The last mile

“Come down from the mountain / you have been gone too long.” – Fleet Foxes

We left the town of Mineral and descended through the last vestiges of the Cascades.  The forest gave way to golden hills and then farmlands, miles of orchards and fields of sunflowers that extended to the horizon.  I reached the town of Chico and was spent—the mountains had humbled me as mountains tend to do.

The following days faded into one another, a slow daydream of plains punctuated by vineyards and vast plots of cherry, peach, almond and pear trees.  Fruit stands sprouted up with every mile, it seemed; I wondered, for an instant, if I was back in Georgia, lost again in the sunny orchards of the South.

I wasn’t.  In fact I was nearing the coast, inching towards the Pacific with every pedal stroke.  My body knew this; it sensed the end of the journey.  My legs had begun to rebel, and I felt weak and sluggish in the saddle.  Eleven weeks of riding through dust and exhaust had left me with a dry, recurring cough; dark rings of saggy skin permanently encircled my eyes.  My lower back was strained, a mass of knots and bruises caused by sleeping on a Thermarest that tended to deflate shortly after I settled in for the night.  My mind, too—I was quickly losing my mind on these roads.

My mind was running on a trivial amount of sleep.  My thoughts on the bike became dull and at times silly, and my reflexes and senses had become noticeably slow and numb.

Tiredness—I had never known tiredness like this.  Within minutes of sitting down to write or to compose an email, my eyes would grow heavy and I would nod off.  My lethargy was uncontrollable.  I had quit coffee in the spring because the syrupy drink brewed by the architects in my office caused my heart to race and my hands to manically fumble on the keyboard.  Now I picked up the habit again with even greater fervor.

Funny, I thought.  Funny that my breaking point had come not in the hostility of the big mountains but in these idyllic flats.  It was a delayed breakdown—an inevitable one.  Chico to Colusa, Colusa to Davis, Davis to Livermore…I remember the names but little else.  A string of places I experienced with eyes only half open.

Livermore to San Jose.  I sat behind Mike as we raced to the church where we would spend the final night of the trip.  We looked west and saw the Santa Cruz mountains.

“I reckon we’ll be climbing those tomorrow, Mike,” I shouted over traffic on the Alameda Expressway.

Mike grinned as he looked back at me.

“Oh yeah,” he said.

The next morning the mountains were shrouded in mist.  I left San Jose with Cassie, Ethan, and Lacy, my co-leaders and honorary siblings.  We had not ridden as a group like this since our first ride in Charleston.

We took our time as we tackled the windy ascent up Highway 9.  On the descent, we rode through redwood forests, posing for celebratory pictures along the way.  Then came the car-choked race into Santa Cruz.  We rode in a tight group, taking the full width of the lane and shouting the commands that had become instinctual to us.  I rode cautiously but with a hint of recklessness; we were close, after all, so damn close.  A truck buzzed me and a hand with a middle-finger extended shot out from the passenger-side window, reminding me of the war we had fought against drivers for the majority of the summer.  I remembered the driver that had thrown an empty cup at one of my riders near Atlanta, the one that had hit Sarah in Greenville, the driver that had intentionally run two riders off the road in Oklahoma.  F*%k them, I thought.  It was our day, our triumph.

Santa Cruz, California

We had taken the streets, the twenty-eight of us.  We rode in fourteen pairs down Ocean Avenue.  Our cheers drowned out the noise of traffic and everything else.  Santa Cruz, California.  80 days after leaving Charleston and we were here, the final mile of our epic, the final scene of the final act of the wonderful and tumultuous and achingly beautiful drama that had become our everyday lives.  In a mile it would be over and we would suddenly be thrust into what we had been calling “real life,” the “real world,” the world of being young and once again out of a job and lonely.  This of course was a falsehood, since if we have learned anything it is that few things in this life are as real as riding a bicycle: the wind whipping your face, the sweat dripping down sunburned cheeks like teardrops.

