May 18 – Why We Ride

Today we rode from Wooster Ohio to Niles Ohio, about 95 miles. We continued our trek across Ohio. What is most remarkable is that we have been able to avoid all major industrial areas of Ohio. My mental image of Ohio from this trip is at odds with any sense I may have had about Ohio being an industrial state. I may still think of Ohio as an industrial sate, but at least I know that there is a green swath through the state that is at least a mile wide. It is remarkable that we travel across the country by way of route sheets, detailed lists of turns to make and hazards we have to avoid in order to get to our next nights accommodations. On some days in the west route sheets might involve 4 or 5 turns and notations for 2 or 3 sag stops. For the last few days route sheets have listed more than 50 turns and hazards. While may see similar amounts of the country on the days with many turns, we seem to be focused on a much smaller area. We don’t get a big picture view. Our leader who has led tours on this route for ten years, can describe every turn on a route from memory and point out potential problems. However, he and the rest of the staff have very limited knowledge of things that are just off the route. Riding a bike gives you a far more intimate view of the land than you can get from a car, but at the end of the ride I will know a lot about a very narrow ribbon of land that stretches from California to Massachusetts. I will have experienced a part of Americana, but only a part, one that is heavily skewed toward rural America.

In the past few days we have ridden by many people who are out in their yards or doing errands in cars. We have waved to each other in passing, but I wonder what they would think if they knew where we started and where we intend to finish. I doubt that they could comprehend what we are attempting to do. They surely would have trouble with the issue of why we are doing the ride. In general, we do it because it is a challenge and because we are physically able to meet that challenge. It is a very limited challenge that for most of the older riders confirms our mental image that we are not yet ‘old’. But I doubt that any of use could climb Mt Everest or sale a boat across the Atlantic. What we are doing is not comparable to the 49’ers traveling to California in covered wagons or European settlers coming to the new world. At the end of our trek we will get on an airplane and go home to Wisconsin, Florida, California or Missouri. What we get out of this ride is the knowledge that almost all the people we meet could not do what we are doing. We get the knowledge that we are a few steps further from the grave than most Americans of a similar age. We get the knowledge that we have more time and financial resources than most of our fellow Americans. It is a confirmation that whatever failures we have suffered in life we have done better than most of our fellow Americans. That may not be politically correct but it is true and it is reassuring when everyone we meet believes we are all crazy.