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There was a time when I did a considerable amount of bike riding without Ben. For two summers when he was off doing who knows what I rode with my father and my father’s friend — who became my friend, too, by the end of our travels. We called ourselves The Three Amigos and we rode our bicycles all over the great state of New Hampshire. This was my first experience riding a bicycle for the sake of riding a bicycle — that is, actually going out with the purpose and intent of riding around a bit and then coming back to where we started. Before this, my bicycle was my means of transportation and if I had to pedal thirty miles to get somewhere then I would do just that. With my father’s interest in the “sport” of biking, however, I too became involved and, soon thereafter, was also enthralled by the art of bicycling.

As The Three Amigos we would go camping, ride our bikes, eat Twinkies, fart, make silly jokes, eat more Twinkies, ride our bikes a little farther before stopping to eat again and make more inappropriate jokes, while celebrating our accomplishments. The three of us slept in a twelve person tent with an intricate tarp system that kept us dry during Hurricane Andrew and brought enough gear to fill one full-sized truck and the entire back of an old school Suburban — for just the three of us. Needless to say, it was, probably more than necessary. A cooler of food, three stoves, and three full mattresses for our sleeping comfort.

Our first rides as The Three Amigos consisted of pedaling around the Franconia Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There is a bicycle path up in The Notch which starts at The Flume and ends on the north side at Route 3 and covers, perhaps, eight miles from top to bottom over varying (but not particularly challenging) terrain. I remember distinctly the first time we did the entire route, top to bottom and back again: sixteen whole miles. That night, around the campfire, there was much braggadocio and much farting and much talk of having conquered The White Mountains.

We were manly bikers.

Fortunately, we were neither disillusioned for very long nor were we satisfied with our accomplishments. We continued to take longer and more challenging rides and by the end of the second year, we had made a one hundred mile push — the farthest I have ever traveled on a bicycle in a single day.

I mention The Three Amigos because this had been my experience bike touring until Ben and I left for the West Coast. Drive up to the campground in two fully loaded vehicles manufactured by Chevrolet, setup your military-style campsite, bicycle a few miles, eat some food packed by our wives and mothers, and relax and sleep on a comfortable mattress with my buckwheat pillow. There was no riding if it rained; no packing food above and beyond a simple snack; no carrying any gear except a pump and a multi-tool and a couple water bottles. And, there was no pedaling at speeds over twelve miles an hour for any reason whatsoever. An amazing day, a day with more speed than we — The Three Amigos — had ever dreamed possible, was a day in which we averaged thirteen miles per hour. Normally, we were down around ten or eleven and this speed was maintained only because it held promise of Twinkies at the end of the day.

Needless to say, things had changed.

On June 29th, 2005, Ben and I averaged sixteen miles an hour over six hours for a grand total of ninety-five miles while loaded with over forty pounds of gear each. I don’t feel like I was in any better shape over the summer than I had been when I was pedaling with my father in the White Mountains — I felt just as tired as I always did on a bicycle — but obviously I had become faster. And faster is always better on a bicycle because the less time spent on the seat the more chance of having children in the future.

When we left Madras a little after one o’clock exhaustion came creeping in and wore at me slowly, pushing down on my neck and back with the beating of the sun. The twelve pounds of eggs, home fries, toast, and waffles didn’t help either; and there was no post-prandial nap to speak of. There was no time. The elation of having made it to our first checkpoint on schedule wore away as the realization that we were only halfway to our destination set in. All I saw was an ever present exchange of either the pavement or Ben’s rear-end and, after another hour on the bike, they both looked pretty much the same to me andboth looked better than our surroundings which had gone from quaint desert scenery to lost Nevada Highway very quickly. The heat, the effort, the distance, finally began to wear us down.

So much so that when we arrived in Bend we were exhausted and suffering from mild heatstroke. So much so that when we got downtown we ended up standing on opposite corners of a busy intersection and yelling at each other because neither of us had enough energy to cross the street properly and speak in a normal tone. So much so that when we found out that the nearest campsite was, despite our map’s declaration to the contrary, another fifteen miles outside of town we could only lower our heads sadly and say nothing. So much so that Ben and I actually made friends entirely by accident which is something we never do. And so much so that I can’t remember much of what happened after that point, but if you listen to my voice on the audiolog the next morning, something must have happened, because the usual cynicism and hate for the world was gone. It had been beaten out of me by the desert and, instead, it was replaced with a quiet awe, appreciation, and love for all God’s creatures, great and small.

DAMON: [whispering - birds chirp in the background] Today is June 30th, it is 6:30 in the morning we spent the night with Joe and Christina of Bend, Oregon. It happened that Ben was across the street from me downtown and we were both scanning, after ninety-five miles of riding, trying to figure out where it was we were going to go and I hollered to him that he should go into the sports store and suddenly the man next to me spoke. We had a little conversation, shortly thereafter he invited us to sleep in his yard; we ended up going to dinner with them. Um, used their computer, their bathroom, took a shower. And, yea, pretty amazing, they’re really neat people. Both massage therapists, both right up my alley, it’s been great, super nice. Unbelievable. And this morning we are going to get going again because we have about a billion more miles to travel. Talk to you later. Over and out.

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