On September 7th I left my home in Medford, Oregon on a borrowed bicycle and was heading for Hart Mountain in southeast Oregon. A two wheeled ride of 230 or so miles, it was unlike anything I had done before. It wasn't that it was supposed to be an especially difficult test of myself, I just wanted to do something different. I should start by pointing out that I am not really a cyclist. I ride mountain bikes, and while that is a form of a cycling, it is not a form that one would usually associate with long distance riding. Put more simply, I struggle to ride around
Applegate Lake, or at least I used.
For me to conjure such a plan was purely for the sake of adventure, not a test of my cycling or physical aptitude. When it comes to cycling I am no expert. I ride bikes down dirt trails. I can change a tire, and make adjustments to derailleurs and spell derailleur, that about sums up my skills. Luckily I have some wonderful friends to who know much more about cycling than I do. Two friends in particular are Peter and Lewis Hollingworth, two British expats and the father and son duo who run
Unreal Cycles. My initial thought was that I would be riding my Titus FTM, a full suspension trail bike, to which Peter stated, "You'll kill yourself!", and he was probably right.
To my surprise and delight to my wife and our bank account, these swell fellows offered to loan a proper bike for such a trip, and after some browsing of their warehouse, considering various brands and models, I think it was Lewis who made the selection. He nodded towards a bright green carbon fiber
Grammo Toa standing in the corner, "That's the bike you should be riding."
The Toa is not a road bike, it's a mountain bike through and through, but being carbon fiber it would help alleviate much of the drawbacks of riding a mountain bike on a road ride. This ride would not only be a test of myself but also the versatility of the Toa. For nearly a week it was going to be my mule. Peter set it up with a WTB Vulpine semi-slick tire out back and a more aggressive tire in front. My ride, though mostly road riding, would have some dirt and gravel, and this combination was a good match up. If conditions became too severe Peter gave me a set of knobbier tires that I could change over to.
I procured my other gear in the few weeks following. Shoes and SPD pedals (I normally ride flats), gear bags, cycling computer etc. after spending over $500 on these items it became clear that I really could not be doing this without the generosity of Unreal Cycles. Buying a bike for this trip would have been out of the question now, and made me wonder what other details of this trip I may have overlooked.
I did a few training rides leading up to the "big day", but never really thought that I would get to point where I felt I was prepared for it. Sometimes you just have to jump in. It didn't take too long to get used to the height and rigidity of the big 29er and it's feather light weight may have helped with that. The day before I was to depart Peter expectantly asked, "Are you ready?" I could only respond with, "Ready or not.......".
I slept better that night than I thought I would but awoke on Sept 7th with a nervous stomach. I had meticulously packed everything up the night before, but going through the mental checklist as a distraction helped to keep the butterflies away. FOOD? Check! SLEEPING BAG? Check! STOVE? Check! TOILET PAPER? TOILET PAPER??? I always forget something!
Before I knew it I was kissing my wife and daughter goodbye and gave my brother a hug as he snapped some pictures.
"Here goes sumthin', I yelled as I pedaled off.
Bonobo played through my iPod to set my pace. With 200lbs of me, and 35lbs of gear on top of the Toa, I expected the bike to feel heavy and burdened but it didn't, it still felt light and nimble. In less than 45 minutes I was already 13 miles up HWY 140 and I was feeling like I could ride forever.
I was cruising at a steady 21 mph on the flats and kept telling myself, "Slow down, pace yourself, Don't Bonk
!", but the slowest I could go was as fast as I could. At times my legs got tired and a little crampy but I never felt exhausted. I forced myself to pull over every once in a while to take a bite of an energy bar and have a drink. Full on meals are the enemy while cycling.
