After Trip Thoughts (Before the Trip Even Begins)

Hello world! (By this I mean the 5 people who might read this). It's 10:00am on a Saturday and I have already been up for two hours. I think it might have something to do with the earth's axis being moved those few inches about a week ago because this is strange.

I finally got back on the bike a couple days ago and let me tell you, riding a bike fully loaded after going weeks without doing so is not an easy task. Jared and I rode about 12 miles on our Lake Overholser loop so it wasn't an incredibly long ride, but just enough to make us work a bit. We battled stiff headwinds and cross winds and for those of you who may not know, using 4 large bags on your bike only makes your bike seem like a parachute or large kite. I was constantly fighting the wind and can only hope that it will help push me along most of the time this summer.

Which brings me to the next point. Summer is quickly approaching, almost too quickly. We have but six weeks left in our college careers (knock on wood) and while I'm sometimes glad that I'm having to work so much to pay for this trip, it certainly is distracting me from thinking much about what is to come after this journey.

This lingering thought of what to do when reality catches up with me is certainly one that I could do without, but I fully understand that it is something each person must face at some point in their lives. While some of the people I graduated high school with are already out on their own, some even married and with children, I must admit, I feel like a fourteen year old sometimes in my readiness to face the world of adulthood. This transition seems a bit more difficult than adolescence even as back then I knew I could attribute much of my strife to hormonal causes. This however, is simply a struggle because I find myself nearing the place where the rubber meets the road and my brakes are out. I can only hope I am ready to go speeding off in whatever direction my decisions take me and pray that if I should need to change directions I won't careen off the side of the road into a ditch that will take me too long to climb out of.

There is no doubt that this trip will be a great opportunity for personal reflection. I have never done something this exciting. I have never gone overseas for a mission trip, never backpacked through Europe, never seen the Grand Canyon in person or climbed in the Rockies. I haven't even been to Wrigley Field to join with 30,000 people in singing Take Me Out To the Ballgame. Up until this summer the extent of my adventurous side has manifested itself in a couple road trips to Huntington Beach, CA, a pilgrimage to Old Yankee Stadium with my father, brother and good friend, and a spontaneous 11pm decision to drive up to Niagara Falls for a day or Detroit to see an Indians game against the Tigers.

This trip will be a memorable experience for me.

But all trips end, even this one will.

I realize that this is perhaps a bit on the side of pessimism to be discussing the end of a trip that doesn't even begin for another two months but this is all part of the thought process that I am going through leading up to the trip. I want to make no reservations in saying that this trip is a distraction, a temporary postponement from my future. I am a theology ministry major who is unsure of his role in ministry at this stage. I do not know that I have the capacity to preach every Sunday while being responsible for the care of a congregation. I do not aspire to attend a seminary. I would like to pursue an MBA after school but I spent one too many semesters having fun to really be considered for admission to the schools I would like to attend. My student loans are the guiding force in deciding which jobs I can go after because I know that I will have to begin paying on a considerable debt.

But maybe if I can just keep the wheels spinning a little while longer. Maybe then I could find that bit of courage to put my foot on the gas and speed toward something rather than wishing my brakes would work. I'm reminded of my last post, to look at the ground and not be too caught up in the future, but sometimes it's good to look at the sun on the horizon and realize just how great it might be to run toward it with joy in your heart.

And so the spokes keep spinning and carrying me on.

Live With Your Eyes On Your Feet--For Chris Koger ("Kroger")

This is a particularly long post so I apologize. I wrote this as a memorial to a dear friend who passed this week. If you have some time, please read it. It has to do with not looking too far ahead of yourself while still not looking behind you too much and is a universal concept for even those not directly affected by this particular death.

Today I'm reminded of what is important. All year I have spent my time thinking about finding adventure from the seat of a bicycle. While I certainly feel that my reasons are good for wanting to do this trip, when I get out on the bike I get to clear my mind and really think about things in a special way, and one of the things I think about most while I'm riding my bike is the future. One of the other riders, Jared, constantly is talking to me about the future and different opportunities, but I think even without these constant reminders I would probably end up using my peaceful rides to contemplate what is next. Last night I was painfully reminded how presumptuous that thought truly is.

Each of us will meet the moment when tomorrow isn't going to come.

That's a harsh reality and for some reason nobody seems to want to talk about death, but why? I can't answer that question for anybody except myself, but for me I believe any time I'm uneasy about talking about death it is because I fear that if I'm really completely honest with myself, I'm not living my present to the fullness I would deem sufficient. If I were to go back and take a look at every couple years of my life I'm sure I would have to admit that I have not always done what I hoped I would do.

