Post-ride information overload

Hi hi from Syracuse!

This is my last post, and in it is contained various pictures from east of Colorado, silly stories about my post-trip fun, me reminiscing about biking cross-country, and a book list!

The bike path from Silverthorne to Breckenridge

Highest point on the transamerica! It's mostly downhill from here.

The view from Hoosier Pass

My only nice picture from Western Kentucky

Looming storm clouds in Kansas - I found shelter, fast.

Current River - Missouri

Crossing the Ohio river from Illinois to Kentucky

Kentucky sunrise

Treehouse!

Happiness is a bike tour

Newby, the wonderful groceries fairy

As much as I hate invasive vines, they make for some interesting landscapes

Somebody in Virginia doesn't like Obama

Mick biking up the Virginia Creeper Trail

Now I know why they're called the blue ridge mountains

Panorama from the blue ridge parkway

Sunrise somewhere pretty in Virginia

Struggling to lift my bike over my head in victory (I failed)

 After finishing my trip, I drove into DC, spent a day there, and then Sonya and I went to the beach in Delaware.

Sonya super excited for the beach

View of the Atlantic from a beach in Delaware

After that, we drove to Princeton to visit my friend Thaddeus!

A great evening ensued, including but not limited to: heart-stopping hoagies, rock climbing, unnecessary difficulties in choosing 6packs, night-time exploration of Princeton, dredging the depths of youtube (this), drunk facetime, hand-carved wooden spoons, and 40 koozies.

No, that's not a corpse - that's a bacon cheeseburger, french fry, and  mac 'n' cheese wedge hoagie.
Princeton knows how to stop your heart (hand for scale)

Thaddeus channeling his inner Nordic god at the Princeton climbing wall.

After that, we went to see Abbe Hamilton in PA! Unfortunately, I have no pictures, but we went caving (oh man did I miss caving), and then attended a potluck with the caving crew! It was incredibly fun. The evening included explaining burning man to an Italian girl with barely any knowledge of english, being called Chip & Chop (the Italian version of Chip & Dale) due to our matching fleeces, lots of fun songs about animals and nature, and trying to patch Abbe's thumb up after she cut it with a bread knife and refused to tell anyone but me. It was fantastic!

Now, some random thoughts about bike touring!

I would absolutely recommend it to anyone. Any budget can accommodate it, any pace works, and you'd be surprised by how easy it is to get in biking shape, regardless of how fit you were before. Physical disrepair is no excuse for not being able to tour. I've met several couples in their late 60's / early 70's who were having an absolutely fantastic time.

There were times when thought I'd made a huge mistake. I would think: "What kind of hubris inspired me to take on this trip?". But after pushing through and continuing on, I realized that you can only thrive in adversity - constantly blowing your comfort bubble to smithereens and exalting in the catharsis that ensues.
The challenge - both mental and physical of putting in 50+ hour weeks of biking will change you. It's impossible to spend 8 hours a day on a saddle with negative, petty, or angry thoughts. You simply won't make it. Instead, you find yourself focusing on the positives of every situation, and on the amazing experience you've gotten yourself into.

Touring isn't about biking. It's about the people you meet. This trip restored my faith in humanity. I didn't meet a single bad person during the 58 days I was on the road. Everyone I met was kinder than the last. There are good people regardless of where you are, be it the high peaks of Colorado, the plains of Kansas, or the windy mountain roads of Appalachia.

America is an amazingly varied region, and biking through many different climates and geographical conditions gave me a great overview of the country - even if I didn't scratch it's proverbial surface. However, thanks to this trip, I experienced rural America - something that I had never really known anything about. Most towns I went through had populations ranging from 50 to 1000. I stopped locking my bike up after a few weeks. Why bother? Everyone knows each other, and nobody is interested in petty bike theft. Many places I went through were experiencing crippling poverty, but that didn't stop them from being welcoming and genuine people.

Anyways, those were some random thoughts. There are many more, but I don't want to make this too too long.

Book list (in the order I read them)

1) The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King - 8 book series of pretty fantastic science fantasy / western. It's a bizarre world to explain, but if you're into that kind of thing it's great. I have never read any of his other stuff (I hate horror in any shape or form), but these books were amazing.

2) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig - an absolutely marvelous book for a bike trip. In fact, during their motorcycle trip, they follow the transamerica for most of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. I think that anyone could gain from reading it, it was wonderful.

3) Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect by Matthew D. Lieberman - a compilation of research that explains why we are such social creatures and why we do not thrive when we aren't connected to others. Good read - there are some pretty counter-intuitive findings about human behavior in there.

4) The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity by Steven Strogatz - fun short book that does a great job of explaining the beauty and intricacy of mathematics. Regardless of how much you like (or dislike) math, it's a engaging and entertaining read. 

5) Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math by Daniel Tammet - This was my absolutely favorite book of the trip. Through different anecdotes and stories, autistic savant Daniel Tammet explores many different questions that relate to life in this amazing book. It doesn't matter if you need your phone calculator to get you through figuring out a dinner tip or if you're a numerical analysis PhD - I highly recommend it. It's beautiful. I loved it. He has synesthesia, which is a pretty sweet condition that he shares with the amazing author of book #6.

6) Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov - not as good as Lolita (in my opinion), but a great read. It is formatted as a commentary to a 999-line poem, through which the story progresses. The beauty of it is that it can be read in several different ways: Poem then commentary, or by alternating the poem and the commentary whenever necessary.

7) This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works by John Brockman - Edge.org asked the question "What is your most favorite deep, beautiful, and elegant theory?". In the form of 150 one to two page responses by a plethora of famous (and not so famous) scientists, it went through many theories I knew - and many I didn't. Although there was a lot of quantum stuff that went way over my head, most of it was interesting and captivating

8) A Prison Diary (Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven) by Jeffrey Archer - if you don't know Jeffery Archer, you should. He is an absolutely fantastic British novelist, and I recommend every book he has read. In this three part series, he recounts his experience of the British prison system after his convictions for perjury and perverting the course of justice. I found them to be a fascinating take of the British prison system, and they are extremely interesting - although they can get pretty hardcore - he doesn't pull any punches.

9) Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - as much as I enjoyed the movie, the book is even better. It's a hard book to explain without ruining everything about it, but it is amazing in a disturbing kind of way.

Honorable Mention  Ulysses by James Joyce - I tried. I gave up. I'm sorry.

10) Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself by Rich Roll - a bad book to read during a bike tour. All I wanted to do after reading it was ditch the bike and start running again. It's a pretty inspiring read, and is making me want to do ultra's even more than before. I'm also planning on trying vegan for a bit due to it. We shall see. If you're into triathlons, ironmans, or any ultra-endurance sport you'll enjoy this. 

11)  Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - honestly, meh. It's a very popular sciency book, and I don't agree with the way he structures his arguments. He also seems to misunderstand the scientific method. Instead of postulating a hypothesis, constructing experiments to test said hypothesis, and arriving at a conclusion with the data from the experiments; he states a conclusion, uses very specific data that supports that conclusion, and from there postulates a hypothesis that leads to that conclusion. It made me mad. I'm not sorry.

12) Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet - a biography by the same author of #5. It's really good as well. He explains his life as an autistic savant, and I loved it.

13) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - I haven't read a novel as good as this one in a while. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, which may give you an idea of what calibre it is. Again, I can't say much about it without ruining it, but it is a fantastic read. The metaphors she uses are unique, and the insights offered at the end of the book were beautiful and thought provoking.  

14) Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind by Daniel Tammet - yet another book by Daniel. Funnily enough, I've read them out of the order they were published - but it's kinda fun that way (They go Born on a Blue Day, this one, and then Thinking in Numbers). I'm actually cheating, since I'm still reading this one, but it's good. He talks about how savants don't necessarily have different functioning brains than the average person - they simply function at another level. In this book, he talks about the potential that is within all of us to use our brains more effectively.  

22.5 books in 58 days while biking cross-country. Not bad, eh?

Anyways, all good things must end (I hope this is a good thing). If you're still here, dear reader, I hope you enjoyed these silly blog posts. They were really fun to write, and I was cheered by the fact that a substantial amount of random people have told me how much they enjoyed them.

In conclusion: GET ON YOUR BIKE AND RIDE.

Love,

Malcolm

Success!

I made it!

Quite the underwhelming end to my journey - the map directions were confusing, I took a wrong turn near the end, got lost, and suddenly found myself at the Yorktown victory monument!

