couple of thousand dollars. I am thankful to all who contributed. If my efforts and the generosity of others puts a smile on the face of a child who can attended camp for the first time, or allows a single parent to send their child to a safe environment for child care so they can provide for their family, then the effort was more than worth it. There is much more work that needs to be done in all the communities across this country to give a helping hand to others who need it. In some small way I hope I did my part this past summer.

It certainly was an adventure.