The learning wasn’t over for Whitworth grad
Bicycle tourists have a different view of adventure as they ride along the highways, with the great outdoors on one side and 16-wheelers speeding by inches away on the other side.
The cross-the-country journal written this summer by Brent Hendricks details the transformation of his body and mind as he hustles the open road.
“The past three weeks have felt like three months, and I feel I’ve gained the biking experience of three years,” he says of the trip’s beginning.
In that time, he’s already learned that a church isn’t a bike traveler’s best bet for understanding and assistance in time of need. A bar is a much more reliable port in a storm, he discovered – “and somebody’s almost always going to buy you a beer.”
Following are excerpts from the blog written by Hendricks, who recently graduated with a major in religion and minor in philosophy before heading out on two wheels to get his unofficial postgraduate degree in American culture.
Planning: “Everything I planned out so meticulously before I left on this trip turned out to be wrong.
Weather check: “Rain is horrible for bike touring. I’ll take the heat. In 90 degrees I can get my body to do whatever I want as long as I feed it enough Gatorade and Snickers.”
Being alone: “Solitude is by far the hardest part. It is a lot easier to get through a grueling day or bad weather when you’ve got someone to laugh/complain about it with. I don’t have that luxury. I honestly probably speak less than 1,000 words a day. I simply don’t see people. If you subtract the now-memorized speech in response to the inevitable ‘Where are you headed?’ question, then I often speak less than 100 words a day.”
Creeps: Hendricks said he met a lot of people, about 5 percent of which he’d classify as “creepy,” such as “the guy in the gas station parking lot who stares at you for an awkwardly long time before coming over, complimenting your bike, telling an impossible to follow story about how he rode his bike somewhere once, telling you how he never goes anywhere without Ol’ Rusty (his .45 revolver) and asking, ‘What campsite did you say you were staying in tonight?’ “
Deep thoughts: “This experience is like nothing I’ve ever had. As much as I can write, you will never understand without doing it yourself – it simply isn’t possible.”
Real friends: “Whoever came up with the saying ‘A dog is a man’s best friend’ is a dirty liar. What is really a man’s best friend? Anatomically designed bicycle shorts.”
The Cowboy State: “The state of Wyoming apparently decided to save money on its road construction projects by leaving a 6-inch gap every 20 yards of pavement, thus giving roads the appealing ‘inverted speed bump’ feel. It also happens to be the most annoying, bike destroying, nauseating cycling experience known to man. However, when combined with the barren landscape, dead sagebrush, oppressive heat, complete isolation, and frequent rattlesnakes, it serves to make the state of Wyoming a quite attractive destination.”
Dashing stereotypes: At the Sisters, Ore., rodeo “we got to our seats and I found myself sitting next to a fine lookin’ cowgirl. I figured she wouldn’t want to talk about anything other than her boyfriend’s big truck. She introduced herself, however, and also offered me some New Belgium ‘Fat Tire,’ which she had snuck in to the world of Bud Light. She had spent the last three years traveling all over the world and spent two years in an International University in Costa Rica where she was studying international politics. Thus, it came to be that I sat and watched a small-town rodeo while discussing U.S. foreign policy in Central America and the melding of misguided religion and blind patriotism in America – Yee-ha!
Notable numbers: Clocking 52 mph fully loaded down a pass near Dillon, Mont., and 2.5 hours to pedal 8.5 miles up the old White Bird Grade in Idaho. “It was beautiful scenery, too, but I didn’t notice any of it.”
Bottoming out: “Completely worn out and burned out,” he wrote at a campsite 35 miles from Washington, D.C. “Today I want the trip to be done. Jumped into the Potomac River, which is the grossest river I’ve ever seen. So dirty. But I was so sweaty I had to do it.”
Happy ending: “I hit the 5,000-mile mark right as I came into view of the beach and I dipped my front wheel in the Atlantic at 5,001 miles. I then sat in the sand on the beach and drank my first champagne ever while smoking my first cigar ever.
Happier ending: A rendezvous with his family, and a sweet trip home.