AK Minnick, a friend of my dad's was kind enough to greet me at the very end, snap a few pictures, take me to lunch, and drove me out to DC where I will hang out tomorrow until the fantastic, selfless, one in a million Sonya Pevzner drives down to road trip back up to Syracuse!

I don't know how to feel, it ended so fast! But I'm exhausted (it's 9:48 - way past my bedtime) so it's sleepy time now. 

Be prepared for one more post once I get back to Syracuse with a trip wrap up, lots of pictures, and a book list to rival the New York Times!

Love,

Accomplished, satisfied, overwhelmed by big city life Malcolm

Ground Rush

Where did the time go? 

All I have is a easy 50 mile ride to Yorktown tomorrow, and that's it. 

Mick was telling me that in the military, when he used to parachute, he experienced a phenomenon called ground rush. When parachuting, descending feels nice and slow, but upon reaching the last 50 meters, the ground suddenly seems to rush up at you incredibly fast, even if your velocity has been constant the whole time. 

This also applies well to bike touring. I was in the middle of the country, plodding along, and suddenly, I'm almost done. It's a very peculiar feeling. 

Mick and I parted ways yesterday morning, and he made it to DC today! Biking alone feels strange after spending almost a week with him, but it has been a nice relaxing way to finish up the trip. The countryside has been beautiful in a peaceful sort of way, the weather a bit chilly (the cold woke me up in the middle of the night for the first time since Colorado), and the back roads deserted. The prefect way to ease out of this trip. 

Tonight, I am spending the night in a Methodist church, and since they have church camp today, it is full of small children, life, and hot dogs! It's a fantastic way to wrap up my last night on the road. 

Everybody is incredibly kind, and I feel right at home! I feel incredibly blessed by the kindness I continue to encounter every single day while on this trip. 

Am I going to be able to sleep tonight? I don't know. Facing real life again will be a struggle. 

Love,

Slightly melancholic Malcolm

Hi everyone!

Today was absolutely ideal. Back roads, cloud cover, great scenery, and vanishingly small levels of traffic all combined into a great ride. Tomorrow we are biking to Vesuvius, which marks the beginning of a 4 mile 2000' ascent where we join the blue ridge parkway for about 27 miles, before zooming all the way back down to near sea level. 

Checking the map today, I was astonished to realize that I end in 5 days. I should arrive in Yorktown sometime Sunday the 17th, unless the fates conspire against me. 

Tonight, Mick and I are staying behind a rafting shop in Buchanan. The view from the riverside is superb. Trees are everywhere, and it's making me excited for the fall leaves already!

I just finished yet another book - I might add a book list of all I've read during this trip, along with some praise/criticism in case any of you are feeling in need of a new book or two (or twenty, I've been quite voracious). 

Alas, the flip side of the coin with traveling wih someone is hat I don't chat to as many random strangers or have sketchy camping experiences (Mick, being 58, is doing a great job at curtailing my dirtbag instincts - I would have knocked on random doors or slept in a ditch yesterday, but instead he convinced me a motel was the right idea).

Thus, these posts have turned more into stream of consciousness updates, and I hope they remain entertaining. 

Oh, I do have a good one. I was sheltering under a gazebo the day I met Mick, and there was a man there taking a break from his drive to West Virginia. We got to talking, and amongst all the typical questions, he asked me very genuinely if most bikers were gay. After I answered that being a biker didn't necessarily make you gay, I asked him why he was wondering that. Apparently, that's what he has been hearing from people. 

Curious. 

Anyways, it's bedtime soon!

Love,

Malcolm

Malcolm doesn't approve of motels

It rained until 10:30, so Mick and I left around 11 to begin our ride. Unfortunately, Mick's front dérailleur cable broke yesterday, so he had been in his granny gear since then. We got to the first bike shop and it was closed, so we biked to the next one, and got it fixed. He was ecstatic! I couldn't imagine being in my smallest chain ring for a day and a half. He took to drafting behind me during moderate downhills as he would spin out past 16 mph, and couldn't go any faster than that. 

I am now sitting in a motel room with Mick, drinking steel reserve and eating Chinese food. The beer and the food is great, but the motel is horrid. I'd much rather be sitting outside than in this expensive, stuffy room. 

However, Christiansburg, VA had no other options, so here we are! I'm giving the bed a strange look, I haven't slept in one of those since Missouri, and before that since before the trip started. 

