Bikemum

She blusters into Lighthouse Bikes on a icy, raw day, wearing a pair of jeans that are held up by their multitude of colorful patches and a stiff, plaid rain hat that she tells me that has been in her family for generations. Her smile radiates from cheek to cheek and she bounces rather than trods across the shop on the balls of her feet. In her arms she carries a large atlas and a yellow legal pad. She whips out a pen and heads for the couch. She is named Louise, aka. Wheezie, and she is here for our Cuban summit.

Until now, I have always spoken proudly about my love of bicycle touring alone. I have loved the quiet, meditative days of pedaling, the lack of compromise and the rawness of it all, but there have been some things that I have miss out on because of going solo.

I become shy when I am alone. I shrink away from social situations, scared that it will be noticed and taken advantage of. I am always in my tent by eight o’clock and always avoid truly engaging with others because of my vulnerability. “No thank you, I am fine.” are often the first words out of my mouth when I am invited to a family’s house for dinner or offered a chance to experience a cultural event. Often before I can even register what they are asking. But now, when I think of Cuba, it is exactly these things that I am seeking. I want to engage with the people, not just myself.

Wheezie and I sit down and she spreads the atlas open on the coffee table. We start pointing out possible routes to each other, jockeying to control the enthusiasm that causes us to interrupt each other again and again, our words bubbling over one and others like a fountain. Every idea is a good one, so we decide to leave the route fairly open and go where it makes sense, averaging 60 or so miles a day.

We discuss needed paperwork, finances and equipment, dividing tasks and timelines. There are food shortages in Cuba so we need to bring some emergency rations. Electricity can be spotty, batteries and headlamps are a must. We have also been told to only bring cash and to have it in small bills because the exchange rate is so variable and there are no ATM’s. We won’t camp because camping is not commonplace in Cuba, but rather we will stay in rooms for rent in people’s homes.

I feel a wash of relief as I realize that all these decisions and logistics will not fall on me and that Wheezie will be standing right beside me as I ask the locals to stay in their homes, and sitting right beside me as I am emboldened to practice my Spanish over breakfast. I get giddy by the thought of dancing the night away instead of sitting alone in a tent, or lingering over dinner while actually making conversation with Cuban people.

After an hour or so, I need to return to work and she to her home. She takes her old red, trusty Rockhopper bike with nobby mountain bike tires off a hook where it has been hanging in the shop and lays out a plan to ride it at least 10 miles a day on the road before we go to leather up her butt and strengthen her knee bones. It will be better exercise than a road bike. The very next morning, on a 20 degree day, she sends me a selfie of her pedaling along grinning like this is the best life ever lived.

This trip will be different because of Wheezie. I may miss my solitude at times, but I believe that it will richer, more vibrant, and more culturally engaging than any so far. This woman is going to open doors.

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In these uncertain times, there is only one thing to do. Have faith. Faith in the kindness of people, the beauty in the world and the strength in one’s self. So, for that reason alone, off I go, to Cuba this time.

I will spend about a month, circumnavigating the country, traveling alone on bicycle from town to town. I plan on stringing the routes together of other cyclists that have gone before me and I will stay in local hospedajes; rented rooms in various people’s homes. I will have to speak my terrible Spanish. I will exhaust myself. I have heard that the country is beautiful and the people are warm and welcoming and I will have an opportunity to be completely immersed it, taking a break from the political discord here. Perhaps I will be exposed to new perspectives. It all sounds perfect, most of the time.

Am I scared? Yes. Do I worry about traffic, loneliness, my strength and the unknown? Absolutely, especially at night, like now, when the wind rattles the last few remaining oak leaves that cling hopelessly to their skeletal branches, the rain spits and the dark seems to lap at the windows, daring me to feel brave.

“You think you will be safe out here?” It rasps, “You think you will be cared for, warmed and nourished if you leave the safety of your cozy home?”

At these time, I feel like a 3rd grader imagining a monster in my closet and I realize that the only thing to be done is to throw the door open and face these fears head on, lest I stay immobilized in my bed, sleepless and trembling.
And I don’t want to be immobilized—not ever.

Every time I go on one of these trips I relearn that the only monster is my fear. That people are kind, the world is beautiful and I am strong. I accept that there are risks associated with bicycle touring solo, but I just can’t peer out from under the blankets and feed my fears with fantastical stories of “What if?” not when there is so much good out there that I would miss.