Lacy and I led the peloton through the streets; we rode slowly, savoring the moment.  Tourists in cafes and people in cars cheered us on.  We rounded a corner and the ocean came into view: the boundless Pacific, its blue waters blending into the sky so that it looked like the edge of the earth.  We let out primal shouts, our throats weary and hoarse.  We made a right turn onto 7^th and saw the sand, the end of the road.  The noise from the pack was deafening now.  We made a final turn onto Cliff Street and sped to the ramp leading to the sand.  Friends and family and strangers caught up in the excitement greeted us as we rode in.  I hit the sand and dismounted my bike, lowering it gracefully to the earth like always.

I had fantasized about this moment for months—the moment when I would reach the end with my teammates and every worry and anxiety would vanish.  None of these dreams or visions could prepare me for it, this great wave of relief and elation.  We were safe and intact, the twenty-eight of us, and the burden of leading was lifted from me.  We were safe.

I nervously stripped down to only my shorts and jersey and began the mad dash to the water.  It was, I maintained later, the fastest I had run in my life.  I tore my jersey off as I crested a small rise and saw the breaking waves and heard their lovely crushing music.  I did not feel the sting of the fifty-degree water or the pebbles or broken seashells on the pads of my feet.  I dove into the breaking waves and emerged, shouting fiercely at the sea.  Soon I was caught up in a myriad of embraces and group hugs as my teammates entered the fray.

I do not know if I had ever known happiness or relief like this.  My world was the ring of twenty-eight people embracing and singing in the knee-deep water of the Pacific; there was nothing and no place else.  I was infatuated with every breath I took, with the salty air and the spray of the ocean, with the smiles around me.  This is joy that can not be described, only felt and then longed for later.  Some will never know joy like this and it saddens me.

Later we would complete the journey by carrying our bikes on our shoulders to the water’s edge.  I lowered the wheels of my bicycle to the glistening sand and waited for the water from a breaking wave to roll towards me and to give my tires—worn and shredded by so many miles—a long, salty kiss.

Lassen Peak

The ghost bike was powder-white and leaning against an old fence post.  Fake flowers and other objects lay strewn about on the ground next to the bike; the most notable of these was a tube of sunscreen, the same kind I put on every morning.

Ghost bikes are memorials for cyclists who have been killed on the road.  They are typically old bicycles that have been spray-painted entirely white; they are chained to stop signs or trees, placed on street corners or on the side of country highways.  The bikes are meant to be the permanent guardians of the place where the victim’s life was lost.  The effect is often chilling: a stark white bicycle against a backdrop of forest, a ghost haunting some forgotten street corner.

I was riding from Cassel, California to the town of Mineral when I saw the bike.  The morning had been a cold one, and I had spent much of it leading a large, eager pack.  The group was broken up by several short but punishing climbs, and I found myself riding alone on the narrow road through a clearing.  Fires had ravaged the area in recent years, creating large, unnatural meadows like this one.  After spending the morning weaving through the thick forest, it felt odd to be suddenly exposed like this to the sun and wind.  I could see the day’s apex looming ahead of me: Lassen Peak, the craggy remains of a volcano that erupted a century ago.  Snow still dotted its upper slopes.  We were slated to climb Lassen, to ascend some 5,000 feet from the town of Cassel to the pass just below the peak.  I passed the shrine encircling the ghost bike and gazed at the peak.  In silence I dedicated my efforts that day to the fallen cyclist.

At mile 25 I joined Ethan, who had set out alone some time before me.  We chatted and struggled to breathe easy as we continued to climb.  After another six miles or so, we reached Eskimo Pass and began a steep descent; after an abrupt left turn, we reached the entrance to Lassen National Park.  A large pond greeted us at the entrance, with Lassen Peak towering above it.  The water was surpassingly clear and beautiful in the midday sun.  We set up a lunch stop at a visitor’s center up the road.  A museum built in the park’s infancy was the highlight of the stop—it was an old stone building with terra-cotta awnings.  Inside I admired National Park Service postcards designed in the 1930s.  The cards had blocky lettering and wonderfully abstract drawings of canyon walls and redwood trees, all of it rendered expertly in sharp oranges and blues.