The ride today was beautiful! After the rain ended, it stayed overcast and cool all day, which is a blessing. I'd rather get that than the 80 and 90 degree weather that should be occurring. 

Virginia is especially verdant after all the rain we have been getting - it feels almost tropical at times. 

There are 12 adventure cycling maps, and today marks he beginning of the last one! 368 miles to Yorktown from here, and we plan on doing 50 and 60 mile days until we split up, at which point I shall blast to the coast and be done around the 17th or 18th!

Love,

Malcolm 

My kingdom for a bike-sized umbrella!

Mick and I are sheltering under the pavilion we slept under last night, waiting for the rain to ease off to start pedaling. The little trickle of a stream in the park last night has now become a raging torrent, I check on it every so often to see if it has burst its banks yet. 

The beauty of slowing down and doing 50-60 mile days is that you can afford to stay in camp until 8, or 9, or 10 since there isn't as much of a hurry. Mick is writing his journal (he hopes to turn it into a book, eventually). I am reading my kindle, and we both wait as the rain appears to lessen a bit. If not, we might end up sleeping in the pavilion tonight as well. 

In other news, this tour might be changing from "Malcolm bikes across America" to "Malcolm breweries across America". There's so many microbreweries, and they are great! Mick is more of a wine guy than me, and Virginia has a lot of wineries, so we may also go through a lot of those. 

Life is good, touring with a companion again is fantastic (I can't believe I biked alone for around 40 days), and I'm now prolonging this as long as I can. The end is gazing straight at me, but I can still hide from it for a while. 

Love, 

Malcolm 

Mountains, rain, and an Irishman

So my plan failed. 

Second day, the rain was so hard and i was so tired I ended up doing 60 miles. 

However, I met Mick, an Irishman who is biking the transamerica from San francisco to Boston. He is 58, and this is his retirement gift to himself. Since I'm not in a hurry while I'm with someone, we're going to ride together for the next few days. 

Due to the rain and fatigue, we took a short day yesterday and went to Damascus, which is basically the Mecca of the AT. We stayed in a hostel, went out to the local brewery, listened to some live music, and had a fantastic time!

Today, the weather was really humid but the rain didn't start for real - we just had a very halfhearted drizzle near the end. Since we were nearing our destination with time to spare, we stopped at a winery and did some tasting. 

We also finished up with the western Appalachians! We have a huge mountain in about 150 miles, but until (and after) that it's all flat or downhill. Yay!

Life is much better with a travel partner, and I'm again enjoying the trip rather than trying to blast through it. 

Love,

Malcolm

Beautiful Appalachia!

Hi hi.
Yesterday's 100 miler went well. The Appalachians are super fun to ride up, and really satisfying to ride down - however it's been drizzling today so far, and that has been undermining morale.
I stayed at the Freeda Harris Baptist Center last night, and it was fantastic! I arrived right as food was being served for the church camp, and everyone was really nice! I chatted with a bunch of people, and had a really fun night.

Also, for all of you that are facebook friends with me - so sorry about yesterday. I guess I should be careful around sketchy free wifi.

As of now, I'm not sure if I can push the next 68 miles to Damascus, but we shall see!
Oh, and as a side note, I entered Virginia this morning!

Love,
Love, (since I forgot to say it last time)
Malcolm

Off to a bad start

I just had he worst nights sleep this whole trip, so the next two days don't bode well. Let me explain:

First, the bivy was great for the cold western nights, but when it's 80 all night, it becomes a sweltering sauna. Also, it offers 0 protection against any kind of insect, as I have to leave it pulled down to my waist for even a semblance of air flow. Problem is, there's always a chance of rain, and I'd rather be safe and not get poured on. 

I went to bed at 8, tossed and turned and swatted Mosquitos for the first hour or two until he sun went down and the temperature lowered until slightly over bearable, and fell asleep around 10:30. Woke up sweating and itchy everywhere at 12:30, and that's when the neighborhood loose dogs started showing up. One of them literally barked from 12:30 to 3:00 (I checked the time constantly), and then they started wandering around, and in fear of them getting pissed off at me / trying to eat my food I took refuge on the nearest playground drawbridge. Needless to say, it took me another hour to fall asleep. I was planning on waking up at 5, but after waking up at 4:30 and realizing I only had two and a half hours of sleep, I decided to luxuriously sleep in until 6. 