So, now the fun. These trips give me a reason to train my body and brain. For the next 6 weeks I will cycle around and around, no matter what the weather, in an effort to get ready for the hills and headlands of Cuba. I will study Spanish more diligently, so that I can have a hope of communicating with the people there. I will study the country so I am versed in its history, customs and current structure. I will work on fine tuning my bike and I study maps. It is like being in school again, with a full course load. There is so much to learn.

I am in the half world between sleep and consciousness. It is sweet here. A gentle lull between the tidal pulls of dreamland and the motivation to start a new day. The sun is not yet up, but a pastel wash of color is beginning to seep into the sky, giving shape to the pile of laundry on my floor, the lump of cat by my feet and the still unreadable clock ticking on the wall. I hear my son, Oakley, downstairs, rummaging for his breakfast and the pull towards wakefulness builds. But today, I am not sure I am ready for what I may find when I greet the day. What I will soon hear on the radio or read on my phone. I have been told that I am pathologically optimistic, but today, I am afraid of what might be.

Throughout all my adventures, I have spouted off about the kindness that I have found. I have been welcomed, housed and helped by everyone along the way. From the inviting church ladies in Kentucky that offered their basements for Oakley and I to sleep in when we bicycled across the United States, to the girls in Morocco who grinned and cheered under their head scarves, as I biked my naked-legged self over high mountain passes and little towns, to the police in Uruguay that offered to change my flat tires. Everyone has returned a smile with a smile and often quite a bit more. This is the world that I have been privileged to live in—one in which people are good.

Yesterday morning, when I did climb out of bed and venture downstairs, and did indeed hear the news that I had dreaded, I felt like a fool. All of my naive belief in the power of basic human kindness, as a shared ideology, seemed turned on its head. People are caring for one another, right? Right? I struggled to believe that we, as a country, want this angry, vindictive, disrespectful, caustic, ignorant man to represent us to the world. “This cannot be!” I kept shouting in my head. “He is to full of hatred!” I spent the day going through stages of grief. Am I that out of touch? Have I misjudged the people of this country? Have I been living in a fantasy land?After a bike ride, a family dinner and a fire in the backyard with friends, I have come to a conclusion. I don’t think so.

I am not particularly smart, nor politically savvy. In fact, I have a fairly simplistic view of the world. But, I do know something about the importance of connection. And that with connection, comes compassion. And that with compassion, comes kindness. I have experienced this everyday.

So, maybe all I can do is fight this feeling of despair with more kindness, more acceptance, and more love, even for those that I can’t yet understand. There are probably one too many adages about this, but it is probably because it is true.

That is a fight I can get behind. That is where the hope will lie for me. That is the part of the country that I will represent when I bicycle around Cuba or wherever this February.

I will now get off my soap box and hopefully never return. I will go back to telling stories and hopefully they will speak for themselves.

There are enormous bulls, snorting fire, prancing in the streets. Harpys, taller than semi-trucks, march behind them. Dragons with woman’s breasts, spin and dance. All of them have fire streaming from their noses and horns, and are circled by human attendants helping them, as they blindly make their way through the crowds.
It is the last night of carnival and the street is alive with madness. Giant sparklers fill the dark with light, sending sparks flying and threatening to set the world on fire. They pop, whir and and burst making people shriek and duck for cover.
There is drumming too. Soulful, melodic drumming, from over one hundred drummers. It seems to awaken something in the people and everyone dances in a jolting, stomping manner, the old and the young together. Children climb to their parents shoulders and their parents spin. The celebration goes late into the night, and tonight, I stay awake.

I did it. Unabashedly, I did it. I rode 1,400 miles through Morocco, a little smidge of England, and Spain. I am proud. Is that wrong? It was hard and long and took determination and grit, and it allowed me to learn an incredible amount about this world and my place in it. 

I loved every part of it, even the parts that I hated. The steep mountains, the soul crushing wind, getting lost and feeling lonely. I missed my family terribly, and wondered if I would have my place back when I returned. I threatened never to do this again, but I lied. I can’t not.

This world, that I don’t understand, I love. I love the colors and the people, the variety and the intensity, and the struggle and the triumph. It is corny, I know, but it is the truth. Something in me wants to inhale it all, in the biggest breath I can manage, because I don’t want to miss a thing.

Tonight, I sit in Barcelona, having a private celebration. I am incredibly thankful that those trucks didn’t hit me, that I made it through the wind, and that I was allowed to experience this. I don’t know what to do with all of it, except to knit it into my being. There is no career in it, no lofty goal, no world betterment. It is just a feeling of fullness that feels like it matters.

I will be here for two days and then I will return home, to the people I love most in the world. I couldn’t have one without the other. My love for them allows me to feel like a kite, with a string that connects me to my anchor. A kite can’t fly without someone holding on.