I left lunch and was met with soreness in my legs.  The mountain passes of the preceding day had tested my muscles, and now they were resisting the relentlessness of the climb.  “Shut up, legs.”  I remembered seeing the message spray painted on the road near the summit of Independence Pass, and I repeated it in my head.  Shut up, legs.  After several miles the road began a sharp descent.  The descent, while undeniably enjoyable, was sullied by an unforgiving truth—that every foot of elevation lost, every inch, would have to be paid for on the next climb.

I reached the end of the descent and immediately resumed the interminable cranking in the lower gears.  I began to sweat so I opened the zipper on the front of my jersey to let more air in.  Shortly after this, a wasp flew into the opening and stung my chest.  The pain and swelling from the sting diverted my attention from the pain in my legs and rear end.  I pulled off to apply an anti-itch cream and then pressed on.

Summit Lake sits ten miles north of Lassen Peak.  It is completely encircled by pine trees and, despite its name, offers no view of Lassen or any other summit.  I noticed the names of my teammates chalked at the pulloff to Summit Lake and decided to join them.  I reached the shore and immediately removed my helmet, gloves and cycling shoes.  The water was clear and alluringly cold; I waded out to join my teammates and was instantly reenergized.  We spent twenty minutes or so there, swimming and talking through chattering teeth.  After drying in a patch of sun on top of a picnic table, I rejoined Ethan and we resumed the ever-steepening climb.

It was as if the succeeding miles of road had been designed to break our spirits.  We would forge through difficult climbs, round a bend, and then be faced with an equally challenging pitch.  The road was replete with false summits and brief flat sections that teased our burning legs.  Conversation ceased, replaced by hoarse breathing and the sound of passing cars.  The dry, wheezing cough I had developed in Springs returned to me with the gain in altitude, and I coughed violently in the thin air.  Signs announced the changing elevation:  5,000 feet… 6,000…7,000.  I clung to Ethan’s back wheel, matching his pace, and did my best to forget the deepening pain.

At around five miles from the summit, we left the shelter of the trees and rode through a series of clearings and meadows.  For the first time we were able to see the scale of our progress—to our left, one could look out over miles of mountains and lakes.  Immediately ahead of us was Lassen, the rocky prominence of its peak still seemingly out of reach to us.  We began rounding switchbacks and riding slowly through horseshoe bends in the road.  Occasionally the winds would let up, and the mountainside would be deeply quiet.  I was reminded of the times I had spent on climbs in the Rockies, when the air would suddenly grow still and I would be left with the sound of my own breathing and nothing else; it was as if the mountain were acknowledging my tiny presence, granting me access to its upper reaches.  The final miles to the summit rolled pleasantly by as the grade flattened and the pain in my legs subsided.  We reached the nondescript sign announcing the top of the pass and dismounted our bikes.

I descended alone; I have found that this is the only way for me.  The road wove around small peaks and high points, cutting a path of tight switchbacks down a wide canyon.  Occasionally I would look back at Lassen, it’s backside incomparably fierce and majestic.  Sometimes big descents are tense and nightmarish experiences—the body tightens with every bend in the road, every acceleration.  Other times, descents fill us with an understanding of what it means to be alive.  The road unfolds before you and every turn or drop or sweeping vista is an absolute gift.  Your hands slowly relinquish their death grip on the brakes and you let it all go if only for a few miles.

Joe’s Bicycle Parts

Lakeview, Oregon to Alturas, California

It was the last day of July, the final day before the onset of August, that dirge of a month signifying the death of summer.  We left Wagontire just after sunrise.  It was cool and cloudy, a sky unbecoming of the desert.  The clouds were compounded by smoke blown in from wildfires to the north.  A white haze enveloped the surrounding hills.

We rode in a group of four, two pairs riding two abreast.  We rode fast in the cool air—the headwinds had yet to make their entrance.  After fifteen miles or so we descended to the shores of Lake Abert, a sprawling saltwater lake in a large basin.  The lake butts against a massive rim; we spent the day hugging the rim’s dark rock faces, scanning the slopes for bighorn sheep.