What I mean by this statement is that every time I'm on the bike thinking about the future I envision this glorious, almost perfect scenario of how things might come about. The only problem with this dreaming is that a dream is not at all dependent upon a plan being set in place. It's like playing Chutes and Ladders without looking at the steps it takes to get to the end. You see that end of the game and it looks pretty great, but in between there are chutes that can set you back and even if you know they are out there, you don't know if or when you'll hit them.

I hate thinking about death because so long as I have this false promise I have made myself that I will always have tomorrow, I can always squander today away if I so choose. Death is that wild card, that chute that could keep me from ever really getting to where I hoped to go.

The only real obvious solution is to not look ahead too much, to spend a small portion of time investing toward a future, but never doing so while making a deceitful contract with yourself that you will ever get to enjoy the fruits of that investment. You still put money into your retirement fund but you just may reach that moment when tomorrow doesn't come before you get to touch it.

Death's saddest form is found in the one who didn't do enough living in the years preceding it. I am sad to have lost my friend Chris Koger, but he certainly was not an example of this saddest form of death. We grieve because a young man who could have gone on to do exceptional things, to have a family, will no longer have that possibility, but nobody would say that in the days Chris was given he didn't live.

He touched the lives of everyone he knew and made us better for it. In talking to a mutual friend tonight we came to the conclusion that Chris was that weird but cool friend that everyone has in their lifetime. He wasn't the most positive at times, nor the most supportive, but he loved his friends as well as anyone I've ever known. There were times when I could not stand the guy just because he had this innate ability to take something as trivial as a sports debate and use it to get under my skin, but it was this same tenacity and willingness to go for your jugular that made Chris that great friend who would call you out on something that you needed accountability on, even if you didn't ask him to hold you accountable. You could be upset with him for a day, maybe even a week, and as extreme as a couple months, but eventually you would come to your senses and realize that he never called you out unless he was absolutely right and that he did it out of love. He had a unique smile, half mischievous smirk and the rest a golden grin, all Chris. He wore more new baseball hats than anybody I had ever met with the crisp bill and sticker still attached, and when you did or said something ridiculous he would just shake his head in a way that was unique to him.

I've been going to Cleveland Indians games ever since I was a kid and every time my dad would get tickets from work I would try to find someone to take. Chris was the perfect baseball game companion. He was a real fan of the game, understood the subtle things that make it great in the same way I was raised to appreciate the game, and while he was a Yankee fan, he gave credit where it was due. Baseball games were my absolute favorite thing about this life and while I will never be able to share it with him again (I'm writing this in part to try to come to grips with this) I sure am glad I got to attend those games with him.

In my one year at MVNU, I went through a really tough time. Perhaps every college freshman has a little extra drama with the change in lifestyle, but as much as I needed to get out to Oklahoma for a change of scenery after all the tough things that happened my first year, I had Chris nearby at Ohio State Mansfield campus. I would drive to his apartment and we would go out to dinner and for that time we could feel like we did in high school, secure and content with life before returning to our reality in college.

These are the things I will remember about Christopher Koger, one of my best friends through high school and even through my tough years in college. I only wish we had one more ball game to attend so I could have said goodbye.

In honor of my friend Chris or anybody you have ever lost, please don't rely on the hope of tomorrow so much that you don't embrace the day you find yourself in. Live it in a way that would leave you with no regrets if you looked back on it.

Thank you for reading, it means a lot to me on this particular post because I pray everyone will have a Chris in their lives at some point.

Update...It's Cold and That's No Bueno for a Cyclist

It feels like it has been a year since I last got on the bike. In reality it has only been a couple weeks. Way back then Travis and I decided to do a mini trial tour around OKC. We logged close to 50 miles on an overnight trip that ended with us camping within 30 feet of Lake Hefner, one of the large (by Oklahoma standards) lakes in the OKC area. After setting up our tents off the road a bit in a clearing surrounded by tall grass, we made a simple dinner of beanie weenie and mac and cheese with some applesauce. We had dealt with some pretty major headwinds and some decent hills for Oklahoma so we quickly went to bed.