Last night I slept on the beach with the aquamarine sea lapping just feet from where I slumbered. I awoke to the sound of the rolling surf (which I thought was thunder and leapt out of my sleeping bag and out of my tent in a hot panic, ready to run for cover, my heart beating a million miles a minute. Only to find that it was 4AM and the sky was perfectly clear.) and I lay awake listening and checking my phone. I see on my weather app, that although there is indeed no rain, the wind is forecasted to pick up and hover around 30 mph later today with gusts to of up to 80. There goes the hope of any sleep. I fitfully dither about what to do, and finally decide to get up the coast to Tarragon, the site of an old Roman Capital, as fast as I can, before the wind can find me. I set sights on a hostel I find there and make haste.

By noon I have made it and as I arrive, so does the wind, knocking down the sandwich board signs outside shops, threatening to tear awnings and hurling dust and litter into the air. I feel quite pleased with myself as I stow my gear on my bunk and head back out, bikeless and carefree to see what this town has to offer.

I am not disappointed. I find colosseums, Roman circuses, ancient city walls and of course the Tarragona Cathedral, the most prominent feature in this town.

I pay to go inside. I am not religious, but I am still in awe whenever I go in one of these lavish Roman Catholic churches. The craftsmanship, the art and the effort it took to build something like this in the 12th century is baffling in scope. This cathedral is enormous with towering vaulted ceilings, many ornate apses and the biggest organ I have ever seen in my life. I walk slowly through, staring with bugged out eyes at all the history held here. 

It is quiet in the cathedral. There is no wind at all. After sometime, I find myself eyeing the pews and wondering what would happen if I just had a little lie down. It has been quite a week, actually quite a month! Nobody would know. There is nobody around. 

Suddenly, my legs feel like day-old molten lava. My eyes get all crinkly. The stone floor beneath my feet becomes impossibly hard. Maybe a little rest, I think. So, I lower myself down on to a bench seat for just a moment. If there is a god, I am sure they wouldn’t mind a bit.

As I sit blinking back sleepy tears, it occurs to me that I am not the first to be overcome with sleepiness in here. I am probably marching in line with centuries and centuries of visitors all exhausted from their daily toils who have found respite in these walls, (as well as boredom) and have been overcome, as am I. I think about how early my day started. I think about the wind and then I too become history.

Today was a difficult day, one of the hardest on this journey so far. I awoke in a light drizzle and thought I wouldn’t go far, just out to the local delta of L’ebre river. It is a large, wide delta covering many miles, comprised of endless rice fields, berms and wetland. It is a birder’s paradise and all manner of shore birds stop over there on their migratory route—even flamingos. Simply, the goal of the day was to see them, to sit on the shore and watch them flounce and clack, and to relax.

So, out I went, the wind at my back. It felt more like Holland than Spain as I cruised farther and farther out on to the delta. Not a tree, not a bush, not a rise, just wide open land all the way to the sea. After an hour or so, I turned the corner and there they were, the flamingos, in all their pink celebration. I stopped short, hopped off my bike and prematurely grinned over what I thought was going to be a delightful day. That is when I felt the wind. 

I had been pedaling with it and hadn’t noticed it’s growing ferocity, but now that I was still, I felt it whip round me in a most dispiriting way. Anxiety filled me, it was nearly 20 miles back to the mainland directly into it with nothing to break it’s power as in hurled itself out of the mountains. What had I done?

Suddenly, sad to say, the beauty of the flamingos was lost on me and I started to dither about getting back. 

I consulted the camping app on my phone and saw there was a camping spot 12 miles further on and they were open. If I made it there, I could spend the night and return across these flats tomorrow when perhaps the wind would abate. 

I hoped I would see more flamingos on the way, but decided I couldn’t take the time to linger and pedaled on. 

12 miles later, arriving at the campsite, I find it is closed. Now it is 32 miles back, directly into a wind that shook  me as I stood. I see an employee of the campground and begged. I sniveled, I made promises, but they didn’t budge. I was stuck. 

Into the wind I rode. Most of the time I took it on directly, barely moving forward. It felt like being on the highest setting of a stairstepper excercise machine. My front panniers would catch a gust and turn my front wheel this way and that so I was constantly correcting. I wore my rain jacket to protect myself from the abrasiveness of this wind and underneath I was soaked with sweat. 

Occasionally, I would turn and get the wind, full force on my side. This was almost worse as it threatened to send me careening off the road into one of the canals. More then once it took me off the side of the road and I had to save myself by quickly jumping off my bike.

