Eric's Bigish Ride

As you may know, a couple weeks ago I joined up with my dad for the last few days of his cross-country bike ride. You can read about his whole ride here, and if you want a more detailed description of the parts I was on look here, here, here, here and here. Unfortunately my camera got in a fight with some rocks (and lost) on the first morning of the ride, so I don’t have any pictures of my own, but my dad put up plenty of shots of his own. That should take care of the need to visually document my participation.

Anyway, since he also took care of the major summaries, I’ll just add a few points. First, putting a bunch of 50- and 60-somethings on bikes for 5 hours a day is basically the equivalent of putting their metabolisms in a time-machine and sending them back 40 years. The old folks seem to enjoy this, as evidenced by the near-constant face-stuffing witnessed throughout my 4 days with the group. This extended far beyond my dad’s well-documented affection for pies and seemed oblivious to both gender and nationality.

Second, my dad sucks at spotting wildlife. On one occasion he nearly got attacked by an osprey as a result, but mostly it just makes him not see deer off in the fields at the edge of the road. I suppose that his desire to keep his bike on the pavement, out of traffic and in a wheels-down position plays some role in keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. And I should admit that this “eyes forward” approach not only guided him safely across the country but briefly jived with the desire to see wildlife when we surprised a deer on the soft shoulder in the first hour of my ride. But mostly, for a guy who claimed to want to see wildlife so badly, I just didn’t see the effort or the execution. Fortunately I was there to point out a number of additional deer, a bald eagle, osprey (one with a big fish!), some wild turkeys and a few other varmints.

Third, I feel a little guilty about the timing of my trip, since I since I hitched it onto the front end of my friend Garry’s bachelor party and wedding. Before Garry’s dad passed away abut 3 years ago, the two of them were really close and a lot of their bonding took place on fishing trips – the same way biking has been a great way for my dad and I to bond. I’m not sure if Garry ever saw the same connection between his fishing and my biking, but I would hate to have my trip bring any sadness into the picture for Garry’s wedding.

Fourth, although I’m sure there were individuals on the trip who didn’t get along with one another, it was really nice to see that after 4000 miles the group as a whole still had fun hanging out together. I’m sure things could’ve gone another way, but these people were still joking around and having a great time right to the end. The whole mentality of the group helped me to fit in and have a great time pretty much right away, which was great.

Fifth, my dad was nice to not point out that on the last uphill he beat me to the top by a solid 20 seconds*. My bathroom break a mile from the top didn’t help, but I was stopped for less than a minute and couldn’t close the gap. It seems likely that our respective levels of training to that point – specifically his constant riding for 3 months straight – might have made the difference there.

* It’s entirely possible that he didn’t even notice this, since he was probably trying to wrap his mind around the idea that after 4000+ miles this was the last hill between him and the ocean. But I did, and you can be sure that next time we’re on bikes I’ll be ready. And no I don’t care that I’m 32 years younger than him. He’s getting “the look.”

Sixth, that ride a lot of fun! Loving my life in Anchorage doesn’t mean that I don’t miss things like my family, biking and sunshine. It just means that sometimes I’ve got to do a little travelling in order to get those things. This was one of those times and man was it worth the trip!