Post by Alan McDougall on Jun 18, 2015 14:54:44 GMT -5
Roger McDougall’s Reflections on Cycling across the US in 2009
Friday August 28, 2009
Colorado is beautiful too but we expected it to be beautiful. The riding was hard here but worth it. The climbs were long but relatively gradual and the downhill’s equally long but exhilarating. Every day brought with it something different.
Kansas was as we expected it to be too, flat and very boring. The harvest was on and we saw huge harvesters at work in the wheat fields. We were often confronted by motorised farming implements taking up the full road width. The Bible belt emerged here with the first appearance of the Baptist Churches.
The Bible belt extends right into Eastern Virginia and was the most disturbing aspect of the trip for me. Wherever we saw poverty and decaying towns, we saw Baptist churches. We saw them in the richer towns too and there was no compensating Catholic, Methodist or any other religion to provide balance. We saw them everywhere; sometimes we saw two located within a mile of each other.
Missouri's claim to fame is not only the Mississippi but the Ozarks. The Ozarks are not mountains but a never ending set of steep, rolling hills. I enjoyed cycling very hard down a hill and almost gliding to the top of the next hill but mostly this was a frustrating, interminable grind. You could see the next hill from the top of the hill and this went on for hundreds of miles. The traffic was scary here since there were no shoulders and cars would perform suicidal feats, overtaking on the rise, into the face of oncoming cars which they could not see.
I loved the long, flat ride to the Mississippi along the flood plains. I enjoyed seeing the Mississippi but hated the bridge we crossed, which carried one lane of traffic each way, most of which was large trucks.
The route clips the southern part of Illinois and we were only in Illinois for two days. We took the Mississippi Levee road which is built on the levee itself. It's flat and there was no traffic.
We crossed into Kentucky across the Ohio River by Ferry. Kentucky has little to recommend it. Kentucky is poor, tired, dirty and seemingly without hope. Needless to say, the Baptist Church thrives in Kentucky. The hills never stopped in Kentucky either.
The Appalachians start in eastern Kentucky although the climb into the Appalachians proper commences just before the state border with Virginia.
The road ahead always loomed large, as did the mountains, the cold, the mosquitoes and the exaggerated tales of the road ahead by oncoming cyclists. The road behind was just a compilation of memories, devoid of pain and anxiety, some soon to be forgotten, others to be cherished and enhanced with the retelling. Nearly four thousand miles to do is daunting but the same distance done is simply done.
As the trip neared its end, I quickly forgot the long hours of walking up mountains, the almost frost bitten hands riding downhill at forty miles per hour in the rain and bitter cold with wet gloves, the interminable hills of the Ozarks, the boring nothingness that is Kansas, remembering only the beauty of Utah, the exhilaration of dropping three thousand feet at forty miles per hour, seeing the Mississippi for the first time and getting to the top of Monarch Pass at 11333 feet.
I rode with two companions, and often others who joined us along the way. David and I did the whole trip together and Ray rode with us across the Rockies and through Kansas. We rode unsupported and carried all our equipment and water, amounting to over one hundred lbs., including the bikes.
David, Ray and I had our differences but this was always to be expected with three people starting out on such an adventure, never having met. I quickly grew to like them both very much. Strangely enough, our similarities were much greater than our differences. Ray and I are introverted whilst David is a little less introverted. Nevertheless we are all quiet, unassuming individuals, not given to tall tales and huge egos. We were well suited!
I was not really ready for the ride. It soon became obvious that David was a very strong cyclist and Ray and I had a long way to go. The first couple of weeks, I lagged behind the others, who often waited for me at the top of big climbs. I did not enjoy these first couple of weeks. It all seemed too hard. I felt we were doing too many miles per day, especially in the mountains, and especially since I had only planned to do forty five per day, yet here we were doing sixty and sometimes more.
As the days went by, I became fitter and stronger, my enjoyment increasing commensurate with my level of fitness and strength. I did the climb of nearly five thousand feet from Cedar City to Cedar Breaks without walking and I was happy, despite the bitter cold at the summit.
The Sierra Nevada in California is beautiful but I had done this section before so I knew what to expect. It was still beautiful and the second time around allowed me to see things I had previously missed.
I was expecting nothing of Nevada but the rolling mountains with valleys of fifty miles between each provided an exhilarating ride. Almost every day from Fallon through to Pueblo in Western Colorado, the other side of the Rockies, we had a huge climb and an equally exhilarating drop into the valley below. I had always thought that Nevada was flat and arid but it's neither.
Utah is almost indescribably beautiful. Even the barren and remote sections are beautiful. The rock formations, the Mesas, the mountains are a kaleidoscope of beauty. My two most memorable day of the entire trip were in Utah. The first was riding with a gentle tailwind down a gently sloping road.
Virginia is a beautiful state with trees, mountains and big rivers. We decided to diverge from our route and take the US58 into Virginia Beach. This saved about a hundred miles but also took us through some of the most dangerous traffic we had seen. The traffic through Norfolk was terrible, it being a Friday evening.
That last day in late July, we arrived in Virginia Beach around 7 pm, after a long one hundred and ten mile day. My first glimpse of the Atlantic signalled the end of the journey and the end of the road ahead. From now, all I would have would be the memories. Somehow the trip now seems almost trivial and easy. I experienced no anti-climax but I did feel largely indifferent about what I know was a huge achievement.
As I look back, the trip increasingly takes on more meaning for me and my indifference about our achievement is fading. I may even do another trip.
