That’s proper! Each single 12 months, for the final fourteen years in a row, I’ve packed up my bicycle, left the protection and luxury of my residence, and gone off on a bicycle touring journey of some variety. I’ve pedaled 1000’s of miles, cycled throughout dozens of nations all all over the world, spent numerous nights sleeping in a tent, and have made a whole bunch of associates all throughout the planet.
I began bicycle touring on the age of 17. On the time I had by no means even heard of anybody driving a bicycle over extraordinarily lengthy distances. I didn’t know what bicycle touring was, nor did I learn about all of the particular gear made for long-distance biking. I used to be a complete beginner, however I had this wild concept that I used to be going to journey my father’s previous mountain bike from Oregon to Mexico down the California shoreline. It will be the primary time in my life I had ever been away from residence for greater than a day or two, and it might be the primary time I ever did one thing really by myself. Simply the considered it was horrifying and exhilarating all on the identical time.
However what? I accomplished that first bicycle tour with ease. It took me solely 30 days to pedal my rusty previous bike to the Mexican-American border… and by the point I obtained there, I used to be hooked!
This can be a photograph of me on my first long-distance bicycle tour –
biking from Oregon to Mexico down the California shoreline.
Firstly of that first bicycle tour, I by no means imagined that long-distance bicycle touring was one thing I might quickly be making an everyday a part of my life. However the open street referred to as to me every summer time throughout my time in College. When my associates had been working low-paying jobs throughout their quick summer time breaks, I used to be off driving my bicycle in some nook of North America. And when my faculty profession got here to an finish, I began biking abroad. 12 months after 12 months my bicycle touring adventures continued.
For the primary few years, I saved telling myself that I might solely do yet one more bicycle tour after which that might be the top of it. However 12 months after 12 months, the open street saved calling my title.
It has been fourteen years now since I began my bicycle touring adventures and I’m simply as excited by the concept of biking by means of an unknown a part of the world as once I first began biking in my teenagers.
The reality is, nonetheless, I do get slightly uninterested in biking generally. On my newest long-distance bicycle tour, I used to be away from residence for greater than 14 months – throughout which era I cycled by means of 24 completely different international locations on three completely different continents. I spent six months of that point sleeping on the bottom in my tent; I used to be alone for the good majority of that journey (a few 12 months); and each resolution made (about the place I used to be going to sleep, what roads I used to be going to take, which meals I used to be going to eat, and many others) was solely as much as me. It was great and lonely and tiring unexpectedly.
By the point I completed my bicycle tour in southern Africa, I used to be exhausted. The concept of merely going residence, taking off my sneakers, and never transferring for a great month or two sounded very good. In order that’s precisely what I did!
In early July, 2013, I made my approach residence and settled into my condominium within the mountains of Park Metropolis, Utah: a 1-bedroom, 1-bath condominium I purchased for myself once I was simply 22-years previous.
It felt good to be again “residence.” However the bizarre factor about touring a lot is that residence doesn’t all the time really feel like residence when the street has been your property for thus very lengthy.
I settled in to my regular, sedentary life. I shopped for meals on the native market, went to the financial institution and the publish workplace, ate in any respect the eating places I used to be so aware of, and tried to get re-involved in the area people (I performed on a curling crew, joined a table-tennis membership, and went mountain climbing with a few of the associates I had left behind greater than a 12 months in the past). For the primary month or two, it felt nice to be again residence!
However someplace round month three or 4, I started to fall into the lure I think about many individuals fall into. The times began to go by extra rapidly, I misplaced monitor of time, I wasn’t undertaking as a lot as I might have favored to, and I spotted I wasn’t as completely satisfied at residence as I believed I might be.
Once I was out on the street, I sometimes dreamed of being at residence – strolling round barefoot, sitting by the fireplace, and taking a heat bathe each single day (a luxurious I hardly ever get when I’m bicycle touring in lots of elements of the world). However now that I used to be residence and had all these issues that I had been lacking on my travels, now all I wished to do was get again out on the street – spend all day pondering, pushing myself up large hills, assembly strangers and turning them into associates, and sleeping in my tent every evening.
Once I returned to my Utah residence in July of 2013, my plan was to remain there till Might, 2014, after which go on one other massive bicycle tour at the moment. However I used to be getting anxious and the climate was turning. It was December now and the climate was getting chilly. Snow had fallen and the native ski season had begun. However I hadn’t bought a ski move, so I used to be caught indoors and wishing I used to be again on my bike, touring the world, and having one other massive journey.
It appears unusual to say this now, however that’s once I noticed the trailer for the brand new film, The Secret Lifetime of Walter Mitty. For those who haven’t seen the trailer but, I encourage you to look at it now.
The trailer reveals a middle-age man caught in a boring desk job, who desires of escaping and going off on a wild journey. On the level within the trailer the place Sean Penn waves Benn Stiller’s character over to him, I knew what I used to be going to do. I used to be sitting at residence, watching a trailer for the newest Hollywood blockbuster, but it surely was that one second that might change my winter plans solely.
The very subsequent day I listed my condominium for hire and two days after that had discovered a renter. I signed a contract and my condominium was gone. I rented it out for a complete 12 months – thus liberating me as much as hit the street as soon as extra and reside out my bicycle touring desires!
I simply introduced my bicycle touring journey plans for 2014, so in case you haven’t already learn that article, I encourage you to provide it a fast look proper now.
This 12 months I might be biking by means of a minimum of 14 completely different international locations (and perhaps much more than that). I might be touring alone at occasions, however I’m making an effort to search out others to affix me for sure elements of my journey. I’m unhappy to depart my residence in Utah behind, however excited in regards to the adventures that lay forward. 2014 goes to be an unimaginable 12 months!
However why do I preserve doing this to myself?
Why do I proceed to go bicycle touring 12 months after 12 months, even when it sometimes wears me out and is often such a lonely endeavor.
The reality is, I return to bicycle touring 12 months after 12 months as a result of it’s so unimaginable memorable.
Once I look again during the last fourteen years, there isn’t a complete lot that I keep in mind. I imply, I can keep in mind the place I went on my bicycle excursions, however I don’t keep in mind a lot else.
I don’t know the place I used to be for the vacations in 2002; I don’t know what TV reveals I watched in 2005; and I don’t keep in mind what new garments I purchased in 2007.
However what I do keep in mind?
I keep in mind each single bicycle tour I’ve ever been on… and I keep in mind a whole bunch of magical moments from these bicycle adventures!
For those who had been to ask me what I did in 2005, I might be capable of rapidly inform you about my bicycle tour by means of Canada, Washington and Oregon states, however I wouldn’t be capable of inform you a lot else. It’s solely after mentioning my bicycle tour that I might keep in mind that 2005 was the 12 months I graduated from College. However the truth that I graduated from faculty would come second to my bicycle tour! In different phrases, I keep in mind my travels by bike way over I keep in mind anything.
Actually, my bicycle excursions are how I keep in mind nearly all the things. Title a 12 months and I can inform you the place I used to be that 12 months due to my bicycle excursions. My travels by bike are a transparent image in my thoughts, whereas all the things else is extra of a haze.
So once I sit down and take into consideration the rationale I’ve gone bicycle touring each single 12 months for the final fourteen years in a row, that’s the very first thing that involves thoughts: I’m going bicycle touring 12 months after 12 months as a result of it’s so extremely memorable… and I need to do as many memorable issues in life as I presumably can.
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