Memoirous

About this time last year I was prepping for my trip to Switzerland/Germany/Rhine River Bike Ride— This year, my bus trip to Traverse City and biking around Sleeping Bear Dunes. I’ve always maintained a nature shelf. My daughter now has one for both her children. I change things out as the seasons change. I can see from the mementos on the shelf and various ephemera bike trips I’ve made through the years. In 2016 I made a fall trip from John of Groats in the northernmost of the UK down to Land’s End in Cornwall. In 2014 I made a trip over to Sweden to visit friends, which included a hapless backpacking jaunt and biking around Gotland—an island off the mainland. I love looking at my postcards and small finds. The word souvenir comes from the French meaning a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event. to remember, come First recorded in 1775 as meaning “a remembrance or memory,” the noun souvenir stems from the French souvenir “to remember, come to mind.” A ...

Taking my own bike especially overseas is quite a commitment. I’d packed a bike a couple times for a bus and each time it felt stressful. The first time I forgot my front wheel and had to have it shipped. The second time I nearly forgot my pedals. Add to all this that my first bike as over 30 years old. Most of the parts had seized and you needed different size wrenches, etc. Once I got the Torker things got easier. You have to remove your pedals, take off your front wheel, and turn your handlebars. This can mean loosening and turning, but for me to make everything fit I had to totally detach them and strap them to my crossbar. The only thing that held them to the bike were the cables. I also worried about the rear derailleur getting smashed. In addition I have to remove the seat.   Ask for the biggest bike box the bike shop has. Once I got a smallish one. Usually a mountain bike box will do. I lay the bike down and watching YouTube remove the pedals. Laying it down he...

When I bought my new bike, a Torker, it was sold to me as a commuter bike with a way more generous gear ratio. Perfect, I thought, for long-distance cycling. Just because I had a few extra teeth though didn’t mean I should plan to cycle the Highlands of Scotland or attempt a JOGLE, but that’s exactly what I did. JOGLE, from John O’Groats to Land’s End in Cornwall: in fall 2016, 1,100 miles in 20 days, one spent holed up in a gale in a caravan. Only later after getting home and thinking more about it did I reckon I needed better gearing for touring. Halifax, Nova Scotia – Deer Isle, Maine: June 2017 brought me a new bike adventure. 638 miles over 12 days, definitely more relaxed and several ferries. I spent 2 days cycling the carriage roads of Acadia Nat. Park. But on the very last day of my trip a problem reoccurred—I threw a spoke on my back wheel. This same thing happened in England, but just dismissed it as a result of cycling so many miles s...

So as I mentioned in my last post in 2013 a friend moved away and I was left trying to figure out if I would continue long-distance cycle touring. Pursuing it alone. A test trip was a ride I planned from Grand Rapids to Chicago the third week in April 2014. It didn’t start very auspiciously. I forgot to pack my front wheel in the box, so that when unpacking at the Grand Rapids bus station I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. A phone call to emergency UPS the forgotten wheel, costing as much as the gas saved if I’d just driven there and back. Then the day I was to leave there was a lot of rain. I really wanted to postpone. I did delay until noon. That night I stealth camped by Lake Michigan and the wind was ferocious. The next day on the Blue Star Highway working my way down the coast it was cold. I remember trying to swing my leg over the top bar and being unable to straddle it. I simply had too many layers on. I was off itinerary and stayed that second night in a woo...

When I tell people about my various bicycling tours they usually blurt out, That doesn’t sound fun! They’re right. A lot of it is simply crazy. As a solo woman cyclist my tours are mostly about problem solving. One after another. Take for instance my very first solo international trip. I figured England: they speak English! It should be flat! Not sure why I thought that. Maybe I was contemplating that saying about being led down the garden path. That phrase refers to being deceived, by the way. So I booked a flight. I practiced taking the bike apart for the box and quickly reassembling it. I planned how I was going to get to and from the airport and manage check in and odd-sized carry-on, explaining to TSA what a spork is and that it isn’t lethal. Yet nothing prepared me for missing the international leg of the flight. The hurry of arriving early at O’Hare Airport had no impact whatsoever on the fact that my Air Canada plane would be late thus a stopover in Montreal turned int...

I have thunder thighs. Always have. Albeit there have been times when I’ve been thinner (than I am now). But, still, nothing deserving a double XL. I’m talking here about rain pants. Last weekend I rode my bike back from Kalamazoo, MI. Yes, that weekend. The one with all the rain and flash flooding. I took along with me some L.L. Bean wind pants that I’d coated with water repellant. And also a pair of PVC rain pants acquired new 30 years ago. During a milky downpour I was amazed at the breathability of the PVC pants. I looked down to see that the seams had opened. ALL the seams. Basically I was riding in rubberized flaps. I changed into the Bean pants that after 5 minutes stuck to my skin, soaking wet. Some readers might remember before my JOGLE, riding from the top of the UK to Land’s End, I’d purchased a fairly pricey pair of Showerspass rain pants. These were advertised to be waterproof and breathable—to a point. For instance not when riding a bike, what they were ...