( He did do two more bike trips across North America, these times on his own)
Friday August 28, 2009
Colorado is beautiful too but we expected it to be beautiful. The riding was hard here but worth it. The climbs were long but relatively gradual and the downhill’s equally long but exhilarating. Every day brought with it something different.
Kansas was as we expected it to be too, flat and very boring. The harvest was on and we saw huge harvesters at work in the wheat fields. We were often confronted by motorised farming implements taking up the full road width. The Bible belt emerged here with the first appearance of the Baptist Churches.
The Bible belt extends right into Eastern Virginia and was the most disturbing aspect of the trip for me. Wherever we saw poverty and decaying towns, we saw Baptist churches. We saw them in the richer towns too and there was no compensating Catholic, Methodist or any other religion to provide balance. We saw them everywhere; sometimes we saw two located within a mile of each other.
Missouri's claim to fame is not only the Mississippi but the Ozarks. The Ozarks are not mountains but a never ending set of steep, rolling hills. I enjoyed cycling very hard down a hill and almost gliding to the top of the next hill but mostly this was a frustrating, interminable grind. You could see the next hill from the top of the hill and this went on for hundreds of miles. The traffic was scary here since there were no shoulders and cars would perform suicidal feats, overtaking on the rise, into the face of oncoming cars which they could not see.
I loved the long, flat ride to the Mississippi along the flood plains. I enjoyed seeing the Mississippi but hated the bridge we crossed, which carried one lane of traffic each way, most of which was large trucks.
The route clips the southern part of Illinois and we were only in Illinois for two days. We took the Mississippi Levee road which is built on the levee itself. It's flat and there was no traffic.
We crossed into Kentucky across the Ohio River by Ferry. Kentucky has little to recommend it. Kentucky is poor, tired, dirty and seemingly without hope. Needless to say, the Baptist Church thrives in Kentucky. The hills never stopped in Kentucky either.
The Appalachians start in eastern Kentucky although the climb into the Appalachians proper commences just before the state border with Virginia.
The road ahead always loomed large, as did the mountains, the cold, the mosquitoes and the exaggerated tales of the road ahead by oncoming cyclists. The road behind was just a compilation of memories, devoid of pain and anxiety, some soon to be forgotten, others to be cherished and enhanced with the retelling. Nearly four thousand miles to do is daunting but the same distance done is simply done.
As the trip neared its end, I quickly forgot the long hours of walking up mountains, the almost frost bitten hands riding downhill at forty miles per hour in the rain and bitter cold with wet gloves, the interminable hills of the Ozarks, the boring nothingness that is Kansas, remembering only the beauty of Utah, the exhilaration of dropping three thousand feet at forty miles per hour, seeing the Mississippi for the first time and getting to the top of Monarch Pass at 11333 feet.
I rode with two companions, and often others who joined us along the way. David and I did the whole trip together and Ray rode with us across the Rockies and through Kansas. We rode unsupported and carried all our equipment and water, amounting to over one hundred lbs., including the bikes.
David, Ray and I had our differences but this was always to be expected with three people starting out on such an adventure, never having met. I quickly grew to like them both very much. Strangely enough, our similarities were much greater than our differences. Ray and I are introverted whilst David is a little less introverted. Nevertheless we are all quiet, unassuming individuals, not given to tall tales and huge egos. We were well suited!
I was not really ready for the ride. It soon became obvious that David was a very strong cyclist and Ray and I had a long way to go. The first couple of weeks, I lagged behind the others, who often waited for me at the top of big climbs. I did not enjoy these first couple of weeks. It all seemed too hard. I felt we were doing too many miles per day, especially in the mountains, and especially since I had only planned to do forty five per day, yet here we were doing sixty and sometimes more.
As the days went by, I became fitter and stronger, my enjoyment increasing commensurate with my level of fitness and strength. I did the climb of nearly five thousand feet from Cedar City to Cedar Breaks without walking and I was happy, despite the bitter cold at the summit.
The Sierra Nevada in California is beautiful but I had done this section before so I knew what to expect. It was still beautiful and the second time around allowed me to see things I had previously missed.
I was expecting nothing of Nevada but the rolling mountains with valleys of fifty miles between each provided an exhilarating ride. Almost every day from Fallon through to Pueblo in Western Colorado, the other side of the Rockies, we had a huge climb and an equally exhilarating drop into the valley below. I had always thought that Nevada was flat and arid but it's neither.
Utah is almost indescribably beautiful. Even the barren and remote sections are beautiful. The rock formations, the Mesas, the mountains are a kaleidoscope of beauty. My two most memorable day of the entire trip were in Utah. The first was riding with a gentle tailwind down a gently sloping road.
Virginia is a beautiful state with trees, mountains and big rivers. We decided to diverge from our route and take the US58 into Virginia Beach. This saved about a hundred miles but also took us through some of the most dangerous traffic we had seen. The traffic through Norfolk was terrible, it being a Friday evening.
That last day in late July, we arrived in Virginia Beach around 7 pm, after a long one hundred and ten mile day. My first glimpse of the Atlantic signalled the end of the journey and the end of the road ahead. From now, all I would have would be the memories. Somehow the trip now seems almost trivial and easy. I experienced no anti-climax but I did feel largely indifferent about what I know was a huge achievement.
As I look back, the trip increasingly takes on more meaning for me and my indifference about our achievement is fading. I may even do another trip.
( He did do two more bike trips across North America, these times on his own)