This first stretch of 140 has it's hills, and they're long. I fully expected to be crawling up these like a 17 year old Labrador, but I didn't. Monitoring my computer, my average speed up most of the hills was 7.2 mph, not super fast I know, but not a snails pace either. The only time I felt the need to pull over was 23 miles up and my right Achilles tendon was singing a song due to my right foot being so flat and causing an awkward alignment of my leg. I rested it for 20 minutes but the pain never subsided. I didn't rest again until I reached the summit. I pulled off the highway behind a bush, leaned against a tree and tried to stretch out my tendon but a swarm of large carpenter ants thwarted this attempt and so I moved on. I was surprised when I saw the sign for Four Mile Lake. I was almost there. I dug in and arrived at Aspen Point campground at Lake of the Woods just before 2 pm. a full two and a half hours earlier than expected. What I had anticipated to be one of the hardest legs of the journey was in the bag. I had thought that I was going to be exhausted, but I wasn't, and now I was bored. After setting up my camp I mulled around in the dirt for awhile and then got a phone call from my brother, he was going drive up and join me for the evening.
It was only the first day and I was feeling not just the boredom but a little lonely as well.
When Kjell got there we sat at the lake shore and enjoyed a couple of beers that he'd brought up. It was a nice way to end the day.
I awoke before the sun was up on day 2 and the cold mountain air chilled me to the bone. I donned the warmest piece of clothing I had with me, an IBEX wool shirt my wife gave me for my birthday a week or so earlier. After my coffee and CLIF bar breakfast I packed up my gear and loaded the Toa. I scavenged empty campsites for small bits of wood and made a small fire to warm by before setting off.
The sun was just rising as I left the campground. I stopped across the road from the entrance, the sun lit up a meadow like a field of fire. I took the moment in and was off again. I had a couple of miles of flat mellow traveling before a slight rise. Once crested, I tucked in behind the sleeping bag strapped to my bars, not so much for aerodynamics but to protect from the wind. I began my descent. I was moving down at a tick past 38 mph, the fastest I'd ever traveled on a bike, yet everything seemed to be in slow motion. Cars passing are less menacing at this speed. It was a surreal moment in time, or maybe it was "Unreal". As I hit the flat at the bottom of the hill Hammock was playing through my headphones. It was a soundtrack for my life at that moment it was a piece of magnificence on display before me. I pulled off the road to shed my wool layer. It felt almost like a metaphoric act of shedding a metaphysical layer, and found myself wiping away a few tears thinking about how incredibly fortunate I am to have this moment. My wife, my daughter, my brother, family and my friends who encouraged me on in this crazy pursuit of something that I wasn't even sure of. The fact that I get to take two weeks away from work, still get paid and enjoy this incredible moment. So many in this world live only days of toiling and suffering. Why did I deserve this? I was feeling gratitude at it's purist and it was humbling.
Day 2 was going to be interesting.
I have read the words of adventurers, wanderers and explorers. It's always the solo trips that are as much about exploring and tapping what is within an individual as it is discovering what is beyond. I wondered if the emotional moments that others faced would happen to me. It wasn't the purpose of this trip, but I had wondered. And it wasn't like I was riding around the world, or climbing Mt. Everest. Hell, I was only going 200 or so miles, but it was or was going to be the hardest I had ever pushed myself, and maybe it is in those times that everything but our real selves is stripped away. But I digress.
After my break to have a good road side blubber, I pulled myself together and carved out my place along the highway. After several miles I saw that the comfort zone that is called a 'paved shoulder', one thing that I had enjoyed for many miles was going away.
One of the last items purchased for the trip was one that I, myself would have overlooked, but was insisted upon by my wife and my brother Kjell. A mirror, this would be my protection and tool to help deal with the stress of.......
.the motorist. Like I stated before, road riding is not my kind of gig.
"Share the road with bicycles", you've seen the bumper sticker I'm sure. Oregon even has a line of license plates dedicated to it, and while it may be easy to say when approaching a cyclist while driving a 5000lb SUV or tractor trailer, it's not always easy to do. I have found situations when it is difficult to slow down in time or give a wide enough berth to pass safely when driving, so I understand the motorist point of view. I am on their road, and while a cyclist may have certain rights, that is no guaranty of safety.
