The Montana-North Dakota Weather Pastcast (July 14th, Bastille Day, 2006)

by your roving San Francisco meteorologist, 97.5% accuracy guaranteed

Things have totally changed.  Totally.  I haven't been rained on in two weeks.  There was one thunderstorm as I arrived in Chinook, MT, but I was inside a grocery store buying lunch at the time and was able to sit it out.  It rained hard with impressive claps of thunder, but within 20 minutes it was all over.  Then again, two days ago, I narrowly missed a storm that had been following close on my heels late in the afternoon.   I was lucky to get settled before it started to rain.  Once it started, it rained into the next morning, even delaying my departure a couple of hours.

Although Washington and Idaho had the wettest June on record, it's quite a different story in North Dakota.  The state is declaring more and more counties "disaster areas".  They do not have irrigation systems for their crops, but depend mostly on natural rainfall, which has been a rare commodity this year.  The result is that the crops are stressed and beginning to die.  It's enough to make you feel guilty about enjoying day after day of precipitation-free weather.

Not that the weather is exactly perfect.  The average high for this time of year is a relatively pleasant 83 degrees (28 C).  Today it was a very toasty 98 degrees (37 C), and it was anything but pleasant to cycle in the oppressive heat.  In fact, it's a bit dangerous to cycle in this kind of heat if you don't carry enough water.  For tomorrow the National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for this part of North Dakota. 

Trusty Rusty

I haven't had a mechanical problem for the first 1,700 miles (2,735 km) --- more than a third --- of the trip.  Rusty has handled the mileage like the champ that he is.  Jim mailed two new tires to me in care of General Delivery at the Williston Post Office.  They were there when I arrived, and I picked them up just 15 minutes before the post office closed for the day.  If the first part of the trip is a good measure, I'll need two more sets of tires before I've finished.  Since my favorite tires --- Avocet Cross II Kevlar-belted tires (perfect for touring) --- are hard to find, I purchased extras before I left home and stored them in the garage, ready for mailing.

Amazing statistics (US Bureau of Averages, Aggregates, Maximums and Outright Lies)

The Zen of Long-Distance Bicycle Touring

I'm not even half way across the country.  That must be the reason I haven't experienced the long-awaited epiphany where I suddenly realize the meaning of life.  I'm hoping that will happen no later than Pennsylvania or Ohio.

About the only thing I am really learning on this trip is to take things as they come.  When I'm coasting downhill and relishing the sensation of the fresh air rushing through my hair and over my body, I try to enjoy that moment for all its worth, even if I see a humongous hill coming up.  My natural inclination is to curse the upcoming hill and worry about how difficult it is going to be to climb it.  The negative thought still crosses my mind, but only briefly.  I concentrate on how much I am enjoying what I'm doing.

For a long time I used that one miserable day at the beginning of the trip, climbing Washington Pass in the rain, as a baseline for making everything else seem easy by comparison.  But climbing Washington Pass in the rain was really just part of the experience.  I have some terrific photographs from that day, I'm proud of myself that I did it, and I have a new and probably never-to-be-repeated experience (and achievement) under my belt.  In a similar vein, even though I don't like to get flats, I manage to chill out about those (most of the time).  So far, I have always been able to conjure up a much worse scenario for fixing a flat --- in a terrible thunderstorm, in blistering heat, next to a steady stream of trucks ready to run me over.  I just sit there patiently doing my flat tire routine, remembering that I really have it pretty good.  This is so unlike me.

If there is anything I do that is reminiscent of meditation practice, it is focusing and quieting my mind.  Sometimes I would sorely like to close my eyes to do that, concentrating on the tactile and auditory sensations I'm experiencing, but of course, it's not a good idea to bicycle with your eyes closed.  At other times, I use the focused concentration in a practical way, to improve my cycling.  I pay great attention to my breathing, to my posture, to my use of leg and foot muscles, to my position on the bike --- all the things that can contribute to either efficiency or comfort.

Some think that because I'm doing something I've always wanted to do, I must be deliriously happy all my waking hours (and then sleep well after that).  Unfortunately, that's not the case.  Am I having a good time?  Well, most of the time, but it's still just life.  I like to bicycle; I like fresh air and sunshine; I like deciding each day what I want to do with the new day.  But deliriously happy, no.  Just regular happy, with a bad mood every now and then.  Like the title of one book on Zen philosophy, "No matter where you go, there you are."

I know you were expecting more.  Just wait, though, until I make it to Pennsylvania and Ohio.

So what's it like to live life on a bicycle?

Life slows down, and the definition of the word "problem" changes considerably.  It's no longer a looming deadline, a thorny program bug, a shyster contractor.  Problems are more elemental: being able to find food for dinner, obtaining water on a hot day, fixing a flat tire, or weathering a thunderstorm.  It's odd that these are actually more important problems, but to my psyche at least, they are less stressful ones.

Some people have asked me about the practical aspects of the trip.  This is probably a big yawn for most people, but for those who are interested in the basic aspects of living self-contained for three months on a bicycle, here goes ...

Food

Surprisingly, food is not always easy to come by.  This part of the West, well inland from the Pacific Coast, is sparsely populated.  Most days I do not get to eat lunch because there is no place to buy food.  There is no place to buy anything, for that matter.  I tank up on carbohydrates at breakfast (pancakes, or eggs with hash browns).  If that doesn't get me through until dinner, I have a stash of Cliff Bars in the front left pannier I can dig in to.  I didn't give much thought to my eating habits until I stayed in Tioga and weighed myself.  I lost 12 pounds in the first month.