Travis called the place sublime and claimed that Kant would appreciate it.  I remembered reading about the sublime in college, in the dark recesses of a library, not fully grasping it then.  One of the defining characteristics of the sublime, I have found, is that it can not be described; simply put, you will know it when you see it.

Another night, another high school gymnasium in a small town with a lone theatre with neon lights and a crumbling hotel and thrift shops and a cheap Mexican joint.  I sit to write on the floor of the locker room because it is the only semblance of privacy that I have.  And even then noise spills in from the group of riders sitting on the patio outside recounting stories from the road like old men reminiscing about adolescence.  There is more laughter these nights, I have noticed.  This trip is ending and we can feel it.  We felt it when we crossed into California, when we drank grape-juice champagne at the state line and danced and cheered.

Ξ

A dozen bikes lined the entryway into Joe’s Bicycle Parts.  I was on my way out of town but had pulled off of Main Street to see the shop and to meet the man behind it all, to thank him for helping my teammates with repairs the night before.  I knew that he was eccentric, a man with a canon of rambling stories.  I also knew that his name was not Joe—that he had chosen the name for his shop because it simply sounded catchier.  His name was Houston.

I found him engrossed in his work; Houston was hunched over the teal frame of a gorgeous road bike mounted on a repair stand.  The frame was skinny and angular; simple, more elegant than the over-worked frames of today.  We shook hands and Houston motioned to the bike on the stand.

“Beautiful frame,” he said.

He led me to the corner of his cramped shop, to a squat bike with a peculiar frame.  Houston explained that it was forty years old and French.  The model had been developed for use in the Second World War.

“Ok, a woman found it in her garage and brought it to me, ok?”

This was how Houston spoke—the content of each sentence sandwiched between two “Ok’s,” his thoughts bookended by the word.  Ok.  This was also how Houston acquired all of his bikes: garage sales, donations, dumpster-diving finds.  Some were rescued from the landfill by a friend.

The place, the whole idea, seemed glorious and noble to me: a single man struggling against a generation reared on disposable everything: a man and his bikes.

“Ok, why don’t you take this one for a spin, ok?”

He motioned towards the spindly frame of the yellow French bike.  Houston explained its features as I walked it through the shop and into the chill morning air.  He lit a cigarette and I rode down the sidewalk and around a small parking lot.  It was an odd way to begin an 86-mile day.  I stood in front of the shop with Houston for some time after that.  He smoked through the gaps in his teeth.  The man looked weary—he had been up, he claimed, since midnight working on bikes.  I would learn that Houston used his Social Security checks to fund the whole operation, and that instead of accepting payment for bikes he would administer chores to his patrons: sweep the shop, get a discount.

Cassel, California

Our bikes were leaning up against the railing of the front porch of the volunteer fire department.  I’m always fascinated by this, the way we lay out our bikes and cycling gear.  Some riders leave their helmets, gloves and backpacks in a disorderly heap underneath their bicycles.  They hang wet clothes on their bikes to dry.  Others line their cycling shoes up carefully in front of the pedals; they fold their sunglasses and place them neatly into their upturned helmets.  Everything in its right place.  Regardless of the method or preferred ritual, the 28 bikes always resemble horses awaiting their masters, awaiting war.

It is peaceful here.  In the final mile of the ride today, we crossed a large creek.  The woods opened up and we could see mountains in the distance.  The Cascades—we have crossed the Pacific Crest and are now in the heart of these mountains, the last range we will cross in our journey.

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I stopped on the side of the two-lane highway as RV’s and trucks rushed past. A small waterfall was seeping down a rock face; the surface of the rock glimmered in the sunlight and was covered in a thick layer of green algae. I haphazardly dismounted my bike and leaned against the rock. The water was warm but refreshing, and I let it douse my head and jersey. It was late in the afternoon and I had fifteen miles to ride. I had entered the canyon that morning and had soon gotten lost in its beauty. The canyon: it had a desolate kind of beauty, a harshness to it. It was lined by rolling hills of yellow grass, broken by black cliff bands. In the middle flowed the river, the current moving fast with the tailwind. The river gave life to the place: a strip of thick, green vegetation weaving its way through the canyon.