Proceeding with caution, checking my mirror every 5 seconds, that was the rhythm. When I would see a car in the mirror I would look ahead. If it was clear, I would stay the course, the cars can go around me. If I saw another car approaching the opposite direction, I would pull off the road onto the gravel shoulder and let the cars pass. I was dismayed by the number of cars that would refuse to give me any kind of space when they could easily pass by me in the other lane. It became quite obvious that cyclist are nowhere near the top of the food chain, even though they pretend to be. Eventually the paved shoulder returned to me along with another summit to climb. I knew that Klamath Falls and my next home for the night, the KOA, was getting near.
When planning this trip I remembered that one of the "trouble spots" was going to be around Klamath Lake. Having driven through that area many times. I remembered it's narrowness, not much else, but a shoulder to ride on was doubtful. I enjoyed my descent from the summit, momentarily. In an instant it felt as though I was riding into a sand storm. I hardly wanted to breathe. My glasses caked up, and my arms and face stung as I blasted through massive swarms of mosquitoes.
The 8 inches of pavement outside the white line was rapidly disappearing, traffic was heavy and fast. Checking my mirror was impossible. I was in a war zone. I ducked for cover and rode off into the gravel. It was deep, my front tire sank in and slid down the embankment into the ditch. My feet came free of the pedals and were try to pass my head and shoulders, but I held them down. I didn't go down but it was a near miss. I brushed the bugs away, tried to clean my glasses, and assessed the situation, all the while being eaten by the hordes. There was NO WHERE to ride safely. I thought, "Some cyclist must ride this, they must!", so I gave it another shot. Less than a minute later I was run off the road by a triple trailer Reddaway truck. My conclusion was that if cyclist do in fact ride this, they are either suicidal or stupid. I walked in the ditch. My walk lasted more than 6 miles, it went beyond the lake. Perhaps it was because I was still shaken from the assaults I had taken, but I had adopted a
"No shoulder, No Ride" policy. Previous stretches of road with no shoulder hadn't really been much of a problem because I could see cars and they could see me. Here, there were simply too many blind corners to ride it safely. I attempted to ride the gravel but it was either too deep or too steep, my tires would sink in preventing forward motion or my "mule" would want to slide down the embankment.
When I got the nerve to ride again, my Achilles tendon was shot from the awkward walking of the ditch section, at times with the bike carried over my head as I walked through thicker brush. I tried my best to compensate with my left leg.
Rolling into K.Falls I had no map to get to where I was going, and the directions to the KOA my brother sent me via text, must have been out dated because it didn't match what I was seeing. But going from the memory of the map looked at on Mapquest, I found my way.
Feeling a little cranky, I waited in the office of the KOA for one of the several employees to rent me campsite. For 10 minutes they ran around trying to avoid dealing with the growing line of guests. While waiting an older gentleman stood beside me and asked,
"Cycle Oregon?" Totally unplanned, my trip, or part of it anyway, coincided with the famed Cycle Oregon ride, only we would be traveling in opposite directions.
"No..." I responded,
"Hart Mountain." "Oh.... That's........." He looked perplexed.
"East." I said. After chatting it up a bit he told me about an old railroad that had been converted to a multi-use trail that ran from K.Falls to Bly called the
O.C. and E Trail and gave me a map, a crude one but a map none the less. Our conversation was interrupted by a 50 something, spiky, pink haired KOA assistant who sold me my plot for the night and gave me the wrong codes for the bathroom/shower, pool and rec.room. We picked up our conversation again once outside. As we chatted about the bike and the trip a small crowd of about 5 others gathered and inquired,
"what kind of bike you ridin'?" Assuming they couldn't read, I obliged
"It's a Grammo Toa." "Is it light?" he asked as he proceeded to pick it up.
"Yeah." I informed him,
"It's carbon fiber so it's pretty light. Although I do have all my stuff on it, so....." "Cycle Oregon?" "No. He's riding east.....toward Hart Mountain." the older gentleman barked on my behalf. He looked back at me and I nodded.
"Hart Mountain? Where's that?" someone piped. Clearly they weren't listening. My new assistant looked back at me. Again he intervened,
"It's EAST!". Again I nodded. Good boy!