It's gonna be a rough day. 

Silly plan for the next few days

After my rest day, I have now entered the Appalachians!

Did 70 miles today, and since I want to get this last mountain range over with, I'm planning a 99 miler tomorrow, and a 95 miler the day after that. 

...I'll let you know how bad of an idea this plan is in two days. 

Love,

Young, rash, impatient, foolish Malcolm

Kentucky fun times!

I'd like to start off by saying that Kentucky is absolutely fantastic. I knew nothing about this state, and after hearing about the rabid dogs, I imagined hovels of trailers lining the roads, with hordes of mongrels slobbering angrily at me as I fearfully biked past. 

Thankfully though, that couldn't be farther from the truth. Kentucky is absolutely beautiful! It's mostly farmland, with lots of rolling hills and forested areas. When I get up in the morning everything is foggy, giving a soft edge and lending an eerie beauty to everything, even the most boring trees and telephone poles. 

I have had some interesting experiences, to say the least. Here's a sample:

I was riding and this guy waved at me, stopped his car, introduced himself, asked how I was enjoying riding through Kentucky, asked if I was riding alone, and if I had a girlfriend/boyfriend. He then said it was a pity (I answered no), said I was good looking, bid me a good afternoon, and drove away. I was flattered? I might need to stop biking around wih my jersey completely zipped open. 

I've gotten in the habit of waving to absolutely everyone on the road, be it cars, pedestrians (not many of those), motorcyclists, porch sitters, or lawn mowers. However, a few days ago I was absolutely exhausted and out of it, saw a pair of moving eyes, and waved... to a horse. I felt silly. The horse probably felt confused (and I hope, important). 

Outside a grocery store, this man came up, introduced himself as Newby, and got super excited about what I'm doing. He then insisted on buying my groceries, and went around the store talking to absolutely everyone and telling them what I was doing - I felt like I was shopping with André. 

As I was camping at Lincoln Homestead State Park, a gaggle of Amish folks  showed up on a wagon. They came over and chatted, and one of them (age 16) mentioned he biked over with some friends. We talked biking for a while, he left to let me have dinner, and came back with a $3000 full carbon Specialized road bike. The juxtaposition between his suspenders, bowl cut, traditional garb and the fancy bike was fantastic. He's riding down to Tennessee in a few weeks. Woo!

Also, that same night as I was sleeping on a picnic table under the pavilion, I woke up in the middle of the night to a pack of cayotes yelping all around, a pack of loose dogs barking at them, and the most stars I have seen in years. 

I met Chelsea, the second solo female rider I have encountered so far. From South Carolina, enjoying her ride immensely, and got super excited when I mentioned the treehouse available for bikers to spend the night in (more on that later). One beautiful thing about this tour is that while meeting other riders, the dynamic is completely different from meeting strangers. We're all a part of a big family. There's no ackward small talk. We wave, one person veers into the other side of the road, we stop, and chat. We swap stories, exchange tips on the road ahead, laugh about some shared experience, even if we're going in opposite directions. It's incredible how many people you know in common, considering you're stuck in a 60 mile "bubble" of bikers. You part ways after only a few minutes, but I always feel like out of all these people, given the chance to spend some actual time together, I would be firm friends with most of them. 

Every person I meet deserves to have way more than the paltry line or two I write about them. Everyone has such different reasons to tour, outlooks on life, philosophies, and values that are apparent even in a few minutes. My one wish about his tour is that it would be possible for me to see all the wonderful bikers I meet again. I mention this because Chelsea is the first biker I see in about a week, and I've had a lot of time to think about my fellow tourers and how amazing every single one of them is. And crazy, too. You have to be a bit insane to hop on a bike and ride all day for two to three months. 

Oh yes, the treehouse. This lovely man owns a house on stilts he built in the woods near his house, and makes it available for bikers to sleep in. It was fantastic (pictures when I next have a computer). 

And currently I am spending a rest day in Berea, KY at this awesome dude Aaron's place! I have been wiped the past few days, so it's nice to relax, listen to music that's been stuck in my head for weeks, eat a lot, and sleep inside. 

Woops, I just realized how long this blog post has been. I hope you enjoyed it and didn't tl;dr. 

Love, 

Malcolm