To say I was exhausted is an understatement. I reached the end of my abilities, well nearly. I didn’t cry because there was no one to cry to, but I would have.

Hours and hours later, when I reached the mainland, I still had 13 miles to go to my campsite. I had pictured a flat coastal route, but much to my dismay, it was an undulating series of coastal headlands. Hills so steep that I had to walk several times. 

My mind became mushy, my body overly fatigued and that is when I saw them—the golden penises. As I deliriously pedaled through a small town and up another hill, I was met by a troop of 20 or so men, all wearing golden pants in the oompa-loompa style, each with an 18 inch penis sticking out at curved upward angles. They were laughing and cheering and wiggling their hips with bravado. It crossed my mind that I had finally lost it.

But no, it is carnival season here in Spain. A final celebration and period of acting out perhaps before the confines of lent arrive. They were actually a very welcome sight, a little joy.

When I finally arrived at my campsite, it too was closed. The sun was set and I found myself wandering the streets of L’ametila looking for a hotel. I was a sorry sack. 

I did find one—sans hot water—and listened to the wind beat against my window pane all night. I barely slept. 76 miles in all. Flamingos and golden penises, definitely sounds like a dream doesn’t it? Or maybe a nightmare.

I was going to tell you about all the struggles of the day. How I woke in the dark to rain, and lay there feeling at first annoyed and then guilty for feeling that way, because this region is having such a terrible drought. They say the trees will die in two to three years here if the pattern doesn’t change. Then there was a lull in the shower, so I got out of my sleeping bag and took down my tent in the predawn darkness, hurrying before it started again. I really hate taking down a tent in the rain.

I was going to tell you how, it was so early that I forwent my café con leche because the restaurants weren’t open yet, thinking I would get some in the next town, and in my bleary eyed state, I kicked my chain off and didn’t fasten my panniers correctly, so they bounced off and hit the ground behind me. I stopped suddenly and got a spiked pedal in the ankle—the worst.

Once I got going for real, I got lost and ended up climbing a huge head wall for over a mile along the coast for no good reason, my rain pants pulling against the upward motion of my knees in a very inflexible, unhelpful manner. When I realized my mistake and coasted back down, I took another wrong turn and ended up on a beach with very soft sand. I trudged through it, pushing my heavily laden bicycle that was trying its best to bury itself. I refused to turn around again, sure that eventually it would work out. I came to a rocky gully. It wasn’t pretty, there may have been some cursing, but it did work out.

I missed home, I was tired and it was hard to see the beauty.

But, I am not going to tell you that. Because, eventually I did come to a small town with café con leches and I had two, and a chocolate croissant. It stopped raining and the wind came up, and it was at my back. I eventually turned on to the right gravel road, full of foreboding, and then found myself climbing and coasting for 18 miles all by myself in a park called Parc Natural de la Serra D’irta. No houses, no cars, just the wild Mediterranean crashing up against red coastal rocks, deep green pines and the sound of beach stones rumbling and rattling in the surf. I didn’t know there were still places like this.

Then I came to a castle. The Castillo de Peniscola. It sits atop a rocky knoll that sticks out into the sea. It was built by the Knights of Templar in the 1200’s and was the last refuge of Pope Benedict XIII. Its towering walls seem to rise up right out of the water. I pedaled to the top and I went inside. I breathed in that history. It put some things in perspective.

I finished my day 20 miles later at a fairly awful RV park and it is raining again. There is a carnival in town tonight and the music starts at 11:30. I have been warned that sleeping will be a challenge. Everyone I see is wearing tutus—not sure why. This must be a bad luck/good luck sandwich and I have to say, I find it delicious.

By the way—my blog no longer lets me see comments or lets me see if people are reading this, but I am just going to keep going.

It is hard to keep my eyes on the road as I whirl through Valencia. One enormous sculpture-like building towers to one side and then another. The streets are filled with crowds of people on bikes, electric scooters and on foot all scurrying about their business. And there are cars-many cars. I have become a country bumpkin over the last few weeks cycling and this could very well be a recipe for disaster. All this distraction and seeming chaos could spell one big wipe out—but it doesn’t.

The infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians in Spain unbelievably excellent. All through this busy metropolis, there are wide separate bike lanes complete with multidirectional sides, their own stop lights and clear ways around the most forbidding obstacles. When a bike does need to cross traffic, the cars stop immediately, there is no antagonism, and more then once, I defensively waited for a car to pass in front of me and they simply wouldn’t budge until I went.

