Blog 4

The Weight of a Ride

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, rattlerattlerattle! Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, rattlerattlerattle! Dammit! I realized the mechanic back in Baker City, Oregon screwed up my chain–I think he added the wrong speed links. Every third pedal stroke my chain clanked and rattled through the front derailleur–it sounded like a janitor’s oversized keyring, jingling away. McKinley told me she’d stick with me if I wanted to spend the night in Cambridge, Idaho to get my chain fixed the next morning, so we pulled over and called it a day. 

I met McKinley just days earlier. The week prior to meeting her, I had been riding with Ross and Bob, who I had dubbed Cheech and Chong because of the amount of pot they smoked. Every ten miles they’d say, “Wanna celebrate?” and would pull over to get silly. After spending so much time with just men, I was ready for some solid girl conversation. On my last morning with Ross and Bob, McKinley came shivering into the cafe, where we were all sitting at the breakfast counter, pounding plate-sized pancakes and bottomless cups of coffee. I had been stalling a bit, it was a cold morning and I had three consecutive passes to climb and would do it solo. Cheech and Chong were heading in a more northerly direction across America, and I was dropping down towards Colorado. McKinley took the stool next to me and ordered a coffee. I tried to play it cool and pretend I wasn’t ecstatic to see another girl on a fully-loaded touring bike, but my heart was pounding with excitement. A girl! Who looks about my age! And she’s riding across America, too! We chatted over coffee, exchanged numbers, and McKinley took off into the chilly, damp morning. I told her I’d see her later on in Sumpter at the campground. The stars aligned, and I had a new friend. 

McKinley and I headed to the park to set up our little 3-walled homes for the night. The only joint in town to get food was a dimly lit, smoky, dive bar, so we followed our grumbling bellies towards food and beer. As we sat there eating crusty bar pizza and drinking our cheap beers, two surly-looking Harley dudes, smoking cigarettes and swearing like sailors, asked us what the hell we were doing. We looked out of place. 

"Biking across the country.”

“Are you fucking kidding?! We wouldn’t even do that on our motorcycles!” 

We laughed. I was amused. Maybe we were crazy, but ignorance is bliss. We were having so much fun traveling together and everything became funny. 

Their names were Cambridge Bob and Baldy Bob - Cambridge Bob was from Cambridge, and Baldy Bob was, well, bald. We warmly referred to them as “The Bobs.” They wore leather Harley jackets, chain-smoked, and drank beer by the pitcher. Between crude jokes, one of the Bobs would say, “Hey, look at this picture of my granddaughter, isn’t she cute!” We realized that they may have looked gruff, but were just a bunch of grandpas that rode motorcycles and cursed. A lot. 

The Bobs gave us a bottle of homemade strawberry jam and homemade biscuits. McKinley and I later dubbed the jam Liquid Gold–I could have taken shots of it and been drunk on happiness it was so damn delicious. Every bite made me see fairies eating jelly beans while dancing on clouds and rainbows. Liquid. Gold. Deliciousness. 

We told them we’d be going over White Bird Hill on Old 95 in a few days.

“I hate White Bird Hill and I’ve done it on my motorcycle! I wouldn’t do that on a bicycle! That SUCKS! You girls should stay on Old 95 and avoid regular 95, it’s dangerous, even for  motorcycles. It’s curvy and full of tractor trailers and there’s no shoulder.” 

Hill was the operative word, because it was more like a mountain. It was a 10-mile climb on an extremely windy road, with multiple consecutive switchbacks at a 7% grade. It did suck. All ten miles of it. And it was hot. 

“You girls should come to our annual Harley picnic! It’s this Friday and runs all weekend. We’ve had it every year for the last 25 years at the same campground.” It happened to fall right on our route and was an appropriate distance away. We wouldn’t have to bike any epic long days to get there that Saturday. We thought, “Why the hell not, sure!”

“Thanks for the beer and Liquid Gold, Bobs! See you Saturday!”

The next day was mostly uneventful. Off we went with our bottle of Liquid Gold and a sparkly new chain. Towards the end of the day we rolled over a bridge and heard music echoing in the distance. 

“Awesome! That’s a rodeo down there! We have to go!” 

We made a hard right and headed downhill towards the rodeo. There were authentic cowboys and cowgirls. The events included barrel racing and cow-milking. The crowd cheered as the horses ran wild, dirt kicking up forming dust clouds. I had never seen anything like it before and neither had McKinley, so we were giddy with excitement. We overheard some cowboys say, “Hey, check out the biker girls!” as we walked by in our spandex, pushing along our heavy bikes. I felt so underdressed and out of place, but, we were often the outsiders anywhere we stopped.

There was never another time on my trip that l felt so awkward. Everyone was dressed in traditional cowboy/girl attire: jeans, plaid button-down shirts, and hats, while we were in tight bike shorts. Immediately I felt like I was being inappropriate to the rodeo community. I didn’t even feel out of place at the Mormon camp in Wyoming, where there were 100 people dressed in baggy, colonial clothes, reenacting their ancestors pilgrimage. 

We camped on the rodeo grounds, and everyone was happy to have us along. Thought I immediately felt like an outsider, they were just as quick to welcome the newbies and show us a good time. Stopping at the rodeo made us have to ride a longer day to the biker party, but we had already ridden some long days, what was one more? 

McKinley and I attended the cowboy breakfast and I ate biscuits and gravy like a champ. I hadn’t eaten meat in three years, so I ignored the greasy sausage crumbles floating around in my mouth. That’s all there was to eat, so I was graceful about it, and thankful for such generosity.  Outside  populated areas, I realized that most people are carnivorous, especially in ranching communities. So we followed suit. McKinley called it her “non vegan adventure” and I called it my “non vegetarian adventure.” I decided I’d eat meat if I had to, but would resume a vegetarian lifestyle when I reached the Atlantic. 

The day led us through 80 miles of heat, hills, headwinds and…WHITE BIRD HILL. We climbed and descended, climbed and descended, climbed and descended. Climbclimbclimb descenddescenddescend. We stopped and ate a three course meal for lunch. We rested. We sleepily pushed on towards the campground, hoping to make it before dark. After some speculation if we had gone the right way following directions scribbled on a bar napkin, we made it just as night fell, exhausted, at 9pm; That was 12 hours in the saddle. A sigh of relief. As we rolled in on our bikes with our little blinking headlights letting the crowd know we had arrived, we heard, "Hey Bob, your girls are here!" And a crowd of 100 cheered. This was the first time in 25 years they ever had people other than Harley friends at their picnic. We were honored to be their guests. 

“Do you girls want steak or burgers?”

“Burgers!”

I piled 2 cheeseburgers and a mountain of potato salad on my styrofoam plate; The weight of my food threatened to snap in half. I was starved for food, starved for rest, and starved for a typical social setting after being on my bike for weeks; I received all of those things from a crowd of strangers. Were they scary motorcycle gang people? Nope. It was just a bunch of regular people in leather who partied more than the average, telling stories about their grandkids and families. They fed us to death, and were some of the most generous people I met on that trip.