Then
From a junior to a senior
Things were different THEN
1975 was the year before the bicentennial, and the bike-centennial. At that time, I was what is now what is called a rising junior at Oberlin College. I had gone on bike trips before. In high school I biked up to Montauk point, and (with the help of a ferry) up to New Haven, Conn. In college, I biked from Long Island to Oberlin (with is outside Cleveland) and down to Cincinnati to during a spring break that felt more like winter. I even took “The Yoga of Bicycling” class taught by a bike store owner in that college town. But my goal was to bike across the country, so I grabbed a ride with my ten speed Astra Tour de France out to California and began the 77-day (65 days of actual biking) 4000 miles trek using a poncho as a make-shift tent, which I strung between a couple of trees loaded down by stones, or over a picnic table in some park. I stayed with friends and relatives when they were on the route (rarely) or crashed on college campuses – which as a college student in the 1970s – I viewed as my right, or showed up at farmhouses around dinnertime miles from grocery store, asking if I could buy some food, which was usually given to me When I actually bought food, it was often vegetables from a farm stand mixed up in a plastic bag with some cheese for a breakfast salad.
I was so out of shape when I started, I had to walk up hill out of Berkley, looking back on the Pacific Ocean and wondering what I got myself into. It wouldn’t be the first time. The was that miserable night in the rain outside the Grand Tetons, or when I had to hitch a ride to escape swarm of mosquitos on some dirt road in Oregon or when I was kicked of a park in Grand Island, Nebraska, or when I was arrested while I was in church in Napolean, Indiana.
But guided by some US Geological Survey maps, (later to be discarded in trashcans, or burned in campfires), and the meandering direction of strangers, I was soon doing about a leisurely pace (for my younger self) 45 to 85 miles a day (averaging 60), often resting during the hot summer afternoons, or stopping to check things out.
I wrote up my adventures in Newsday’s Sunday magazine [link to pdfs of article hopefully consolidated) — my first paid publication — which was syndicated across the country, then my methods, in the Drummer, Philadelphia’s then alternative newspaper, while I was interning at its owner – The Greater Philadelphia Group Newspapers.
And that’s how I switched from biking to writing. For the next half century, I was a journalist, writing up other’s experiences as opposed to my own. I biked some, even went our honeymoon with a tandem to Ireland. The shock of having kids, however, knocked me off the bicycle completely for a decade or so. But, as they got older, I carved out the time, and was soon biking daily, a quick ride in the morning, longer ones on weekends, occasional long commutes (36 miles round trip) office. It was a father’s day gift of my daughter — giving me a three days to bike to and through Vermont and back — that gave me the taste of touring again. (Her too. She has since biked across Switzerland thrice.) I started to dream: Do it again, fifty years older, though this time, with a purpose.
Now
Things are different NOW
Biking is different now. The country is different now. I am different now.
Bikes are different. They are more specialized. I have four bikes in the garage, that tandem from our honeymoon, a mountain bike that got me back into it, a light as a feather Trek carbon road bike I got bought for my cousin, and a sturdy Giant gravel bike I bought for touring, heavy by today’s standards, but about the same weight as the Astra I rode so long ago, to handle the dirt roads and rail trails that have sprung up around the country.
Equipment is also different: It’s more light weight. An LED light can illuminate far more than the French arm light I used to carry. You can get a sleeping bag down to a pound, a tent two. The rain gear really is waterproof, as are the panniers (once called saddle bags).
Then there is the technology. No need to carry paper maps, except as a backup. Just set Google maps to bike mode, and it will usually grab a decent route, though occasionally have you bike on roads that no longer exist, or over a bridge that has been down for years. You still need to occasionally flag down a motorist for info. No need to check in with a pay phone when you got a cell phone, which can also book a hotel or campground, or find restaurant, record your route, and photograph your journey. You can bring an entire library on your tablet or listen to books while you ride (though not music, since it would drown out the sounds of the road).