Juntura, Oregon lies at the westernmost entrance of the canyon in a grove of towering cottonwoods. Under the canopy of the densely planted trees it is cool, a small but prized victory after a grueling ride in the sun. The only business in Juntura is the aptly-named Oasis Motel. The motel houses a café with peeling linoleum floors and Formica countertops polished to a mirror-like sheen by years of heavy use. In the hall behind the kitchen, there is an old telephone pole encased in a wall, a bit of history swept up in the motel’s expansion.

Across the road from the Oasis sits a large corral, its muddy floor dried and caked in the sun, trampled by a thousand horse hoofs. We spend the afternoon sitting in the shade next to the corral, watching local ranchers and their families filter in; large trucks and horse trailers soon flank the small plot of dirt. They are here for an afternoon of calf roping. The activity revolves around a basic drill. Two men on horseback sit on either side of a calf. The calf is released and is then chased by the two riders. The first rider throws his lariat around the horns of the calf, while the other rider loops the animal’s hind legs. The drill is repeated over and over again; cows are shuttled through the process and are as familiar with it as their masters. There is something inspiring about the simplicity of it all: chase, rope, repeat. Calf roping is poetic, filled with moments that stick: there are the clouds of dust that form behind the galloping horses, the whoops from bystanders after a particularly skillful roping of the hind legs, the clanking of horns and hoofs against the steel bars of the pen, the smell of manure and livestock, the occasional whinnying of the horses. The corral is a collection of people and activity in an otherwise desolate and despairing landscape, like a painting hung on an unadorned wall. The men wear colors that reflect this and betray the seemingly simple lifestyle they lead: bright reds and yellows, shirts with patterns that defy the landscape like desert poppies. They speak matter-of-factly in low, level voices. They take their time with their words when speaking to us or to each other because conversation is like rain here—a gift, something to be savored.

The sun sets and we sit to eat burgers around large folding tables. We hear stories about the land, about the families and their connection to it. We hear about the children here, children that have grown up on horseback, about mothers bringing infants on cattle drives. We learn that the term “neighbor” is a flexible one here—one rancher tells me that his closest neighbor lives over 50 miles away. We learn that Juntura is less of a town and more of a meeting place. And we find that roping—the set of skills being practiced today—is part of an intricate legacy that has been preserved for generations; that mastering it is a necessity. It is immediately clear that what is happening here is not simply leisure time on a Sunday afternoon. It is the transferring of a way of life, one that is, in our eyes, as foreign and unimaginable as myth.

___

This morning I watched the riders as they departed. This, I have found, is one of the great privileges of being the day’s van driver. When I am on my bike there are few opportunities to remove myself from the ride. But from the side of the road or the seat of the van I can spectate and find joy in spectating. Mornings like this reaffirm the fact that what we do every day is incredible, inimitable.

Shortly after leaving Juntura, the riders began a 12 mile climb to the top of a pass. The climb was gradual, an opportunity to awaken the legs and to chat with teammates. I drove past groups of riders and shouted out the passenger-side window. This trip has made me realize many things about myself; one is that I am slowly turning into the overzealous coach I never fully understood as an athlete.

After a brief descent, the riders began the second and final climb of the day. I noticed the grades steepening as I passed the leaders. I pulled off at the top of the pass and began setting up the lunch stop. To the east, one could see the mountains and canyons we had struggled through in previous days. They extended to the horizon, vanishing into a white haze. I recalled what a local had told me in days leading up to our ride into Oregon—that we were entering one of the most extreme environments on the planet, one of the most desolate places on Earth. For the first time I believed it. Some journeys reach a climactic apex and then taper into a neat, conclusive end. Others are punctuated by struggles; these journeys often have a final test of the will or the heart. As I looked east into that desolation, that beautiful sparseness, I realized that our trip is like this, and that this final push through the desert is our test.

Twin Falls, ID to Mountain Home, ID

The next day we rode 110 miles from Twin Falls to Mountain Home.  At sunrise, I left the high school gymnasium in which we had slept.  In the distance I saw the red blinking taillights of two riders who had left before me; some time later I joined them, happy for some conversation to break the uneasy silence of the morning.  It was warm and muggy out, and the road was clogged with trucks and farming combines.

