The Time I Biked Across the Country
It was a test of will and determination. Into two bags totaling no more than 3,000 cubic inches, we were required to fit the clothing and supplies we needed for the next six weeks with the full realization that we would carry every ounce of it up every hill and mountain between Tybee Island, Georgia and Santa Monica, California. With this in mind, I cut my toothbrush in half.
Meeting for the first time at the Savannah Airport, the fourteen of us participating in Overland’s “American Challenge” traveled for the last time by car to the Atlantic Ocean at Tybee Island. We had a miserable first night camping in a thunderstorm. The next morning we woke up at 5am to get our last view of the Atlantic Ocean and sprinkled a tiny bit of its corrosive salt water on our back tires before heading west.
Traveling throughout the southeastern United States, we encountered logging trucks, humidity, thunderstorms, evangelical billboards, hundreds of dead armadillos, one live armadillo, and rumble strips. For the first time, I saw the prominence of Southern hospitality and it’s existence proved to be an essential to our success.
It was our second day of biking and the people of Cordele, Georgia were having a hard time finding us a place to stay. A cop pulled over and told us to stay in a middle school gym where we were treated with showers and air-conditioning. He and his wife later brought us cookies, ice, and drinks, and the following morning at 6am, he gave us a bag of homemade sausage biscuits. Throughout the trip we would receive more hospitality, including one man buying us a barbecue dinner. The mayor of Myrtlewood, Alabama let us use a bridge not yet open to the public, cutting 20 miles off of our day.
The routine of waking up every morning at 5am, repacking our bikes, eating breakfast and leaving again by 6 was hard to get used to and throughout the trip, we would receive very little privacy and almost no time to ourselves.
Even our four days off were filled with doing laundry, restocking supplies and making repairs at bike shops, mailing things home, and getting everything ready for the next day. Due to these frustrations and homesickness, Brad, Hilary, and I began our nightly tradition of marking off the distance we had traveled for that day on my map. It helped us take the trip day by day and provided us with a sense of comfort in knowing that we were making progress.
We crossed through the long and monotonous state of Oklahoma and as we got further west, the towns became fewer and farther apart, and the outside temperature increased along with the demand for water. Without the proper balance of salt and water intake, you would experience more pain, and feel dizzy, weak, tired. In biker’s terms you would “bonk.” One particular incident of dehydration left me unable to bike for the day.
Riding from Shiprock to Keyenta, Arizona, we caught a tailwind that sent us cruising effortlessly at around 25-35 mph for over 20 miles.
Unfortunately, as Keyenta grew closer, our tailwind slowly reversed and we began to experience “the curse of Keyenta.” On flat land we struggled to stay at 10mph. I ran out of water before we reached Keyenta at 6pm. I drank ridiculous amounts of water, but the next morning, after 20 miles of feeling weak and nauseated, Keren suggested I hitchhike with Will to the hospital in Tuba City and get an IV. The group rode away and Will and I unsuccessfully looked for rides at the gas station for an hour before testing our luck by hitchhiking, thumbs out. We weren’t there for 5 minutes when two Navajo Indians in a new white pickup truck pulled up and offered us a ride. We climbed in, and for the next 50 miles across the Indian Reservation, we learned firsthand about Navajo culture. They were two medicine men (actually a man and a woman) who had lived on the reservation their entire lives and witnessed drastic changes in their homeland. They pointed out and told stories about sacred rock formations, a mountain that appeared to move up and down, sites where they had recently found dinosaur prints, the tension between the Navajo and Hopi Indians, and to our left, they showed us a uranium plant that’s testing procedures devastated the lives of thousands of Indians. They also suggested certain plant leaves that would eliminate and prevent any dehydration, and when we arrived in Tuba City ,and offered to show us their reservation if we returned. For the first time, I was able see that the importance of our trip had little to do with the bicycle riding.
In our dirty spandex outfits, our group cleaned out Pizza Hut and Chinese buffets, stretched in people’s driveways, and cooled down by walking through car washes. We were sweaty, smelled horrible, and we were black with dirt and bike grease, but it was in this condition that I gained twelve new friends.
As the end of the trip drew closer, pure adrenaline propelled us forward. Climbing mountains was easier when we knew that it would all be over in a few days. We had already sent our tents home at Taos, and most of us had long ago limited ourselves to one shirt, 1 or 2 pairs of biking shorts, and 1 pair of socks. We had already crossed through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and we were almost finished with California.
Our travel size bottles of Pert Plus were still decently full eight showers later between June 24 and August 3. Most of our parents watched, filmed, or ran with us as we threw our bikes down, removed our front tires as fast as possible, and dashed into the corrosive waters of the Pacific Ocean tire and all. We hugged each other, hugged our parents, hugged other people’s parents, and talked with confused onlookers who had been trampled in our stampede. I didn’t actually realize I was crying until a man asked me where we came from and I had to struggle before choking out Savannah, Georgia.
In telling people about my plans that summer, the most common response was to the effect of how it would be a life-changing experience. I would return more disciplined, more determined, ready to take on any life challenge that lay before me, more in tune with nature, and more appreciative. I saw myself returning as a nature-obsessed hippie destined to wear dirty clothes and hemp necklaces for the rest of my tree-hugging, rock-climbing life. I returned pleased to find out that I had not changed in the ways I feared but instead I had gained insight, knowledge, and skills I would not have gained otherwise. I learned about geography, how to follow road signs, what a mountain pass looks like, what the grade of a hill really means, that food really is energy, and bike seats are not comfortable. I also learned about small town America, when to shift gears on the bicycle, how to change a flat tire, all of the lyrics on the Footloose Soundtrack, and that there really can be miles and miles of nothing. It was a feeling of accomplishment that I will always remember and strive for with every challenge I undertake.
One of the things I chose to bring on our journey was a map. Each night it became our ritual to draw a line on the map of our route that day, with the destination marked by a star. We had also written our names on the map where we were from. I’ll cherish this keepsake and this journey forever.