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Denise’s Impressions of My Trip

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Second Time Around

The new house has a revolving door apparently. It’s funny that we’ve had more visitors in the month that we’ve lived in the new place than any month we lived in Tulsa. First Hillarey and Lance visited for my birthday. We had a great time and I think the kids love the new place as much as we do. Then my sister brought my parents out for a look-see. My mom kept ooohing and ahhing and telling us how much she liked it. It was a family fandango for a while there.

Then we invited our friends Emily and Mike to visit so I could make up for missing Mike’s birthday party. They had seen the house during several of the building stages and were eager to see the finished project.

Chris received an email shortly thereafter from a visitor we didn’t expect or know. Several years ago while bicycling on our tandem we joined a group called Warm Showers, which provides you with a list of names and phone numbers of people who would host touring cyclists in their home for a night – providing a meal and you guessed it – a warm shower. Our first Warm Shower guest was coming through Oklahoma sometime between Saturday and Monday. Emails zipped back and forth and Chris and I got excited about David’s visit.

David Byrne is on his second world bicycle tour. The first was in 1975 shortly after finishing high school. David traveled two and a half years crossing all of the latitudinal lines and visiting 29 countries.

Thirty-four years later David has decided it’s time to undertake another big trip — he’s recycling the world. This time around he plans to cross all of the longitudinal lines. There are only two points where David’s path will cross the original trek — his hometown in Minnesota and his birthplace in France where his parents were stationed after WWII.

As it happens Emily and Mike were scheduled to visit the same evening that David was scheduled to arrive. Since Mike and Emily have traveled many of the countries that David has been or will be on this trip we thought it would work out great.

David arrived first and settled into the old farmhouse. A bit later he and Chris were discussing travel options between Oklahoma and Houston, Texas that would provide a shoulder to ride safely out of traffic, offer camping possibilities, and some scenic enjoyment when Emily and Mike arrived.

After a quick tour of the house we all joined around the table and enjoyed a simple meal of quiche, kale, and stuffed mushrooms, with Tiramisu for dessert. Talk flowed freely of travel, movies and the personal histories and stories that make pleasant conversation a memorable experience.

The next morning after breakfast Chris took David next door to see the monastery before David climbed back on the recumbent bike for the day’s journey to Robber’s Cave. Below are a few photos I took of David and his gear. You’ll notice there isn’t much in the way of gear. David is traveling light – really light. One pannier is for clothing the other holds his sleeping bag and hammock, along with a few essentials. There’s one small daypack slung across the bar and secured to the pannier. A small bike bag rests under his seat and a crumpled plastic soda bottle holds and protects extra tire tubes and parts.

The gear is impressive. Or should I say the lack of paraphernalia? A former boss of mine, John, used to tell us how he longed to be able to pack everything he owned into one suitcase. While we just finished building a new house and I continue to buy more yarn than I need, I understand this desire. Mobility is so much simpler when you live lean. A few possessions are easy to pack and go when the urge to travel presses upon you.

David is a retired UPS driver and his wife Julie, is a teacher and also a bicycling enthusiast. Julie, who is taking a two-year sabbatical, will be joining David in Columbia for the rest of the tour.

Yesterday Chris and I went back to work with errands and tasks usual to our life. But for me, and Chris too I think, my mind keeps wandering about skinny spinning wheels and the feel of the road a few inches beneath our pedals. Maybe we’ll tackle the west coast from Seattle to San Francisco on the tandem next….

To quote Chris, “David is taking the trip of a lifetime, for a second time!”

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Joe’s Impressions of My Departure

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

Apr 11th, 2009

A Nice Morning’s Ride

On a recent Wednesday, my friend David got up early to go for a bike ride. After dressing for the still-chilly April morning, he left his St. Paul house and pedaled down to a local coffee shop to chat with friends. Next, he cycled over to the junior high school where his wife teaches and answered student questions about his odd-looking bike. Finally, he crossed the Mississippi River into Minneapolis and headed south toward the open road. He expects to get back home in October. Of 2011. David, you see, is cycling around the world. Again.

Now I like a good bike ride as much as the next person. But where I measure my rides in miles, David measures his in continents. And while accomplishing such a feat once would furnish most people with the moral superiority to spend the rest of their life on the couch, David simply enjoys the experience (as is evident from his bike blog) and is hungry for more. Since his first journey was essentially a “ride east until you get back home” affair, this trip will cover new ground and unfold in a mostly north and south orientation, bouncing between the poles (or as close as is practical.)

In David’s case, getting there is all of the fun, which is a good thing, since his destination is his origin. His enthusiasm for the journey itself, and especially for doing it again, reminds me of a high school English teacher’s advice to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn three times. By following Jim and Huck down the river as a boy, again in middle age, and finally as an old man, you can experience the surprise and joy of an unchanging text meaning something very different on each reading. In a similar way, I imagine David will find the world at bike-level to be a different place than it was in the late ‘70s.

Before leaving, David asked me to do some photography for his website. Aware that much of his journey would traverse tropical zones, he wanted a banner image for his FAQ page that instantly communicated the northern climate of his home. Which partially explains how I found myself at dawn, near the end of March, lying on the worryingly thin ice that only partially covered Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. Nothing says “cold climate” like biking on water, David reasoned. I was there to help make that statement–and, I hoped, avoid earning a Darwin Award nomination in the process. To be honest, there’s no way I would have even considered such a thing had not David been so reassuringly confident that we’d be fine. While I was still casting a skeptical eye over the small gap of open water between the shore and the ice, David was hopping onto the ice with his bike. He was so sanguine and unafraid, it seemed impossible the ice would prove him wrong, so out I went.

His overall confidence and faith in his own well-being are among the more important things David takes with him on his journey. More than one of his friends wanted to know how he planned to pass through some of the world’s dicier spots with nothing but a bike for protection. David would smile and reply that sure, there were risks, but he wasn’t worried. When pressed, he’d simply state that, in general, he believed that people were good and wanted to help. Were it not for his previous circumnavigation, I’d be a little more concerned for his safety. But just as he seemingly willed the ice on Lake Harriet to hold us, I’m confident his very nature encourages those he meets to follow their nobler instincts.

Safe and happy travels, David. And save a little energy, because after finishing this trip, you still have one to go.