Dinner can be problematic as well.  Many of the small towns on my route have populations in the 50 to 200 range.  These towns often have neither a grocery store nor a restaurant or cafe.  I would have camped in Esmond, ND, for example, but the grocery store had long since gone out of business and the sole cafe closed at 2:00 pm.

Some of my best meals have been the ones I've cooked myself, especially if it's a rib eye steak.  I have one remaining Mountain Home brand of freeze-dried meals.  Although I really don't cook that much (maybe seven or eight times is all), I like the security of knowing I can go twenty-four hours without a grocery store or restaurant, as long as I have water.  This particular insecurity costs me at least five pounds: the stove, the white gas, utensils, spices, and the food itself.

Drink

You can always get water in a town, but you can't always get water on the road.  I carry three water bottles on the bike.  If I happen to be prudent enough to look at the map and see I have 40-50 mile stretch without any services, I sometimes buy an extra liter bottle of water to carry on top of the racks.  One day I cycled 75 miles without stores or towns, and only two farm houses even remotely close to the road.  I had to stop and ring the doorbell to ask for water.  The lady of the house seemed happy to oblige me (chilled water from the fridge!), but her husband was decidedly unhappy at having someone intrude on their quiet, isolated life.

I have not yet seen a town, however small, however run down, that did not have a bar.  In some places, like Pekin, ND, it is the only business open, unless you count the post office.  Although it appears to be illegal to have kids under 18 in a bar where people smoke cigarettes, these small town bars serve as the community center.  Kids romp around while their parents down a beer or two.  I'm not a big beer aficionado, so if I want to indulge my baser instincts, I order a cocktail.  I have discovered that a Manhattan is virtually unknown in this part of the country [if you ever meet Derek (on the People page), make sure to talk him into mixing one of his superb Manhattans].  You can order a vodka tonic, but often enough, they don't have any tonic.  Since I am learning flexibility, however, I gladly drink a nice cold beer.  With dinner, if it's available, I have a lovely glass of refrigerated burgundy, sometimes served in a frosted glass.

Lodging

Yes, lodging is my great downfall.  I love my tent, I really do.  I have a Mountain Hardware Haven 2 that is absolutely the best.  When I'm in it, I feel like I'm at home.  However, it does not have a shower and it does not have electricity.  I have batteries to charge and email to answer (if I'm lucky).  I figured out that the final deciding factor is that I can afford a $50 motel room.  It's just that I can't afford a $50 motel room for 90 days in a row.  I am working on this intractable problem.

Once, and soon to be twice, I will stay with a host from www.warmshowers.org.  I stayed with Lester's family in Tioga.  In Minot, I enjoyed the hospitality of [careful now] the nephew of the high school best friend of my best friend Jim in SF.  (Whew!)  There are a couple of other people I know spread across the USA, but not many.

Daily hygiene

I love hot showers and clean clothes.  So far, I've only done without twice.  You can wash your face and shampoo in cold water in a sink.  That's not a hardship really.  As I mentioned elsewhere, my backpacking cousins, Bev & Bill, enlightened me about using a variation of HandiWipes for the rest of the cleanup process.  I carry a spare pack at all times. 

Contenders for the winning yellow jersey in the Tour de France have been known to drop out of the race due to saddle sores.  For that reason, it is very important to keep one's cycling clothes meticulously clean.  I carry concentrated All and a sink stopper with me, and every night (except for those two times), I wash my cycling clothes in a sink.  I prefer warm water, but cold will do.  Almost always, the clothes are dry by the next morning.  In the heat of the last few days, they are dry in an hour or less.

Mechanical maintenance

Considering all the miles he carries me, Rusty does not require a lot of care.  I take an old rag most days and wipe him down so that he looks good again.  (Of course, in my eyes, he always looks good.)  If the chain looks dirty or dry, I'll wipe the chain as clean as I can with a dry cloth and re-lubricate it.  On rare occasions (I should do this more often), I'll check to make sure the nuts and bolts are all tightened.  I press hard on the tire with my thumb to check the tire pressure (not a particularly precise measurement), and if it seems low, I'll pump a few extra pounds in.  Mostly I wait until I get to a bike shop so that I can borrow their floor pump, which is about 100 times easier than using a frame pump.

I carry an emergency nylon fiber spoke (just to get you to the next bike shop), spare brake and derailleur cables, a folding tire, and a couple of other emergency backups.  I haven't needed any of them so far;  I hope things continue that way.  In Minnesota I'll rotate the tires front-to-rear when they are about half way through their lifespan (c. 1400 miles / 2250 km).  In Muscatine, Iowa, I'll ask Jim to mail another new set of tires to me at the post office general delivery mail drop.

Health

Not much to report.  In the first week, I started to get sunburn, but noticed it in time to switch to SPF 50 before I turned bright red (which, with my compromised color vision, I might not have noticed anyway).  Crossing the Continental Divide, I stressed the tendons running through my right foot (probably by pushing so hard on the pedals), and suffered a couple of days of foot pain as a result.  My hypertension is the same as ever (I thought it might go down), but my pulse is a rock bottom 52 beats per minute.  Finally, at the end of the day, when I lie down to sleep, I can't even stay awake long enough to listen to my Sue Grafton mystery.  I'm out like a light and wake up in the morning entangled in ear phone cords.