This was short lived as a group of young people stumbled upon our site and walked right up to our tents with flashlights. We suspect they were just looking for a place to drink but we were uneasy about sleeping nonetheless so we packed up everything, in an inefficient manner (thankfully my Carradice Carradry panniers are way bigger than I need) and moved to another site closer to the water down an abandoned path that had become overgrown. We got a good night of sleep until being woken by a steady soaking rain that got us wet, having made the mistake of not attaching the rain fly because of the forecast that said there was a 20% chance of rain...for future reference, anything over 0% will be viewed as 100% by me. Having to start the day off soaking wet and cold is not the best way to have high spirits and letting your sleeping bag and tent lay out to dry is not going to be as easy on the road when we need to use as much sunlight as we can to log miles.

Being only 2 months from the trip it is hard to focus on much else but with the difficulty of earning the funds required to finance the trip I have enough to keep from getting too far ahead of myself. I'm still in training to be a waiter at a restaurant on the lake so I'm really committing this trip to God, trusting that if we're all meant to go together, the money will come through generous tips and as much hard work as I can come to find. No longer having to worry about gear and spending money on the bike is certainly a relief at this point but the actual trip expenses are considerable.

I look forward to sharing this experience with you in a couple months, but in the mean time, I have a favor to ask. We are attempting to bring in sponsorships for this trip, whether through product sponsorship or financial support, but in the business world there is no such thing as a free lunch. What that means in this case is that in order to attract businesses support we need to find a way to help them get their branding out to a large enough audience to justify it. Honestly, I'm fresh out of ideas in that department so that's where you all come in. If you have any suggestions you could offer we're all ears...or I guess eyes given our relationship to you is strictly textual.

Introduction: How?

I have already discussed this to some extent on the section about Who and What, but I want to take a little time to discuss the logistics of this trip. Before you get bored and exit out of this page, give me a chance.

I've already told you that we'll be riding an average of 60 miles each day. That being said I expect that our mileage will very quite a bit depending on a number of factors like how hilly a region is, how tired we are, how much want to see a particular place, and how many flat tires we get just to name a few. We'll begin our trip by listening to some conventional wisdom from others in starting out with lower mileage and making up the ground later once we've trained into riding shape (there is no real way to train for such a trip except getting on a bike day after day). This means we could end up doing 30 miles every day for the first week but then we may end up having several 100+ mile days at some point.

A lot of things go into making a trip like this happen. It's a financial commitment but also a time one. You don't have to use the best gear out there but you do have to fully dive in to doing something like this. It means setting aside 2 months of time where you are basically incapable of doing much other than what getting through each day requires (get food, ride, maybe stop at some places to take pictures, and find a place to sleep).

Having never actually been camping this is going to be a unique experience for me in particular. We'll be camping at campgrounds when necessary, staying at motels and hotels when there are no other options, but mainly we will be relying on the hospitality of others, hoping we can find people along the way who will allow us to pitch our tents in their yards or church properties in order to help keep our costs down. Like I've said already, we'll be carrying everything we need in our panniers including our tents, sleeping bags, and camping stoves. We'll be like traveling bike gypsies essentially.

I just mentioned costs. I'll explain them only so anybody who may be considering a trip like this can have a good idea of what they might have to expect.

First there is your bike, a pretty important part. There are custom options out there that will fit you exactly how you want, be made exactly how you want, and cost however much you want. These are pretty expensive but are built to last a long time. If you know you'll be doing multiple tours in your future or you plan on bike commuting to work on a regular basis, a $3,000-$5,000 bike might not really seem unreasonable. The bike I have chosen retails for around $850 but can be found on sale for less at times. A good entry level touring bike is probably going to be between that and $1,000. On top of that you need to consider what kinds of changes you may want to make to the bike. These add up quicker than you realize as you can spend $100 on pedals that clip in to your shoes (called clipless pedals ironically), $100 on a Brooks leather saddle, another $100-$300 for a set of good racks, and countless other small things like a mirror, bar extensions, and water bottle cages. There are always inexpensive options of most everything but you get what you pay for most of the time so there are economic decisions you must make based on what you are willing and unwilling to compromise on.

Introduction: Who?

Alright so I know that typically it makes more sense to go down the progression of the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions but I wanted to draw you in and allow you to understand what the main platform of this blog is about. Granted the biking and the trip itself will only make up some of what I want to talk about, but it will be the context in which I find myself discussing everything else. It is quite possible you may not necessarily be interested in a particular post of mine (hopefully not all of them, but it's fair if that be the case). I would just ask that you try to keep an open mind, but if you just aren't feeling it, please feel free to skip on to the next entry I write.

So about me if I may. I don't particularly find myself to be all that interesting, but I guess in a sense that makes it all the more worthwhile to demonstrate just how ordinary I am so you can say to yourself, "man, if he can do that, I wonder just how much I could do!"

