Everything Hurts…

Still in Florida…

I don’t recommend wearing sandals for the entire duration of a transcontinental ride, if you ever choose to do one. You may have noticed by now that I have a habit of being a tad unconventional…

A question that I often get asked is how many miles would I ride in a day on my transcontinental bike-about. My answer has always been that it varies drastically depending on a few different variables. To put it into perspective, my entire trip from start to finish was 3,126.5 miles. I completed the entire distance in 50 days. If you do the math, that works out to 62.5 miles per day. However, this does not take into account the 6 rest days that I took, where I was either dodging unsafe weather conditions or just giving my legs a day to recover. That bumps my average up to almost 72 miles per day.

You might be thinking to yourself that 70+ miles on a bike sounds excruciating, let alone the idea of repeating this self-inflicted pain day in and day out. Speaking from experience, it is at first. This is mostly because I hadn’t done much conditioning before I set off on my wild ride. My body was not yet accustomed to sitting on a metal post all day in a hunched position while pedaling at 12 mph. My quads felt as if they were going to explode. I quickly developed saddle sores, a blister-like rash on your backside caused by the constant friction between your skin and saddle (seat). The pain is probably comparable to sitting on a dozen or so nails. Every joint and muscle ached like never before. I remember being able to feel a throbbing pain between each one of my knuckles, from hanging onto my handlebars for hours each day. My hands began to feel like heavy clubs that lacked dexterity; even a simple task like texting on my cell phone became difficult. My neck became rigid and my lower back was constantly under strain.

There was nothing that I wanted more in life than to retire to a soft, cozy bed at the end of each day. Unfortunately, like I had done with my bike, I also cheaped out on my sleeping gear. I opted for an inexpensive inflatable sleeping matt and air pillow. Once deflated, they packed down nice and small making them easy to carry. How was I supposed to know that they were only going to make it a few nights before both developed leaks? I wasn’t able to replace them until Tallahassee, some 500 miles into my ride. As a result, I would lay my crippled body on the cold hard ground each night and rest my head on a t-shirt stuffed with my dirty laundry.

Then, after about a week, something remarkable happened. My body became used to the torment. I went to bed broken one night and woke up only feeling stiff the next morning! It’s as if my body accepted that my fate was now to sit atop that bicycle and pedal ‘til the sun went down each day. I became blind to pain. I no longer dreaded the idea. Along with my body, my mind also became callused. At first, I was battling boredom. There was nothing to occupy my thoughts for the 10 or so hours that I would ride each day. All there was to do was stare at that solid white line on the pavement and pedal. It’s not what you would call exhilarating.

Have you ever been driving your car when you get lost in thought? Suddenly, you “wake up” to realize 15 minutes had gone by and you have no recollection of what happened in that time. The only reason why you know you have been driving is because you are currently sitting at a stoplight behind the wheel. Well, that started happening to me on my bike. It would come and go in short 15-minute bursts at first. Then, it turned into hours! Steadily, the duration of this trancelike state would increase. There were a few times when an entire day would go by without me realizing it. The setting sun would shake me from my dream. I’d snap to the present moment only to realize that my last memory for the day was refilling my water at a gas station that morning. The human brain is bewildering.

I started slow at first but by the last two weeks of my trip, I was really laying down the mileage. No longer did any amount of distance or elevation frighten me. I had become iron and it seemed that I could ride forever, so long as I ate enough to cure my insatiable hunger. I stopped feeling fatigued (most of the time) while riding and would usually end my day because the sun started to set behind the mountains and I wanted to use the remainder of the light to set up my camp. Although I usually didn’t feel too tired on the bike, it seemed that as soon as I lay down in my tent, I would fall into an abyssal sleep that carried no dreams. I’d wake in the morning in the same position and with a terrible hunger. Simultaneously, I would stuff my face with whatever food was in reach and pack up my campsite. Time to do it again.