The evening was as spectacular as the KOA could muster,
screaming children, obnoxious girls on their first "camping" trip in the site next to me, wannabe gangsters and meth heads walking the bike path above the campground appearing to scope out their next shopping spree. I, lacking any kind of bike lock, removed the laces from my shoes, tied the bike to the picnic table and headed for the showers which was an ordeal in itself. Other than the pungent odor of a skunk nearby, I slept well.
I didn't leave the campground until 8:30 the next morning. After reviewing the map given to me, I hit the bike path that traveled alongside a canal and found the start of the O.C. and E Trail, which was paved.
Weaving past Saturday morning walkers and joggers, I rode 9.5 miles to the town of Olene. I was supposed meet my wife at Stevenson Park at roughly 9:30 that morning, and I was excited. She called at about 9:45, she was running late, still 30 minutes from Klamath Falls and needing to get gas. I was already at the park, so I took the time I had to unload the bike of all but the necessities. Tubes, water, bike tools and some energy bars was all I would carry. Time to travel light! I wanted to make the 90 mile trip to Lakeview in one push.
While I waited a State Trooper pulled into the gravel parking lot.
"Headed for the Cycle Oregon?" he called out from his window.
"Nah, I'm heading past, to Hart Mountain." I corrected him as I approached his truck. I told him the route I intended to take, 140 on through. He shook his head.
"You really need to reconsider your plan. The next 30-40 miles are busy enough, and with all the folks in trailers and RV's headed that way to the Cycle Oregon, I would strongly advise against it." "Well, I really don't have much of a choice." I said, hoping he have an alternative. In fact, he did. Continue on with the O.C. and E until Bly. The only problem with that was it would take an extra day, but I did have the time. He wished me luck and left me with a better map, and when Katie, my wife arrived we charted our next move. The O.C. and E. has a few places to get on and off between it's start and a town called Sprague River. I would do roughly half the trail that day, meet Katie at the Sprague River State Park near the O.C. and E. Woods Line trail head which also had a campground. We would stay there that night and the following day I would finish the trail and end up in Bly. Our reunion was short, she drove me the mile back to Olene, I hopped back on the now leaned out Toa and hit the trail which had now turned to dirt. I was all grins.
Not many people were on this section of trail, but there were a few. The last person I saw was about 5 miles after the start. An elderly man and his dog.
Whenever I passed by someone I would say "Hello", and as I passed I would check my mirror to see if they had something else to say, usually indicated by them turning around. He did. I stopped, popped out my headphones and turned back towards him. The old man once again called out,
"I said, are you doing that big bicycle thing there in Bly?" I, ever diligent to correct, informed him,
"Oh no. Not me.". By now I was tired of this conversation, but for whatever reason I didn't mind talking to him.
"Just going past. On through to Hart Mountain." I said.
He told me that he'd never seen anyone past this point of the trail and he walked this 10 mile section everyday. He said I should expect the trail to be overgrown and to watch for "badger holes". I didn't know if they were literal badger holes or if that was a nickname that he used.
The trail was in fine condition for several miles, passing through farms and ranches. There were many gates to go through, too many, but so far I was halving a blast and making pretty good time, averaging about 14 mph, which is not as fast as the few cattle dogs that liked to chase me.
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I came to a section where the trail crossed a paved road, though I wasn't sure which road. Immediately the trail across the road was rough, over grown. I was glad to riding a 29er, because as I weaved between bushes, several times my front tire dropped down several inches.
'Ooph!! Oh, so these are the badger holes!' This section was going to be a bit slower going than before, I was topping at only 10 or 11mph. It was rougher conditions than what I had been used to but it was worth the extra effort. To be off the main road, an adventure inside and adventure, that is what I had wanted.