At mile 20, I stood in my pedals.  As I shifted, my rear derailleur cable snapped, stranding me in my highest gear.  My group and I pulled off near some train tracks and I assessed the damage: despite the shredded cable, I would still be able to shift between my big and small ring.  The bike was rideable, I decided.

After lunch we descended into a broad canyon called Thousand Springs.  It was odd to see such lush terrain.  We crossed the Snake River and the canyon narrowed.  Thin waterfalls descended from the canyon rim; they were white and threadlike.  I stopped to relieve myself on the side of the road and noticed a man walking towards me through a plot of potatoes.  A large sprinkler hissed away behind him.  His jeans and tennis shoes were soaked and muddy from the knee down, and he carried a small notepad like a police officer would.  I asked him how he was doing, and he said that he was doing well, that he was just watering his potatoes.  We talked for a bit about the upcoming harvest, and I asked about which varieties of potatoes would be harvested first.  I told him I thought it was interesting and he shrugged.

“If you say so,” he said.

The man noticed my bike.

“That climb up to Bliss should be fun,” he said, grinning.

The climb came into view perhaps five miles after this: a single switchback that cut across the canyon wall, rising perhaps four or five hundred feet to the surface.  It was a grueling stretch.  Since I was unable to shift into my lowest gear (what cyclists affectionately refer to as the “granny gear”), I was forced to stand in the pedals and crank vigorously.  Sweat poured from my body onto the chunky asphalt.  I reached the town of Bliss still gasping for air.

Ξ

Tomorrow we enter Oregon.  After thousands of landlocked miles we have reached a coastal state; though we are two weeks from even glimpsing the coast, reaching a landmark like this is a mental victory.

I watched the afternoon drifting by today—groups of riders cleaning their bikes in the church parking lot, a shared dinner, showers from a garden hose, people sitting on sleeping bags writing postcards and blog posts, all of the small rituals that we rely on to prepare for the next ride, the rituals that give order to a life with few certainties.  This is life for us now, and it is slated to end soon.

Twin Falls, ID

“Addicted to Jesus.”

The message was scrawled on the side of the borrowed 15-passenger van alongside a litany of others.  I pulled into the parking lot of the small grocery store; it was just before sunset and there was a slight breeze whipping through the lot.  I sat in the driver’s seat for a while and tapped the wheel with my thumbs to a song I had listened to almost daily but had not yet grown tired of.

I walked the aisles of the grocery store in a daze.  Shopping for 28 people is comical at times.  I scoop bags of bagels into the cart, sacks of generic cereal, gallons of milk and orange juice, jelly, bunches of bananas.  Breakfast for 28.  My cart bulged, and the wheels squeaked as I made turns.

This is what it takes to fuel 28 bodies for 103 miles on a bike, I think to myself.

I stood at the checkout line and watched the food pile up on the conveyor belt, a jumbled mess of calories.

“That’s a big breakfast you got planned,” the cashier said.

Outside the wind had started to dissipate.  Downtown Kimberly was dusty and dry like the used-up fields we rode past earlier in the day.  People were leaving the parking lot of the grocery store, and businesses were slowly shutting down for the night.  A lone neon sign remained, marking the entrance to a decrepit bar.

In the evenings—when I am driving the streets of some unfamiliar place, running errands, when there are brief lulls in the quiet chaos that is a Bike & Build trip—my mind dwells on the series of life events that brought me to this specific moment.  How, I wonder, did I end up sitting in a loaned church van in a parking lot in Kimberly, Idaho?  Five years ago, could I have scarcely imagined that I would be here?  And of course there is the question that has lingered in my head all summer, a question that surfaces when the struggles of the road are overpowering:

Why the hell did I sign up for this? 

(The following is an excerpt from my Bike & Build leadership application; it was written in November, 2012).

Please describe your interest in becoming a Bike & Build leader.  What is it about this opportunity that most excites you?  What qualities will you bring to our events?  What do you hope to get out of your involvement as a Trip Leader?  How do you envision this experience affecting your future?