This makes battery life and power a touring necessity. But a few battery packs should keep you charged up, and a solar charger (or a bike generator) can keep you going even when you are in the middle of nowhere. If cell service is spotty, plugging into GPS at the next restaurant, can keep you on route even without any bars.
Touring has now become business. There are now numerous organizations sponsoring tours. Perhaps the most well-known is the Adventuring Cycling Organization. And there is specialty touring as well, bike-packing they call it. And there are supportive organizations, like the wonderful nonprofit Warm Showers, where bikers put each other up.
There are numerous carless bike trails that linked cities. I recently stumbled via Google maps on the Erie Canal trail, picking it up in Schenectady and using it to bike to Syracuse, but I also picked up bike paths around Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina, or in the five-college area in Massachusetts. I ran into numerous people touring on these trails and bikepaths, way more than I ever did all summer biking in 1975, where I was more of an oddity.
The country has changed
The climate is changed Fifty years there was always the possibility of a tornado, or a forest fire, but it was a small one. Now they are much more common. Technology offers some advantages: all those weather alerts. I still plan to go in the summer, since the longer days and the warm weather will make biking easier, but now I have to worry about the extreme heat.
But the country has changed in other way as well. As college student I thought college campuses homes. It would be no problem to just ask fellow students where I could crash for the night. But now, a strange biker – even 50 years younger – could never waltz on to a campus. Thanks to the rash of shootings, security is tight. Ditto churches, town parks, etc. The country is much more polarized and suspicious than it was in years past, though I have found that there is usually someone to help a biker in need. I have already had to hitch a few rides into a bike shop on some of my journeys.
I have changed
Not totally obviously. When I was in college, I lusted for the adventure of the road, and was eager to prove that I could do it. I feel the same road lust today and now I’m hoping to prove I can still do it.
But in other ways, I changed. I’m just too old to sleep under a picnic table. And I do have the money to buy equipment to keep me warm and dry, and to book hotel if needed I’m married and it will be a lot more lonely out on the road than it was and I have some health issues that didn’t plague me years ago. . No, wanderlust isn’t enough alone to send me on this journey. This time I want to do this to raise money for a worthy cause.
I’m was able to do this before because I was a junior in college and had a free summer. I’m able to do this now, because I’m a senior and I have a free rest of my life, thanks to Social Security and Medicare. Both are under attack, but I particularly want to defend Medicare for the right to live – when we have the resources to fend off death – is fundamental.
Medicare is under attack [link to my Medicare page…to come] from several directions. Many conservatives want to cut it, and use the taxes we pay on it to eliminate lower the deficit, so we can cut taxes for the rich. Health insurance companies want to privatize it, by giving unfair advantages to Medicare Advantage, or other nefarious methods. And some in government want to make it more like a private insurance company that will deny you life sustaining treatment to save money, increasing deductibles, premiums and copays.
B.OLD wants to defend Medicare, but expand it. B.OLD supports the concept of Medicare For All, just as I yearn for a truly democratic socialist society, but neither will come all at once. For now, B.OLD stands for: As Much Medicare As Possible For As Many As Possible. Lower the eligibility age! Cover things essential like long-term care, hearing, dental, vision! End the prescription drug donut hole! And especially cover wellness: reimburse expenses in weight loss programs, gyms membership, exercise classes and equipment (like bicycling) if you can document that you use it.
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel – pun intended. So B.OLD plans to give money raised by long distance trip to organizations that already advocate it [link to organizations we support].
B.OLD also wants to give back to nonprofit biking organizations [link to organizations] that make biking possible for old people. First to those that support biking and other exercise for old people wherever they are, be it nursing homes, retirement complexes or in the community. It will also support nonprofits that fight to make biking safer for all people, because that includes old people, from those working on bike safety laws, to those pushing greenways and bike paths.
Change will shape the next cross-country trip. I may go through some of the same places, but not necessarily via the same route, depending on weather, dedicated bike paths, and where willing bike hosts are located. I may travel alone, but others might join me. I won’t just write up my journey afterwards in the newspaper, but document it daily on this website, local media and social media. And hopefully I (or we) will raise some consciousness and money to do some good
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