Rather than counting miles, I began to count ranches. The road smoothed out at ranch number 10, and I kicked it up to 16mph. Unnaturally tall weeds grew up all along the sides of the trail which now resembled a bonafied gravel road. Even at only 16 mph, my close proximity to the vegetation made me feel like I was in warp drive. When I hit ranch number 12, the gravel got very deep, too deep to ride at my current air pressure. I lowered my air pressure, found the sweet spot and continued on at a slower pace. Only making it a mile or so, I began to struggle with the gravel again. It didn't appear to be any deeper than before, and then I noticed my flat front tire. I spun the tire looking for a thorn or some point of puncture. Nothing. I was tired. The deep gravel wasn't cutting my aching Achilles tendon any slack, and now the tendons behind my left knee were beginning to ache due to over compensation. I decided to pump up the tire and see how far it would get me. I got about a mile before my rear tire decided to go flat as well. Again I pumped it up to see how far it would go, the front still felt pretty good. A few miles later I was feeling that I should be getting close. The old man I had talked to warned me to be careful when I got near the Woods Line Trail. There were mile markers on the trail but there was no mileage chart on my map. All I knew was that the trail was 82 miles and the map indicated the Woods Line trail head was about half way. At mile 36 I started to slow down a pay closer attention. I saw roads every 2 miles or so going off to the right, and I wondered how the hell I would know which one to take. "There must be a sign." I assured myself, and kept riding. I passed another road on the right. It was steep, rutted and rocky. I passed it, but something told me maybe I shouldn't have. I continued on for another mile and then it dawned on me that I didn't remove my GPS from my backpack. I pulled off the trail, dug in my pack, and found it. The road names were different from the map but using the contour of the map on my GPS against my paper map I concluded that I had gone past my exit. I flipped around and headed back to the rocky, rutted road I'd just seen. Once there, I checked my GPS again. This was my road. It was too much to ride up so I walked the 50 yds up. At the parking lot there were signs indicating that it was indeed an O.C. and E trail head but was mysteriously called Switchbacks not Woods Line. Furthermore there was no sign of Katie. I cruised around the dirt parking lot, no sign, just me. If this was a State Park it was a crappy one. I was having some doubts about my location. I decided to ride up a side road and check things out. I stopped and checked my GPS one more time and it looked like I was in the right place. Just then I heard the crunch of gravel and from around the corner came our 4Runner. Katie was as relieved as I was, perhaps more so. My tardiness and the fact that none of the road names or trail names matched our maps, had Katie questioning the same things I was. When I didn't show up at 2:00 she got worried that she was in the wrong place and went searching out other places, when nothing else seemed right she came back and that's when she found me on the road.
It was getting late. We both were hungry, we had no water, there was no water in the park and I had 2 flat tires to fix. We had to find another place. I loaded my bike on the back of the 4Runner and we set off to look for our digs. The assumption we had was that since we had national forest land all around us, we would have no problems finding a place to camp. That was, in point of fact, an error. There were several day use areas, and intriguing forest service roads, none of which had anything to offer us. By the time we had found a place to camp we had already driven through Bly and all the fanfare of the Cycle Oregon event. Not having much time to explore around for campsites, and even less gas, we headed for what we knew, Cottonwood Meadow Lake.
The morning of day 4, I helped Katie pack up camp and I rolled out by 7:30. The ride out from Cottonwood Meadow Lake was pure magic. A twisty paved descent, almost no pedaling. I came around one last corner and two young deer jumped up beside me and nearly ran out in front of me. Hard on the brakes, 'Whoa! Whoa!'. I would be more observant now. The previous day was supposed to be my big mileage day, but now this day would be. Once I was back on the highway and I was very quickly reminded about something someone told me. Whoever it was said I had better hope that there was no wind. I wondered why wind would be such a problem, and never really gave it much thought, until this day. I was riding straight into it. It was all I could do to keep 15 mph. On occasion I hit 18 but it didn't last long. The tendons in my legs were screaming, and I was also nursing a new injury. The night before, Katie and I took an evening walk to the shore of the lake we camped at. Our trail blazing resulted in a wooden spike from fallen tree getting pushed through my flip flop and into my right foot. It was sore, but I hoped that if I just dug in and kept pedaling, my legs would numb a bit, but it never happened. By the time I hit Lakeview I was spent. Katie was there waiting for me.
