Cycling Across America: The Beginning
Today is the tenth anniversary of the day I began an attempt at cycling alone across America.
The planned route wasn’t just across America, it was down and up and down it also, being from Boston to Georgia to Oklahoma to Iowa to Wyoming, to Arizona, and to San Diego - though I had a few alternate endings in case all did not go well. All did not go well.
You can read from the beginning in this post, or you can go to the full index to my Cycle Across America.
I’m going to include snippets of the trip here on Irish KC, and put the fuller version on another website near you soon. Having flown from Dublin with a bicycle I had previously cycled across Europe on, I had arrived in Boston two days earlier:
The woman in Immigration seemed incredulous in an unfriendly way.
-You’re just going to take these three bags and cycle to Kansas City and then to the West?
I don’t think I convinced her but she let me into her country nonetheless.Looked for a sign for airport exit and went the opposite direction (because this country is designed for cars). Outside the terminal I could see big roads and big signs for other big roads and big tunnels. This is not a world for bicycles. Continued to go opposite direction to all airport exit signs and a couple of miles later I found myself outside the airport.
East Boston. Food places everywhere. I was hungry and needed change for the phone. Beef. I could have beef. This is not Europe - let’s eat some cow. They even had tea up on the price list.
-Beef Roll Regular with sauce and cup of tea please.
-Tea?Down to the waterfront to look across at downtown Boston. Stop in the rain at an arcade. A beggar covered in plaster in a wheelchair, with badly cut hands threatened to give me a slap because I wouldn’t give him any change. Said he’d been knocked down by someone going 65 mph and now he was homeless. I still didn’t have any change.
I turned down a salesman who sounded Irish, selling wonder miracle screwdrivers. He moved on efficiently to sell five to somebody else and three to another person, and walking across to McDonalds he sold another one to a man in the car park. I was beginning to regret not buying one.
Another man apologised for hogging the phone. I was waiting for the rain to go, not for the phone. He was sorry he was stressed but his cheque hadn’t arrived and he had rent etc. to pay.
Scrapped my friend’s directions because this was my cycle, and it was obvious he drives a car. Over the Charles River and zig-zagged through suburbia until I found a house where a post-it on the door said “Irishman Welcome”
An then, on August 2nd, 1996, ten years ago today, I left downtown Boston for the first day proper of the cycling trip:
Three hours after getting up to pack and put on the cyclocomputer - itself three hours after going to bed after all those drinks including the Mind Eraser through a straw in one go - I rolled onto Washington Street.Around Norwood I was thinking that when every area is so different within itself they all end up being the same. This could’ve been Kansas City, not New England.
Border with Rhode Island unremarkable except for change in road colour. There was simply another “You are Entering” county sign only this county was in a different state.
Stayed on the main roads into Woonsocket because they were comfortable and spacious. Had been singing about Woonsocket (to the tune of Moonshadow) for miles. This was meant to be lunch but it didn’t attract me, yet people are obviously courteous to me.
South so on the 104. All woods. The towns and villages on the maps seemed not to exist. Roads so easy to cycle on. The sun out now for the first time and hot. Stopped at a reservoir for my first sight of an expanse of space. Because of trees and houses only once up to now had I been able to see beyond the side of the road.
Suburbs appeared briefly. Toni’s Pizza Place. Buried a twelve inch with mushrooms and peppers. Toni came up front. Where had I come from? What route did I take? Where was I going? Where was I going overall? On that bicycle? Really?
-You’re not going to make it on that bicycleIt was quite clear that many towns in Rhode Island are actually townlands. No centre as such except perhaps for Foster Centre which was a village and very old and pretty. The last thirty miles, as I looked for lodging where clearly it wouldn’t exist, was the most remarkable.
The most beautiful houses so far. Atmosphere. A feeling of pioneer days. Houses very spread out, wooden, old, beautiful. I had thought earlier in the day that America was in danger of being boring in its beauty but this was different. I felt very lonely brought on by the presence of these huge houses in the woods. Nobody was ever outside them and I hadn’t seen a car for miles. The busyness of all the Italians at lunch time was an age away.
These deciduous trees were so tall they protected me from the sun and wind. I would cycle with my arms outstretched and love it. Once I had to race away from two dogs who chased me loudly and frantically in relay format. I knew I would have to leave Rhode Island to get lodging. Another unremarkable border crossing and I realised I’d no photos of Rhode Island.
The Connecticut side wasn’t as nice. Suburbs. The boring beauty of it all. 90 miles cycled brings me to Moosup, a motel, and a calzone. Leave a message on an answering machine 110 miles away saying I’ll be there tomorrow night at seven. Seven-ish.
And that’s my idea of a snippet.
Read the next stage of Cycling Across America.
See Index to my Cycle Across America
See Also:
• Synthetic Testosterone Reported for Landis
• About the author, Eolaí gan Fhéile
• What Do You Miss About Ireland?
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I’ve felt that loneliness too often, in American countrysides. Vast and quiet and nobody around the houses even. Like the beginning of a slasher movie. but beautiful.