In the summer of 2012, I served as the construction site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity in Chaffee County, Colorado.  I had recently graduated from college with a degree in architecture and saw the build as an opportunity to gain tangible construction experience.  At the same time, it would be a chance to formulate my own concept of what architecture can (and should) be.  In school, I had developed a passion for social work and had begun to integrate this passion into my design projects; I viewed Habitat as a potential first step in a life dedicated to community-based design.

A group of Bike & Build riders arrived on the build site one morning in late June.  Wildfires had been raging across Colorado that month, and the riders had been forced to take a lengthy detour the day before.  They had ridden close to 80 miles through one of the worst thunderstorms of the summer; somewhere near the Royal Gorge, they had abandoned the ride because of the hazardous conditions.

I had heard about Bike & Build often in my first month with Habitat.  A group of riders had passed through Buena Vista the previous summer and had attained a reputation that could only be characterized as legendary.  They were described to me as unparalleled leaders, workers of unparalleled drive (this was reflected in the build schedule, which projected that the Bike & Build visit, a single day on site, would accomplish a week’s worth of work).  I was in awe of their mission—a transcontinental ride in which precious rest days were spent laboring for affordable housing.

And yet I was not unfamiliar with teams, with tightly-knit groups of exceptional individuals.  That spring, I had completed a swimming career that encapsulated seventeen years and a lifetime of challenges.  I had shared virtually every aspect of my life with my teammates.  I had competed against world record holders.  I had trained alongside the Mexican national team.  I had met my heroes and had watched them stalk greatness.

What impacted me most profoundly about the Bike & Build riders was that they were unlike any of these people.  They weren’t a team of triathletes or Ironmen; they weren’t outwardly competitive or infatuated with success in the conventional sense.  Some had scarcely ridden a road bike before Bike & Build.  They were average, proudly so, and yet capable of a tremendous feat of endurance.  And of course they were passionate.  The Bike & Build riders I worked with that day seemed to be of that rare type of people that live their beliefs; the kind of people that see all that is wrong and unjust in the world and are compelled to act.

What draws me to this opportunity?  It may stem from my own passions for social justice and sport, or my recent experiences in affordable housing.  Perhaps it was seeing the Bike & Build riders and their interactions.  Perhaps it was a longing to not only be part of a group such as this, but to lead one.  And then there was the ride—the thousands of miles and experiences, the struggles, the possibility for something transformative and real.

I have always been enamored with the idea of a journey like this.  In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless, the novel’s tragic hero, asserts that “the joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”  McCandless of course failed to realize that these new experiences, this horizon in flux, are only truly meaningful if shared with others; and that the goal of such a journey can be about much more than one’s own enlightenment or satisfaction.  In another instance, however, McCandless makes a valuable insight: “It is important in life not to be strong, but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once.”  What do I hope to gain from leading a trip like this?  This is perhaps the simplest of my motivations:  I want to feel strong.

I feel that Bike & Build can establish the proper framework for my immediate future and perhaps my long-term vision.  My life’s intent – my purpose– is to establish a non-profit creative practice that employs the mediums of art, design, social work, and sport to enrich lives and empower communities in my hometown of El Paso, Texas.  This is a goal that is likely decades away from fulfillment.  And yet I feel that the idea could be developed and tested on the road; that the skills and relationships I plan to gain from this experience could one day drive my practice.

 

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Fire and Water

I watched a lone firework expire over the pool where we had spent the afternoon swimming and napping in the sun.  The water was now marble-black and reflected the scarlet embers of the explosion.  Fire over water, fire dancing on its surface.  Utah is like this, I think: a place of contrasts, of extremes co-existing.  Fire and water.

It is in the landscape—we pass arid, barren mountains extending to the horizon bordered by fertile plains.  Some of these stretches resemble wetlands.  Large stretches of cattail appear, cool ponds and green, shady groves of trees.  There are birds that resemble seagulls all around us and it smells like the ocean, like the foamy spray of the sea.  I wonder if I have in fact reached the Pacific, if I have suddenly awoken from some comatose state to find myself at our journey’s end.  There are orchards, acres upon acres of them bearing a dozen different kinds of fruit.  I ride past one that smells like fruit rotting in the sun and it reminds me of the unwanted apricot tree that littered our yard with its detritus every summer.  The apricots would rot on the grass and cling to bare feet like dog shit.

