Cyclist gives in to her better judgment

The Joy ride has ended roughly 17,500 miles short of its destination.

Spokane Valley’s intrepid 80-year-old bicyclist says she’s temporarily deflated, but not defeated.

Joy Peterson has abandoned the two-continent group tour that started in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on June 2 en route to the tip of South America.

In bailing out, she joins a long list of prudent adventure survivors who made the right decision at the right time.

Before flying home with her 17-year-old Nishiki touring bike, Joy called to say the first 30 miles of the trip through four inches of mud in a rainstorm that turned into a blizzard had nothing to do with her decision.

She said she didn’t mind camping in the snow and slop behind the only available wind break – stacks of big salt bags the Alaska Highway Department pile up along the road to melt the arctic ice in winter.

“What would you expect?” she said. “I was on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere between Deadhorse and Coldfoot.”

The tundra roads were in such bad shape, Joy and all but two of the seven-rider group had to hitch a ride in a van. One of the bikers was suffering from hypothermia.

“My bike was so packed with mud after being on the van rack, it was almost unridable,” she said. “My wrist is still swollen from a fall I took (another day) when a truck forced me into the soft gravel and muck on the side of the road.”

One day the wind was blowing so hard, the road was so muddy, she knew she’d met her match when she tried to get started on her loaded bike by standing on one pedal with the full force of her 100-pound, 4-foot-10 frame. “I couldn’t budge it,” she said.

She had expected those inconveniences, plus a lot more of them down the road in South America.

But Joy’s had enough outdoor experience biking, hiking and paddling to realize early that this trip wasn’t going to fly.

“I just didn’t fit into the group’s riding style,” she said. “They are younger and stronger, so they sleep in late and then go hard. I’m a person who gets up early and takes all day to do what they do in five hours. I like that way of traveling, but they waited and worried about me. We all realized that wasn’t going to work.”

News of family health problems back in Spokane sealed the decision.

Two of the seven original riders left the loosely organized trip at Fairbanks. “One man decided to quit bicycling and get a job up there after he saw what kind of money he could make,” she said.

Joy flew home this week, bringing with her fond North Slope memories, including a herd of 25 musk oxen, a fresh pair of moose calves on wobbly legs and daily encounters with caribou and classic Alaskans.

She savored the touring cyclist’s knack for breaking the ice with strangers. “One waitress brought me a piece of pie and ice cream on the house,” Joy recalled. “She said that after talking to me she missed her grandma.”

At the Arctic Circle she met a Japanese adventure cyclist. “Even though it was light 24 hours a day, he was riding at night (hours) because he’d found the trucks and mosquitoes aren’t as bad then,” she said.

All of that is behind her now.

Her only regret is that she was hoping to raise money for expanding the Dishman Hills Natural Area. “I hope anyone who made a pledge based on my trip will make a donation anyway,” she said. “It’s such a good cause.”

And that should be the end of her worries.

Adventure should never be allowed to suffer the indignity of being motivated purely by success.

Many Olympians devote their lives to a sport only to be considered failures if they don’t win a gold medal.

Adventurers can lose their lives to such silly reasoning.

Prudence is a virtue that can’t be underrated in the outdoors.

Kay LeClaire, 57, of Spokane was within a few thousand feet of becoming the oldest woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest in May when she wisely abandoned the climb. The common cold she’d developed could have become life-threatening at altitudes more than 24,000 feet.

The Everest guide and his clients who later gave up their shot at the summit in order to rescue another climber should consider their accomplishment far higher and more significant than the top of the world.

Climbing mountains and other large-scale outdoor pursuits is risky business, not only because you could die, but also because you could fail.

It’s sad that people nowadays think they have no time for anything less than a sure thing. Baby boomers wait until they hear a sure-fire fishing report before they’ll rig up a rod and reel.

In the outdoors arena, reasoned quitting can be chalked up as a success.

The only failure is to never try.