Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For the first time on the trip I wasn't alone. Tom Scribner, my new Walla Walla friend,
had designed our mostly back-road route, and he rode blithely ahead as we turned onto
U.S. 12 and began the final stretch to Pomeroy, where he had made motel reservations.
Before long I crossed an invisible threshold, five hundred miles since I'd left Astoria. But
the exhilaration was short-lived. With the temperature north of ninety, I began to fade.
Big time.
In bicycling, the term of art is “bonking.” To bonk is to hit the wall, to feel the
strength drain out of you, to suddenly lose the wherewithal to proceed. Tom, a stronger
cyclist (and thankfully a patient one), was fine, but I needed three or four stops, to rest
and soak my head from my water bottles on the treeless roadside the last thirteen miles
to Pomeroy. I took an awkward fall starting up after one of them, scratching my shoulder
on some roadside brambles. When we finally arrived at the motel, I found dried grass in
my hair. I napped briefly and, evidently dehydrated, was awakened by cramping in my
hands and feet. Simply put, the day was too much for me.
Before I began this ride, people were always asking me if I was in training. How would
I handle the physical demands of such a trip—ahem—at my age? Now just about every-
one I meet wants to know what I did to prepare for the rigors of riding six, seven, or
eight hours a day. It's a reasonable question, I guess, but how do you train for daylong
strenuous exercise without spending days strenuously exercising?
In the weeks before I left, I spent an hour or so at the gym most days, stationary bi-
cycling, stretching, doing some modest weight lifting and core strengthening, trying to
stay in the kind of shape that would make this trip at least feasible.
Weekends, I took rides of twenty, thirty, or forty miles, mostly on the level roads of
Long Island. But I knew that I'd be biking myself into shape as I went along, that the
first weeks would be especially grueling, and that (if all went well) I'd be sufficiently
trained by the time I hit the Mississippi River. Now, five hundred miles into the journey,
I've learned some things and made some adjustments—it was smart of me to ship some
clothes and equipment home, and
really
smart to have my rear cassette replaced in Hood
River. I obviously have a few more adjustments to make.
For one thing, I'm not yet prepared for sixty-mile rides in blistering heat. For the time
being, I'll have to modify my schedule with reduced daily distances in mind. For anoth-
er, I've been trying to make my morning ritual more efficient. So far it's been clockwork
regular: two hours from the time the alarm goes off (usually between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.)
until I get on the bicycle and depart. Partly this is about eating breakfast—you have to
eat even if you're not hungry, though I almost always am—and then (a crucial element of
preparation that rarely gets mentioned) waiting for your digestion to kick in sufficiently.
There's nothing quite as discomforting on a bike as your stomach making threats. It's