My name is Matt and I'm a 23 year old senior at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma majoring in theology and ministry. I plan on going on to pursue a masters in business administration (MBA) and I have always felt a special place in my heart for the poor and marginalized so I imagine that my career will focus in on how to best serve those in the inner city. It is for those I have served in my past that I am writing this blog. I have had dinner with these people and shared laughs with these people but I also have had my heart broken by the thought that many of my friends go to bed each night wondering where their next meal will come from and when it will come while I had the opportunity to return to my family's home in suburbia where I knew I would eat at least three times a day. It's NOT EASY to know that there are people out there who struggle to survive, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to ignore it when you know their names and that they are just like you.

I grew up in Bedford, OH, a suburb of Cleveland in a house of seven. I have a younger brother who is now a sophomore at SNU with me and back home I have three lovely sisters, two of whom are twins but very much different from each other.

To understand just why I ever started wanting to do this ride I have to explain two things, 1. my history; 2. my geographical identity.

First my history. I was born to two amazing parents. For the sake of this blog I will name them mom and dad to protect their privacy (and because it's creepy to call them by their names for some reason). Mom grew up in a single parent home with her mother (I'll call her grandma from here on for sake of clarity) and her brother after her parents divorced. She moved around a lot growing up until they finally settled in an apartment complex in Bedford. The apartment just so happened to be right behind the property line of my dad's house so they met because of their close proximity.

My dad lived in a single parent home from the time he was 14 years old with my grandfather and an older brother and sister after my grandmother passed away at a young age. He was an excellent pitcher who excelled at the high school level because of his ability to throw a fastball in the 90mph range (I was lucky enough to play in an adult league game with him when he was 40 and I was 18. I started and he came in to relieve for me while I played first base but that's another story).

They married young as my mother was 19 and my father was 21 and they welcomed me into the world only a couple years later.

How does this relate to why I'm doing this trip you may ask. Well my parents have worked virtually their whole lives to support me and my siblings and provide for us. They have done a great job at that, but not without having to make personal sacrifices. Starting a family so young, they welcomed in a particular kind of joy into their lives but it meant not backpacking through Europe or going on crazy adventures with no plans. When we were young the family would go on vacations, including a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando as well as Disney Land in Anaheim and several other trips as well. While they certainly seem to have enjoyed their lives as parents, I personally realize that I am not ready for this part of my life as much as they may have been. I have never heard either of them complain about not being able to go on a cruise by themselves or explore another country and enjoy the romance of Paris. I suspect they would enjoy all of those things, but the bottom line is that they hold no resentment toward having children and they have no regrets. I can only hope that when the time is right for me to settle down and start a family I can look ahead with that kind of joy and satisfaction.

So I'm taking a trip.

My geographical identity is one of pride despite the struggles of the city of Cleveland. Being associated with terms like "mistake by the lake" and the "rust belt" is not easy. Add that to the well documented struggles of our professional sports teams and it's easy to understand why Cleveland is the topic of many jokes around the country. Having attended school in Oklahoma City, traveled to Orange County in California every Spring Break, and gone to many other places along the way, I find that there are a lot of things about Cleveland that are not ideal. It is a place that cannot seem to keep jobs from leaving town and our city government has had a recent history of fraud and scandal. Still, Cleveland is my home and I'm certainly proud of it.

I guess taking a trip on a bike just makes sense to me for whatever reason. It's a chance to do something that not everyone will do in their lives (I know, there are a lot of things nobody would be stupid enough to do in their lives. Maybe I should go do those too while I'm at it right?). Maybe a proud citizen from this so-called mistake of a place can go on to do something a little special even if it's been done before. Maybe I can ride a bike across this great country and still return to Cleveland with rose colored glasses on and smile upon this place that I've called home.

I know going in that I will experience beauty in a way that I have never been able to by driving in a car. I will feel every degree of incline, every bump in the road, and the wind in my face as I fly down a hill. I'll smell the air and the trees (or sometimes the pollution) of the places I go. I'll see the blades of grass a little more clearly as I travel far slower than I'm used to, and I'll stumble upon little treasures of towns that you may not see on most maps. Most importantly, I hope that the interactions I have with those across this nation will help to change the way they view the people of Cleveland if only by one person at a time. Maybe when they say goodbye to me as I head on to the next town they'll think of Cleveland with a fondness they never knew to have before and they'll realize that with me I carry the influence of all the amazing people I have shared those meals and laughs with.