It seems our memories get stored first in the hippocampus (short-term memory) and in the cortex (long-term memory). That’s right we make double memories, according to an article in the BBC . A team of US and Japanese scientists performed memory tasks on mice to discover that two parts of the brain are involved in creating memories. It’s as if we get two chances to get it right. Yet how do we continue to “mis-remember”? Certain shocks can intervene or short-circuit the hippocampus and we have to revert to the memories stored in the cortex. By the same measure the cortex can be compromised or damaged and we are left only with the immediate memories. The researchers also showed the long-term memory never matured if the connection between the hippocampus and the cortex was blocked. I was stopped by that word “mature.” Just like with cheese, a good memory ages or matures, which might explain why an immediate reaction might differ from one that has been allowed to sit. Af...

I’d met Alex in Fort Augustus after ascending the Suidhe Viewpoint  on the south side of Loch Ness. He looked terrible. I was no masterpiece either. I’d spent the night in a field behind a pub near Whitebridge as I had no more energy to tackle another climb. At one point I was tempted to throw my bike on the ground and give up. I was defeated by rain, wind, and relentless steep climbs. I learned Alex had gone ahead and tackled the climb and spent the night stealth camping in a clump of trees beside the road. No wonder he looked a wreck. We hooked up and rode together to Fort Williams. Together we followed the Caledonian Canal or the Great Glen Way, essentially a forest track for 30 miles. Alex had promised himself this trip after passing his bar exam in Montreal. (He seemed so young!) He’d rented the bike in Inverness and was planning a bike tour of the Outer Hebrides. I of course was hoping to complete a JOGLE. We decided to ride together at least to Oban. At Fort Willi...

Thank you CSA Travel Protection. Usually when I book a flight I’m way to cheap to bother with travel insurance. Something like $30 extra dollars. But this last time, flying overseas with my bicycle and cycling the length of the UK ( see JOGLE) I decided to splurge. Just in case I 1.) got into an accident. I could imagine flying downhill and hitting a small rock or nut in the road and skidding out, getting hit by a car, forgetting to ride on the left and getting hit by a car, hitting pea-size scree and skating over asphalt on my butt—I could imagine ANY number of scenarios—and did. 2.) Just in case my bike got stolen, lost, or damaged. I imagined this too. My trip was fraught with imagined difficulties. My expectations were met immediately—before leaving Chicago. Air Canada was late, thus I missed my international connection in Montreal. Why is it that staff never seemed panicked or concerned over individual passenger’s itineraries? I had train reservations made months in advan...

Frances Willard—how did I not know about you?! During last months Open House Chicago I visited the Frances Willard house in Evanston. A little cottage with gingerbread trim. Fairly humble—even though I suspected it was 2 houses, next to each other, retrofitted to be one slightly bigger residence. Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women’s suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Thus we have Frances to thank for the right to vote. The tour guide talked about matching the wallpaper and carpeting to look authentically Victorian. I had about 10 places I wanted to hit in Evanston and was only half through that list, so I began to glide into and out of rooms on the first floor (second floor was not on the tour). In a dining room/study I saw pictures of 1886 Frances astride a bike with her billowing skirts. What! you say! A progressive ...

Tintern Abbey By Wordsworth A poem of memory, longing, nostalgia I am in a phase/place, where looking back, I am revisiting my trip Miss it, the days where I simply woke up and pedaled, all that was required of me was to keep going, see new things, follow the map/Google lady Survive the weather, the hills, ride, ride, ride inexorable rhythm, breath Wye Valley Once again do I behold—this is certainly a question Age, time, mortality And connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky Soft hum of the A(466) what has changed, absolutely quiet, uncrowded, empty parking lot But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration: Emptying an entire clip at the corner, a few days after returning I go back in my mind, in memory to those ruins That feeling Of aspect more su...

from my trip diary originally posted at Crazy Guy on a Bike http://tinyurl.com/h6mf2fu Goodbye Penzance Sunday September 25, 2016 8:30 train pulling out of station, for a 6 hour ride to London Paddington.Wow. Overwhelmed with what I've accomplished--and not just the cycling. The constant negotiating with my fears and anxieties. The battle over stopping or going on. Willpower vs physical strength. Against the odds. A few things I forgot to mention. Yesterday when pulling into the hostel who do I see but the guy who wouldn't share the last room at the guest house in Liskeard. That's what I said. He looked sheepish, said I was tired. I responded: So was I. Also about that cream tea. I had no idea what it was. I watch the Bake Off and suspected it was a sweet treat. On this trip there was no way I was going to take in the necessary calories. Sounds great, right? But in actuality it was a pain. At times it wasn't convenient to eat. No stopping...

from my trip diary originally posted at Crazy Guy on a Bike http://tinyurl.com/h6mf2fu Day 20, St. Day to Penzance to the world's end, 19.5 miles Saturday September 24, 2016, 20 miles (31 km) - Total so far: 1,099 miles (1,768 km) Last night I slipped into my little tent, into my cozy sleeping bag. Everything was charged, I had directions, and in order. My plan was to whip down to Penzance and then to my goal. Just one more thing: check weather. Oh boy. Winds, 25 - 35, with gusts up to 40. And rain. But how can this be? It's been so nice; it's a nice evening. About midnight the wind started. Loud and blustery. My tent was somewhat protected by hedges, so no whipping around. In the a.m. it looked punishing. I have standards of what makes a trip--and this wasn't it. Going headway into headwinds and getting knocked about, soaked. So this is what I did: I hung out at the toilets and when someone said,looking at my loaded bike, You look ...