That’s All, Folks

First I want to apologize to anyone who still may be looking to read this blog for the completely unacceptable delay in this update, I have to excuse except that did not want to admit to the blog, and to you readers that my trip is over. By now I’m sure most of you know or assumed that I am no longer riding so I will explain as best I can why.

So on the day I rode into Washington D.C, I got a flat half way into my ride. It was on the rear tire so I unloaded the gear and got to work but then noticed a far more concerning problem: the frame on my bike was broken at the rear dropout where the rack attaches. The eyelet brazeon essentially had just snapped off. Luckily this happened today as I was approaching a large city where I would be taking time off and not in the middle of Mississippi, but it put a damper on my mood nonetheless.

Anyway, I had a blast in D.C. and traveling to Manchester Tennessee for the Bonnaroo music festival. Instead of making this entry even lengthier, I will make an album of all those pictures and whatnot and post a link soon ( and I mean soon this time.)

Before leaving, I had to figure out what to do about the frame. After a frustrating and expensive, but ultimately satisfactory ordeal with D.C. bike shops and the Trek warranty department I ended up receiving and brand new frame in time for me to leave on schedule. Like I mentioned before, my friend Colin decided to join me for the ride to New York city, which we optimistically planned to do in 4 days. The first day out was both some of the most challenging and enjoyable riding I have ever done. The rock creek trail that leads out of D.C. into Maryland is gorgeous and I would love to go back and do some riding around there sometime when I don’t have 75 pounds strapped on the bike. And then the hills started….. so after two weeks of no riding, the hilliest day of the trip was more than I had anticipated. Me and Colin rode about 75 miles to a friend of his’ house outside of Baltimore. Towards the end of the day I was feeling pretty dead, and unfortunately Colin was feeling worse. He ended up re-aggravating a knee injury from a while back and while he rode strong all day, he knew that night he wouldn’t be able to ride any more. I was bummed, but Colin decided to take a bus and meet up with me in NY so I plotted a route, completely off my maps to make it to Brooklyn in 3 days. I felt surprisingly fresh the next morning and rode strong for about 80 miles and stealth camped that night behind a cemetary somewhere in Amish Country, Pennsylvania. The next day I rode an even 100 miles into New Jersey and felt pretty proud of that.

So at this point I am feeling great about the ride and without any doubt about quitting, which I will now admit snuck into my head once or twice before earlier on int the trip, only briefly. The next day was not so uplifting. I woke up and noticed the rear tire had gone flat during the night. I cussed a bunch and changed it in the comfort of my Super 8 room and then set off for the 40 mile ride into Newark, NJ to catch the train into NYC. About 10 miles in I get another damn flat. I cuss more and unloaded and then, OF COURSE, noticed a much larger problem. In 4 spots on my rear wheel, the rim was cracking around the spokes. This is actually a problem I had read a lot about on the stock wheels they put on the 520, but before leaving decided it wasn’t worth the investment for better rims. Let me take this moment to tell anyone out there that if you are planning any kind of long distance ride, get the strongest, best wheels you can possibly afford. There is probably no other component as important. Sacrifice elsewhere on your bike if you have to. You don’t want to be on the side of a major highway in Sketchville, NJ, staring at your crumbling rim and wondering if your rig is going to collapse beneath you at any moment. Trust me.

So I had a miniature breakdown there by the side of the road and it was now that doubt started to creep in. I had just shelled out the cost of rebuilding the bike on the new frame and now I was looking at replacing my wheels, not to mention having to deal with that on my couple days off in New York. I started seriously thinking about my financial situation and whether or not I was cut out for stress of possibly much worse problems. I was getting a toothache and had a suspicion (which has now proven true) that I was developing a cavity that needed work and began to accept how hard it would be to stay away from some people in my life for such an extended period of time to come.

I did my best to put all of this out of my head and got to New York late that afternoon. I met up with Colin and we stayed at another friend, Miguel’s, place in Brooklyn. I hung out with a few other friends I hadn’t seen in a long time and enjoyed myself thoroughly but in the back of my mind the case for quitting grew stronger. I felt bad talking to everyone about the trip while at the same time knowing it might be over but I wasn’t ready to admit to myself or anyone else that I was going to stop. The next day It was decision time. After looking around New York for a adequate replacement wheel and coming up with nothing (which I thought was insane, aren’t you supposed to be able to get anything here?), that was the last straw.

I was going to have to ride out of town on a wheel that I was extremely concerned about, and ride for 7 more months when I knew that the money I had left wouldn’t take me even half of that. Which brings me to an important issue, pardon the digression. Before leaving I was a bit delusional about how much this was going to cost. Perhaps I have an unrealistic Ideal notion that in this huge country crammed with road that travel could still be done cheap, but I soon realized this was far from reality. I am the first to admit that I could gone cheaper, especially early on, but I was by no means living large. It wasn’t just the occasional motel that did me in. State and private campgrounds on average run 20 dollars a night, did you realize that? $20 a night for a 10×10 spot of ground to lay down a tent. I know most places have free or near free primitive camping locations, but most of those aren’t reachable by bike. I quickly realized I was also not cut out for asking permission to sleep on someone’s front lawn every night. The few times I called a city park department to request permission to stay overnight, I was turned down. Food, of course, was a constant struggle. Being able to take in enough calories every day meant that huge portion of my food was complete crap, because Hostess is cheaper than Dole, folks. It’s no mystery that this same predicament is a major cause for obesity and health issues in the U.S., but I won’t go into that. With gas at ridiculous rates, and air travel more expensive than ever, it’s sad to realize that travel and the chance to see this country  is simply not an option for many, if not most, people living here. Maybe it’s my born and ingrained Western spirit, or maybe I have just read to much Kerouac, but that  was probably the most disheartening realization of this experience.

I was not trying to make it on pennies a day, but my modest budget, it turns out, was not going to suffice to complete my trip. So in the end it came down to doubt. Up until my last day in New York, I had no doubt that I was going to be able to continue on my trip until completion. I could have continued. I could have decided that this experience was worth going into much debt that I would deal with late on, I could have arranged a way to get a new wheel in the next few days and I could have kept going, but I was no longer fully confident that I would be able to finish. I felt it was better to quit on a high note, ending in New York City after 3,500 miles (1/4 of the original trip) and having a great time with friends than to keep going until I was broke and something forced me to end on less ideal terms.

The next morning I took my gear to UPS, took my bike to a shop and had everything sent back. I spent most of the next 24 hours wandering aimlessly around Manhattan wondering if I had made the right choice. The next day I took an early morning flight from JFK back to my parent’s house in Houston, TX, where I have been since, planning my move to Ann Arbor to be back with my girlfriend, Sandy and jump back into the real world.

Of course I am disappointed that I quit. I had set myself up to be gone for a year and see so much more, and I hadn’t really contemplated not completing the trip. At the same time, when I consider what I did I am proud of the accomplishment. 3,500 miles and across many states, going places I had never been. I met so many great people on my trip. Actually practically everyone I encountered was at the very least pleasant. Thank you so much to anyone reading this who let me stay with you or gave me advice or helped me out along the way. Thanks to everyone else who read this and contributed kind comments and encouragement. I haven’t decided what I am going to do with this blog, if it will continue or if I will start new blogging about something else, but I enjoyed the experience and in some ways it helped keep me sane during my three months of near solitude. I will be adding stuff from the trip, pictures and other thoughts in the next few days. Thank you again.

-Robert Ford