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3/28/2018 2 Comments The bike trip: What scares me People keep finding different ways to ask me, essentially, if I'm scared about my upcoming bike trip. Like the guy who asked me if I'd be packing—and he wasn't asking about how neatly I'd be folding my extra clothes in my panniers. I really don't feel afraid. But alongside the little-kid part of me that feels like May 1 will be Christmas morning, I admit to cascading tiers of worries, from little nagging concerns to bigger ones that maybe approach fear. Little worries I won't actually be able to detox digitally (an iPhone and iPad in tow, we'll need to make housing arrangements online and navigate each day, do a day's worth of work each week, etc.). I won't actually lose my sedentary desk-job five to 10 pounds that I've imagined will melt off by week three. We'll have a cold snap in May and June. I hate, er, dislike riding in the cold. We'll have an early heat wave in May and June. Some stupid dog will chase us and I'll lose my balance and—wait for it—get scratches on my shiny new bike. Medium concerns My right knee balks at its fitness plan, which is to get stronger every day for two months, not crankier. We'll get lost towards the end of a long day of riding...and then it starts raining. Everything will cost more than I think it should and I'll start eating only Clif bars for meals by mid-trip. We'll have a record-setting amount of rainfall for May and June. Yuck. My decades-long streak of being the one on a bike trip who never gets a flat will end. God, just does speaking that out loud make it so? Please no! That we'll end up having to ride a few miles in the dark some night to get from dinner to our hosts, say. I'm all too aware these days of inattentive drivers and I hate losing visibility on both sides—my weaker eyes at night and drivers' eyes. True fears The dogs won't survive the rotating dog-sitting arrangement I've been working on for them at the river house. Equally frightening, that I'll lose a friend out of the arrangement ("Your damn dogs...I never want to speak to you again!"). The adventure of the trip will drive a wedge between me and Bob, powered by all the hard stuff on both sides—jealousy, guilt, envy, boredom, disconnecting. Dee and I will grow weary of each other and our same damn stories from the last 30 years and finish the ride barely speaking to each other. One of us will fall and break a bone somewhere mid-trip and not be able to finish, leaving the other to have to choose between going it alone (which does indeed scare me) or bailing. Speaking of bailing: My one true, plausible fear is that I'll grow weary of riding, start to doubt myself, and want to quit before the finish. I have a three-decade track record of reaching the last tenth or two-tenths of an endurance event—the last three miles of a marathon, say, as at the Outer Banks in 2009—and definitely wanting to quit. That ugly voice in the back of my head starts chattering about how I'm weak, only a pretend athlete, all that mean-girl stuff. Here's hoping all my yoga training in silencing the ugly voice will kick in: Would you talk that way to a friend?! Plus we'll be having so much fun every day that we won't even notice that we finished! We'll keep going to Canada!! Oh dear, which takes me back to worries about the dogs, Bob, my job... never mind about extending the trip. Next year. p.s. See that nice strong cyclist guy with the nicely tanned arms fixing his flat tire in the photo? Think he could be on call—from my always handy iPhone—if we do get a flat? Lisa Watts bicycling with friends, bike trips, fears, long-term marriage, old friends, trip planning, yoga practice
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My friend Dee would tell you that I’ve been planning to ride my bike up the East Coast for 30 years. I guess she’s right. It feels less like planning, though, and more like an idea that’s been hanging out in the back of my brain’s overstuffed closet, a favorite sweater ignored for a few seasons while I was waiting for the weather to change. I’ve been busy raising kids, moving homes, changing jobs. Even as an empty-nester, the idea of taking two months off from work and leaving my husband and dogs to go ride my bike seemed, well, selfish. And yet, as bucket-list items go, this one has had legs. There’s the chance to connect the dots of my life: growing up in Atlanta, Baltimore, and Boston; summer jobs on the Chesapeake Bay, Cape Cod, and in Maine; now living in North Carolina. In the second half of my 50s, my right knee won’t let me run any more marathons like I did in my 40s, but I’d like to accomplish one more substantial athletic feat; I’m not quite ready to be a has-been. I’ve only experienced the blissful simplicity of bike-trip life -- stripped down to the few belongings you can carry, few electronic distractions, few responsibilities beyond getting to the next stop -- for a week at a time. I want to see how it feels to live this way for many weeks. By whittling down my roles of wife, mother, colleague, and neighbor, I can take some to time check in with who I am as I approach life’s Act III: the senior years. I know my body will be happy. I love my work — writing, editing, designing communications — but it’s as sedentary as you can get, planted in front of my computer for hours on end. On a bike trip, riding for hours day after day, the training happens as you go. Your legs grow stronger, your body gets leaner as it adapts to far more activity than just a morning’s run before work. And you have to love the refueling. You follow a hearty breakfast with a mid-morning snack, a decent lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, healthy dinner, and evening snack. It’s required: If you want to keep up decent distances, you have to eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty. Bicycle touring is