Good Idea

The longest journey begins with a single, stupid idea.

As with so much else, it’s all Facebook’s fault. (Columbus had nothing to back him up when he brag-posted about a sea route to India, Amelia Earhart eschewed GPS when she judged as a scam a pop-up ad for the new technology, and Bugs Bunny first opined in a Facebook Story he should have taken a left at Albuerqueque.)

Were it not for Facebook, I would not know where David and Bill live nor what they do for a living. All three of us are of an age – though Mr. Bright and Mr. Poole are two years younger than I –to remember days before the internet existed. I often idly try to recall how my high school friends and I managed to coordinate our movements and ended up in the same cars, in the same liquor store parking lots, and, ultimately, in the same classmate’s home whose parents were out of town. But even back in those pre-Information Age times it was possible to conduct rudimentary investigations and find a distant acquaintance, discover his phone number and call them at home. Or even write them a letter.

On February 24 Bill and David, in a coordinated strike, both sent me Facebook messages suggesting I join them for RAGBRAI, a weeklong July bicycle ride across the breadth of Iowa. A scorching week of suffering – and that’s just the tent camping – now there is a dandy idea.

My whole life, since the age of 14, I have loved long-distance bicycle rides. It’s the prospect of going somewhere I’ve never been before under my own power and not beholden to anyone about where I go nor when I come back. After church one Sunday before I had my driver license I took off on my red Schwinn Traveler 10-speed bike. I remember consulting the Missouri state highway map, the one with Gov. Kit Bond’s portrait on the back, and pedaled off out of town with the confidence of the ignorant , crossing the James River, turning south into Christian County and aiming for Ozark after spanning the Finley River, thence to Sparta and back by way of U.S. 125 and over the Finley again, upstream. I note now with incredulity this is a ride of 40 miles. Again pre-license, but this time with a bit more aforethought, Doug Barksdale and I rode our bicycles to his grandmother’s place on Indian Point at Table Rock Lake, just down the road from Silver Dollar City. We rode on U.S. 160 through Nixa and Spokane and Highlandville and Reeds Spring and what I still think of as Lakeview (not the grasping, embarrassing Branson West it has been since 1992). Finally, I organized a disastrous Christmas-break ride while a junior in high school to make my way to and camp at Hercules Glades Wilderness, the most beautiful spot of land in this world, and that night in 1981 was a freezing trial amidst the oaks and hickories.

Then, precisely 30 years ago I took this interest to a new level when I signed up for a 500-mile fundraising ride around Minnesota and Wisconsin. After that one I voluntarily took part in two more – one from Louisville to Atlanta, another a loop from Minneapolis to Duluth and back.

Many years and the birth of a child intervened. I took three long rides with my kid on a tandem across the Florida Panhandle, diagonally across Mississippi, and from St. Paul to Dubuque. Those last two involved us pedaling with all of our gear hundreds of miles back to our car.

These were great adventures for the both of us and the most recent one was 5 years ago. It’s true I rode my bicycle 5,050.50 miles all in the pandemic year 2020, but it’s also true I broke my head, my back, and my noggin in March 2021. My initial response to Bill said I didn’t think I was in shape to do it and, anyway, I’d done my time camping while riding and my days of sleeping on the ground were over.

Then Bill did a dastardly thing. He quoted my own words back to me.

“No matter your age, a decade from now you’re going to wish you felt as good, looked as good, and could do as much as you can now – take advantage of it while you can,” I posted on my own Facebook feed on February 27.

Whether in relationship squabbles or pitches from friends it’s equally contemptible to throw a feller’s words right back in his face. It’s not fair, I tell you, especially when the sentiment of one’s own words is so self-evidently true and on point to the squabble or pitch at hand.

I was clearly checkmated and was duty bound to accept David and Bill’s invitation to ride 424 miles across Iowa in July, pitching a tent each day (and packing it up each subsequent morning) and sleeping on the ground for eight days straight while pedaling with 20,000 others on the hilliest route in the 51-year history of the event. Bill has done it before. I have not.

In the meantime, after I succumbed to the Siren call Bill and David sang, eight (or more) have been conscripted into service by that old enemy of our teen-age years, dusted off for effective use on 50-something-year-olds: Peer pressure. All of us are graduates of Glendale High School in Springfield, Missouri -- two of our crowd I went to school with for every stop from kindergarten to senior year. Two of the riders I have known since I was 3 years old. There are architects, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and civil servants among us. Usefully, a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon are along for the ride. We now live from Boulder to Tampa; a plurality are Springfield residents, a majority reside in Missouri.

Riding my bicycle is a pleasure to me because it offers a physical challenge, a time for quiet reflection, and the opportunity to be outside and appreciate the natural beauty all around us unencumbered by throngs or distractions.

The descriptions of RAGBRAI I have read indicate an experience very nearly the opposite of that.

What I do know, from life and cycling, is everything is made better with a sense of curiosity and an interest in discovery beyond yourself. Attitude counts. Bad attitudes invariably result in bad experiences. Good attitudes can turn challenges into positive experiences and good times into great adventures.

That’s my commitment: To open myself to the full experience, all of it. Hills. Yahoos. Covered bridges. Discomfort. American Gothic houses. Radar O’Reilly’s hometown. Fickle weather. Comfort food. Sensory overload. CAFOs. Corn.

And to pedal my tassle off.