That is not the end of it either. Throughout the country side, there are perfectly maintained service roads for bicycles next to all the major routes. There are also beautiful caminos connecting many of the smaller towns that were built for religious pilgrims, but are now used by all who chose to move without engines from place to place.
I have spent days on end biking on the smoothest of roads with absolutely no traffic for hours and hours. Sometimes five vehicles will pass me in a day. It is dream like.
If that is not enough, if you do find that you have to share a road with cars, there is a law that cars need to give 1.5 meters of space from a cyclist, even if the cyclists are riding two abreast! I have been told that the police take this law very seriously.

Cars come second here. It is as simple as that. The country has definitely prioritized health, appreciation for the natural beauty and the environment and I have never felt safer or more welcomed as a cyclist anywhere.

I do have to add though, that I still have found myself off the beaten (or cycled) path several times. I think all this safety gives me more freedom to explore and I have followed many of my bicycle apps more whimsical suggestions just to see what there was to be seen, with the confidence that I can always return to a more modest route. These pictures are some of my favorite “roads”.

I have made it to Benicasim, just 200 miles south of Barcelona. The Mediterranean is beautiful, but touristy and expensive, so after a day or two along it’s coast, I will head back up into the mountains and the old country. Maybe I will hear some Catalan—I hope so.

I spent the day tormented as I bounced down gravel roads bordered by low stone walls that were doing a lousy job of preventing me from stealing the oranges that dangled from the trees on either side.  

A battle raged inside me. Their golden orbs tantalized me and as the dust from the road rose up and made my throat drier and drier, I couldn’t stop fixating on how juicy they would be, how refreshing! I kept riding. I was trying to be virtuous. They are someone’s livelihood, I thought, and I am a guest here. I stealed my self, but then I had to pee.

Being that I can’t go in the road and wave my bare tuckus around when a farm truck could come around a corner at any moment, I had no choice, but to pull over and jump the wall. I brushed by the oranges pretending not to notice them and squat down. This is when I faltered.

There, inches from my nose was the brightest, most alluring, cutest—never to be noticed if plucked—orange. The fresh, sweet smell filled my head and I buckled. I am no saint. 

I hitched up my britches and quick as a darting hummingbird, snagged that orange and stood in the orchard peeling and devouring that candy like fruit, peering guilty towards the road in case someone was to witness my thievery. It was as good as I imagined—better. And then, god as my witness, another orange fell from the tree behind me as I stood there. What could I do, let it rot?

When I biked away, my sticky handlebars were luckily the only penalty I incurred.

So, down the road I went, from Bocairent to the Mediterranean Sea at Gandia. The high desert has given way to orchards and rivers and I will camp tonight just a mile from the beach. 

When I check into my site, I speak to the host in my mangled Spanish, which she generously encourages by asking me endless questions about my journey. “Bravo!” she says as I finally head out to set up my tent, and as I reward for my efforts, she gives me two oranges.

Had she seen me?

The bells are tolling and have been for hours. Tonight, I have stumbled upon the festival of The Moors and Christians in Bocairent. I of course had no idea that this existed, but here, it is of paramount importance. 

I pedaled into my campsite after 55 miles with seriously aching knees, envisioning a mellow evening, with or without a real dinner, I was too tired to care, when my campground host let me know that was simply not to be the case. She told me that tonight was the most significant night in her town and I must walk back 15 minutes into the old city and experience this sacred day. Who could argue with that? 

So, after quickly putting up my tent, and rinsing the grime from my face, I hustled out, back down the highway to the town square, where truly, I could not believe my eyes. 

I was met with procession of nearly 3,000 people, all clad in ornate costumes representing the different historical troupes that have lived here. They marched in unison through the cobblestone streets, pressed together in narrow alleyways in the darkening evening. They each held two-foot-long tapered candles and as the sun went down, all the houses in the city kept their lights off so the candles were the only illumination, casting the shadows of the marchers along the plaster walls of the ancient buildings. 

From time to time they would chant in unison “Vitol al Patró San Blai” (“Long live Saint Blai”), while marching bands played slow processional music. I was mesmerized.

It seemed everyone was participating, so I had plenty of space to slump down on a curb where I rubbed my aching knees and watched for hours. The intensity that everyone exhibited, the pride in who they were and the passion they shared was spellbinding. 

Finally, my eyes clouded over with sleepy tears forcing me to get up dodge through the marchers and limp my way home. I never saw the end of the procession, I am not even sure there was one.

Even now as I sit here writing this in my cozy tent, the bells have not stopped tolling, the bands are still playing and occasional fireworks light up the sky.