There are sprawling reservoirs and then dry lakebeds; the earth there is dry and cracked and impossibly white in the sun.  There are fields of sunflowers next to a plant that produces fuel for rockets and missiles.  There are mom-and-pop fruit stands and farmers markets that sit next to a war-surplus store, a giant one whose entrance is marked by a bizarre form of vernacular art: a broken-down tank with a tower of oil drums welded to its gun turret.  People flock to this place.

We see these contrasts and contradictions in the cities and towns we enter, too.  Downtown Salt Lake City is sterile and planned expertly, yet the bike paths on the outskirts of town are canvases for graffiti and show signs of rampant decay.  It is as if this decay is slowly approaching, threatening to corrupt the whiteness of the city.

The contrasts are more apparent at night.  We sit on top of a hill high above downtown and watch the sunset while drinking cheap beer.  There are stretches of glinting lights and then immediately the darkness of the desert plains.  Fire and water.

Starvation

Starvation

I had never been as tired, as spent, in my life.  There was no soreness, no pain in the knees or back.  Just overwhelming fatigue, a feeling of being entirely devoid of energy: utterly wasted.  I lay on a grassy stretch next to the beach, feeling like the full weight of seven weeks on the road was resting on my stomach, making standing a struggle.

Four of us watched the sun set over the reservoir at Starvation State Park.  Earlier we had swum out to a floating dock as a thunderstorm rolled in.  The water was refreshing after miles of desert.  I collapsed into my tent and sleeping bag as soon as the sun had set.  How many of us ever reach this point: the point of being physically and mentally depleted?  It is the feeling of exhausting every conceivable opportunity offered by a single day, what Whitman called “an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

Duchesne, Utah to Provo, Utah

Provo Canyon is deep and narrow; it makes a man feel small.

A well-earned descent.  I rounded a bend and the grade steepened; I began to accelerate, the hum of my tires loudening.  There are few things that compare to a long descent like this on a bike.  You reach the point at which pedaling becomes obsolete, when you simply coast and enjoy the sensation of speed, the deafening roar of the wind in your ears.  Something akin to flight, I suppose.

The day had begun with climbs.  Fifteen miles of climbing.  I reached the first lunch stop at the top of a mountain pass and the back of my jersey was already drenched in sweat.  The sun had greeted us early that day, rising over Starvation reservoir and painting patches of cloud with colors that bordered on the unnatural—neon-oranges and yellows and fluorescent pinks.  The sun bore down on our backs as we ascended from the high desert to the alpine forest of the pass; a long, punishing ascent.

The day was ruthless and this, the rapid descent, was the payoff, something to be savored.

We left the tumult of the highway and entered a bike path that cut through groves of aspen.  The path paralleled a large creek, swollen from a week of steady rainfall.  At times the water crested the riverbank and touched the asphalt path.  Large, clear pools had formed, and the water seemed to move slowly like the rivers of the Deep South; rivers we had crossed, it seemed, a lifetime ago.

The trees parted and Bridal Veil Falls came into view.  The Falls cascaded from the canyon rim; the water began as a single stream and then fanned out towards the bottom so that the base of the waterfall resembled a heavy rain.  The rock face of the canyon was mossy and out of place.  I removed my cycling shoes and dunked my head in a small tributary of the Falls, a Baptism to remedy the heat of an afternoon in the Wasatch Range.

That night we walked to a bar in downtown Provo.  The streets were dark and empty.  Old gothic-revival homes stood proudly on the corners.  We reached the bar; its storefront window was saturated with neon signs announcing a dozen brands of beer, so many signs that one could hardly see the inside of the place.  I walked in and was immediately reminded of a seedy bar I found myself in on occasion in St. Louis.  The ceiling of the bar was concealed by scores of disco balls; the place was dim and loud like this one.