a far more satisfying way to travel than by car. You notice the subtlest signs of local culture. You see where the dirt, dry under corn stalks, is sandy and where it’s more like red clay. You find cafes in the middle of a small towns where they serve decent meals, keep your coffee cup and water glass full, and seem tickled to have your business. Curious locals help with directions and wish you luck, telling you to stay safe. A child of the suburbs and sub-developments, I’m thrilled to ride for hours and see nothing but fields and trees. I love the relief of stopping under a tall, broad tree by the side of the road for shade in the middle of a steamy day somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Or the smell of a headwind as it cools into a sea breeze in the last few miles before we hit the coast. I say “we” because this ride is also about celebrating a long, deep friendship. On our first outing together, Dee and I rode one Saturday from our Boston apartments, about a mile apart, west to Concord and back, a 40-mile ride. That was 1984. Since then, even though I keep moving farther and farther from New England, she and I have ridden thousands of miles together. We rode across Ohio for a week, across New York State for a week, through Vermont a number of times, and more. After running the Boston Marathon together as unofficial “bandits” in 1985, Dee helped me properly qualify for Boston at the 1999 Cleveland marathon and celebrated with me as we ran Boston in 2000. By chance we turned to yoga at the same time as an antidote to our years of running. We’ve since enjoyed a yoga retreat in Costa Rica together and classes whenever we visit each other. Everyone should meet someone like Dee to remind you of life’s possibilities. I’ve tried to model how she approaches wherever she lives and the people she meets with the genuine curiosity of a tourist, always learning and connecting. She has been my navigator, far more adept at reading maps and assessing routes than I am. She has been my chronicler, saving snapshots of our adventures in dozens of photo albums neatly labeled and dated, helping her remember details of places, meals, and sights that have long left my brain. She’s inspired me. She announced to me one snowy evening in Boston, after we had cross-country skied along the Charles River, that we were going to train and run the marathon that spring — leaving me no room to doubt myself, which is my usual self-narrative. In short, there’s no one else I could imagine taking this trip with. And so our plans are taking shape. We’ll leave in early May, when Dee’s wife, Sally, drops us off in Key West. We’ll ride the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile route that will take us through 15 states and Washington, D.C. We hope to reach the Canadian border in Maine by mid-July. We’re not camping. Done that, don’t want to carry the gear. Instead we’ll contact friends near the route, stay with some kind-hearted hosts, and book some motel rooms. We hope to see Sally at a few points, including when we reach their home in Rhode Island. We’ll see Bob and stay at our house when we pass through North Carolina. Maybe he’ll join us in Boston, the city where he and I met (and where he met with Dee’s approval). We’re riding right through Boston and a handful of other big cities — New York, Philadelphia, Miami — and through rural stretches, especially in North Carolina. Why ride the East Coast and not go coast to coast, Atlantic to Pacific? Call me a tame adventuress, but the idea of riding through the desert for days on end and up and over the Rockies sounds kind of how a marathon sounds these days — not fun, just a test of will and grit. The East Coast will surely offer its share of challenges: headwinds, busy roads with trashy shoulders, bleak stretches of strip malls. But as much as I embrace the beauty of remote settings, this child of the suburbs also admits to finding comfort in never being too far from civilization. I value convenience stores for their bathrooms and coffee machines. I welcome roadside motels for their showers and beds at the end of a long day’s ride. I’m hugging the shore: venturing out on the water but not heading for open sea; I’d prefer to keep the coast in sight. Why now? The road signs got clearer in the last year or so. In December 2016, Dee retired from teaching at Providence College, freeing her schedule beyond just summer and Christmas breaks. A month earlier, in November 2016, I joined the staff of the East Coast Greenway Alliance, the nonprofit organization working to develop this biking and walking path. Lucky for me, the Alliance is based in my recent home of Durham, N.C., and they had a job opening that fit my experience in nonprofit communications. My work is to share news of the organization’s work and to tell stories of the people who use the Greenway and who champion its growth. My boss has kindly granted me a few months leave to go ride. Call it participatory journalism, George Plimpton-style — I know that my first-hand experiences on the Greenway will enhance my work. Lastly, time’s a wastin’. I’m hot on the heels of 60, Dee is a few years shy of turning 70. We aren’t the spry spring chickens we once were, running a 10K in the morning from Boston Common, then hopping on our bikes to ride all afternoon. We do fine, with accommodations. I’ve got a compression sleeve for my right knee; Dee’s got vitamins and pills to fight bone loss. We’ll need more room than ever in our pannier bags for eyeglasses and contact solution, sunscreen and anti-inflammatories. But we’ll do fine. A few cups of coffee, a few yoga stretches, and we’ll be on our way. Lisa Watts is a writer, editor, wife, mom. Ask my dogs, they'll tell all. Bicycle touring, bike trips, aging well, bicycle tourism, bicycling with friends, East Coast Greenway, adventure |
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