I rested in the parking lot of the fairgrounds for nearly and hour while Katie filled our water jugs and searched for a gas can, and then I continued on. 5 miles outside of town I turned to climb what would be my last summit, Warner Pass. I was already exhausted and this was a long steep climb. Katie would meet me several places along the way and I would rest as needed and rehydrate.
Not too long ago Peter gave me some bib shorts with padding. I thought they were ridiculous but Peter said they'd be a must, and over the weeks prior to my trip I learned to love them. He also instructed me to not wear underwear with them, so I never did. Something I have no reasonable answer for is why I decided to on this trip. But I did and oh was I regretting it on this day. There was a ski area that Katie and I were supposed to meet up at and I planned to be going commando after that. The problem came when Katie wasn't there when I showed up. I couldn't take it any longer. With no place to hide myself, I did the next logical thing, attempt to cut them off. Peter had given me a nice pocket knife before setting off on my trip but I had accidentally left it in the 4Runner. With no knife available I looked for a sharp rock, reached in and began to furiously hack at my underwear. It was no use. It was like they were made of braided steel. I gave up and continued riding. Thankfully less than a mile later at a second ski area pull out, there she was. I used the 4Runner as a semi-partition and sought my relief. Unfortunately the chaffing had already set in and I could only grin and "bare" it.
With the summit conquered, I relished a few brief moments of downhill. I say brief because once I emerged from the sheltering hill of the Warner Ski Area, I was blasted by the strongest winds yet.
This time a nasty cross wind. It would blow me towards the center of the road, I fought hard to keep things under control. As I steered the Toa down the winding road, the winds alternated between head winds and cross winds. They were relentless and once I was blown into the path of an approaching RV who had to swerve to avoid me. This was suicide, I thought. I was beyond relieved when I got to the Plush cut-off road. A shortcut to the town of Plush, the cut-off road climbs atop the eastern side of Lynch Rim. It wouldn't block any wind but the chance of encountering cars was far less probable. On top, I found my rhythm again.
There was wind but at least it was only a cross wind. I rode the center line which gave me room to cope with the wind. At times it would gust and immediately drop off and I would careen off towards the roadside. Maybe I was delirious from exhaustion, but it was becoming fun, almost game like. The gusts would come, I would lean in and wait. When the gust would cut off I would see if I could recover before hitting the fog line. My spirits were up and so was my speed, 25 mph average. It wasn't long before Hart Lake and the town of Plush were in sight. Nestled in the Warner Valley it was the last town before the climb up Hart Mountain.
It was a thrilling ride into town.
A few days earlier I would have been much more cautious, somewhat nervous if my speeds went past 30 mph for more than a minute or so. In the back of my mind I carried the "what if?" scenario. Now, with 221 miles logged on my odometer the Toa became an extension of myself. The daily ritual of riding was as normal as getting up and putting my clothes on. Gear shifts, braking force, the leans, the turns, all were as unnoticed and natural as my own breathing. I wasn't even thinking about riding, I was only experiencing each moment. The subtlety of wind changes, the smells, the tastes and moisture content of the air. Things you don't experience or notice in a car driving at 60 mph.
I pedaled hard even on the steepest section of downhill. Pedaling until my legs had nothing left to offer, as if I were pedaling in mid-air. I flirted with 40 mph but never broke into it. Behind me, a Jeep Cherokee was keeping a slower speed than I on these corners. I was beaming, still high from my descent I pulled into the only store/gas station around and listened to some of the locals smoke cigarettes and talk about rocks and sun stones while waited for Katie to arrive.
It was the end of my day, a hard fought day that contained the highest highs and the lowest lows. Our plan thus far was to camp at a lake at the base of the escarpment but we were disheartened to find that all minor roads were closed due to fire danger. Our only choice was to head to the top, and that meant suiting up and getting back on the bike. Enough time had passed to allow me to come down from my high. I was done riding for the day, or so I had thought. I felt like a child who had done a half-assed job of cleaning his room, only to have to clean it again. Even though I had already changed out of my riding clothes, I once again pulled on my crusty, smelly gear, stained white from the salt of my sweat and unloaded the Toa from it's perch on the back the 4Runner.