Introduction: What?

You've either stumbled upon this blog because you searched for any of a number of different tags that are associated with my interests or because you were given this link to check out by myself or someone else familiar with it. Whoever you are, welcome, I'm glad you're here and I hope that you will allow me to share some joy with you. I also want to invite you to feel free to contact me as well. After all, why should I get to have all the say? My hope is for this to be an ongoing conversation with anybody who finds themselves interested so like I said, welcome my new (or old) friends.

I'll give you some information about who I am as well as those who will be joining me in another post, but I first want to explain to you WHAT we're going to be doing exactly.

We're going to ride our bikes.

We're going to ride our bikes a lot, in fact, we're going to ride our bikes across the United States from coast to coast. I should be upfront in saying that this is not quite as rare a feat as some may believe, but definitely rare enough that many people have not necessarily heard of a specific instance when it was done. Perhaps if you are a bit older than I am and you were around during the 70s you may be familiar with the Bikecentennial, a movement that pushed for getting people out on their bikes to see this great country of ours.

While many other countries around the globe have long been steeped in a rich tradition of cyclotouring, it was the Bikecentennial that really helped this niche market of tourism blossom in the states. The bike of choice during the time was the 10 speed. Equipped with a steel frame, drop handlebars (the kind that curl down so you can get low when the wind is hitting you), and 10 gears that allowed you to shift in order to climb hills or go fast on flat ground. If you grew up riding a 10 speed chances are that you more than likely had a favorable experience with them as they were solid built machines that were created for longevity in mind. Just check Craigslist sometime and you'll see that a good number of them from the 70s and 80s are still available, in good shape, and at a relatively high resale value if the owner knows much about what they have ($100-$300).

Still we won't be using 10 speeds. While those were built well, technology has advanced and bikes that are built to be more specific for touring are widely available for a (relatively) reasonable price. I personally will be using a bike sold by REI (rei.com) called the Novara Safari. There are more inexpensive touring bikes available than the Safari, but this bike performs well and is really in the entry level price range. Two of the others in my group will be riding Surly Long Haul Truckers (surlybikes.com) which are also in the entry level price range, but feature slightly better components and a more conventional touring bike style (resembles the 10 speed in many ways, just better). I can discuss more about the bikes and other gear we'll be using later, so fear not, I'll get to the trip itself.

We'll be starting on the Atlantic coast and working our way to the Pacific coast over the course of a little over two months by using a route that was established by the Adventure Cycling Association called the Northern Tier. This is not as popular at their original TransAmerican route that was the feature route of the Bikecentennial but it is a fairly widely used route nonetheless.

Due to time constraints I will be starting in the Annapolis, MD area, working my way toward Pittsburgh before heading to my native Cleveland where I will join the Northern Tier so my route will be a little bit different than the exact NT route. Others in the group will be starting near Maine and working their way across New York along the Canadian border where they will meet me in Cleveland. We plan to average 60 miles of riding each day while carrying everything we need to survive (tent, clothes, food, etc.) in bike bags called panniers. Carrying 50+ pounds of gear up major hills on a bike is considerably more difficult than riding a bike with nothing except yourself on it but thanks to the 27 gears our bikes have we will be able to "gear down" into our "granny gears" and slowly but (hopefully) steadily work our way up them.

We'll be living life in a very youthful way, but what I want to clarify is that this type of travel is not simply for the young. Cyclotouring is done by just about every kind of person you can imagine, young and old, short or tall, skinny or big, even people with back pain do it by using a special bike called a recumbent (look it up if you always thought biking would be fun minus the back pain you might experience). I would like to tell you that a trip across the country is one of the most difficult things a person can ever do, but I have yet to attempt it so I cannot say one way or the other. What I can tell you is that I have read countless journals of people of all types who have done it and are still doing it (check out crazyguyonabike.com to read them).

I should explain that this blog is named as it is only because I think that cyclotouring is not all that well known by young people in America and I really think it is a shame because while many students travel to Europe (a great experience I'm sure) I think there is much to be seen of this great country. I'll get more into why I named this site as I did later and why I am doing this trip, but for right now I just want it to be understood that anybody who thinks this could be a fulfilling experience should not fear that they are physically incapable because there are a great number of adaptations in cycling that help make it possible.

I hope you will continue to follow us on our journey through these posts and I encourage you, no more like beg you, to contact me if you have any questions or just want to talk about whatever. This site is made for you, whoever you are.