I won't say I was suffering but the sun was baking me, and I was tired. I never intended to ride to the top this day but I didn't have a choice. Even the minor rolling hills of the road seemed insurmountable in my demoralized state. I pedaled on, allowing Katie to pass me on this lonely stretch of desert road, but I was out of gas.
Mentally and physically, I was done.
"Suck it up!" I tried to give myself a pep talk, but it wasn't working. When the pavement ended and the long last stretch of gravel came, my spirit spiked, if only for a season. When the road began it's ascent up the escarpment it was clear that recent maintenance had been done. Fresh gravel. Fresh deep gravel. I looked down at my speedometer, 3.7 mph. 2.8 mph. 0.0 mph. I could see where Katie had pulled off the road 300 yds ahead.
"At least ride to her, then rest". Another pep talk. Tendons burning, tires spinning out all the way, I made it to her. Peter had given us an extra set of tires, ones that would have handled this gravel better then the rear tire I was running. But with the sun setting in about an hour there was no way I would have time to change the tire and complete the last 10 or so miles, and in a way I was glad. My ass hurt, my legs were shot and I was in a foul mood. I gave Katie the sign of a hand slicing across my neck. I was done, which meant
it was done. I was throwing in the towel. Katie was trying to gently encourage me, but it wasn't going to work. I sat discouraged in the passenger seat, feeling like a failure.
I've never liked team sports, and have always been drawn to individual oriented sports, like cycling. I tried soccer once in the 3rd grade but the coach always was wanting me to pass the ball forward. But I didn't want to, I wanted to make the goal. I understand more of the team effort now, and in a way I was part of one. Peter and Lewis were teammates/coaches and my wife was a teammate and cheerleader. Each one doing their best to make the journey a success. I think understood it better at a sub-conscious level at that moment and that was why I was down. I was the weak link. I wasn't feeling like a good teammate, and I was questioning whether or not I really did
'give it my all' . When it was time to set up camp I wasn't in the mood for team sports either, and Katie knew why. She reasoned with me, and she was right. I did this for the adventure of it, not to achieve a distance goal. The struggle, the difficulties, both are apart of it as much as the euphoric times, and both come to an end at different points along the way. Sure, there was team effort, but the was no adversary. The effort was only to pursue the spirit of adventure, and in that sense it was a total success. No, I didn't finish in the way I/we intended, and maybe it could be argued that I didn't finish at all.
I have chosen the look at my trip as but a small portion of a long journey, a plot along the way, like dots on a map. When the adventurous spirit of the journey drops off, like wind to a sail, momentum halts. In the dead calm there is time to reflect, re-evalaute and wait for winds again. Maybe you'll decide to change course, perhaps you'll stay the course, either course or path you choose is part of a life long journey. Make it an adventurous one!
Thank you's:
I have much gratitude for my teammates. Each of you made this possible. These kinds of sentiments are often said at the end of something important or successful, and are usually done as some type of obligatory gesture. That couldn't be less true in this case. Whether or not the adventure was successful could be left to conjecture, but it was something important. It was important to me, and the fact that you volunteered yourselves, your time and equipment means a lot to me, and I am ever grateful.
Peter and Lewis, you are 'Unreal' dudes! And I am pleased to call you friends. Much gratitude for giving me gear, loaning me your GoPro and letting me ride the Toa, a brilliant bike indeed. Sorry for the scratches! :-(
And to my wife Katie, my cheerful partner when I was in the dumps, my personal chef and masseuse. I love you. Thanks for sharing in it all with me.
And lastly but certainly never the least, my brother Kjell, who met me at my camp on the first day, which was the loneliest, and brought me beer. Part time navigator, logistics dude, I know you would have joined me in the ride if work hadn't gotten in the way, you were with me in spirit. I love ya Bro!
