Epilogue

Seven years.

A long time to leave something unfinished, though I suppose the Longbike will never really be finished. I still have the frame of my Jamis Aurora, dented along the top tube and slightly tweaked out of alignment. Its officially totalled, though that didn't stop me from putting a new rear wheel on it and riding it around for a while. It never felt quite right again, so now its gathering dust until the day that I resurrect it as a beater grocery getter, or cut it up to use the steel for some project.

My recovery went well, though recovery took several months. I still have a nice set of scars on my left side, and a couple of my ribs are permanently tweaked forward, but other than that I've had no lasting consequences of note.

I got lucky. If the driver had been a few inches further to the right, I'd have been smashed by the body of the truck instead of just catching a glancing blow from the bumper and taking the passenger mirror off with by back. I'd probably have been crippled, if not simply killed outright.

But I got lucky, becoming one of the 40,000+ cyclists injured per year in traffic accidents, instead of one of the 700+ fatalities.

Life moved on. I recovered, worked for a while at Coldwater Gardens before taking a road trip around the Northeast in Summer 2013. Moved to DC in October 2013 and worked as a temp for a few months. Got a job offer in the UK with Turtle Rattle Learning and began work there in January 2014. Spent the next four years traveling between Portsmouth and Pensacola while working on the Royal Navy's Engineering Technician training redesign. Went through three separate bikes while in the UK, ending up with a purple glitter dreams Surly Straggler which has already been on a few tours around the Isle of Wight, many rides across London, a tour through the New Forest and a few trips across the Devon countryside. Its a pretty great bike, and a worthy successor to the Aurora.

I fell in love in England, and when the project ended in November 2017 Hannah and I decided to marry and spend some years together in the US. We married in April of this year, and are now traveling around the US in a 38 foot long converted school bus called, naturally, The Longbus. We'll be traveling for a while, at least until Thanksgiving of this year if everything goes to plan. We are sporadically documenting our travels on our website, Furak.xyz and on Instagram @thelongbus.

I've been asked on more than one occasion if I'd take the Longbike again, given everything that happened. I absolutely would. It was an adventure in the true sense of the word. I saw places and met people I'd never have otherwise seen or met, and did so in a way and at a pace which was conducive to finding the unfiltered nature of a place and its people. As far as adventures go, I couldn't really ask for more.

I've still got my massive backlog of pictures and stories to tell, but my laptop was destroyed in the accident so it might be a while before I can update.

So, I was hit by a truck yesterday while traveling south on rt 1. I'm ok other than a few sutures and plenty of bruises, but this is the end of the Longbike.

80 miles today. I'm halfway to Raleigh, and should arrive there sometime on Friday evening at the current rate. Knee is still hurting, but not too much.

66 miles on my first day out of DC. Wanted to make 90 miles, but my right knee is bothering me for some reason and I don't want to push it too hard.

Here's a name for a restaurant: Fukien Gourmet. This is followed closely by "lunch buffet"

Off towards the southlands. Next stop: Raleigh.

Apparently bus-internet is a gimmick and doesn't really work that well (at all), which is a shame, because I've so many pictures to post and stories to tell.

En-route to DC via bus! I've got a 10 hour layover in NYC, so I won't be arriving until approximately 1 PM tomorrow.

Bus ride from Boston to DC booked. I've got a 12 hour layover in DC, but hey, I'll have internet! (which means I can upload a mess of pictures to the blog)

Underway from Grand Junction at last! This train haven't wifi, so it looks like blog updates will have to wait a few days more, at least for pictures.

Colona to Grand Junction: 74.5 miles in 4:11 for an average of 17.7 mph. Its good to be devouring miles again.

Climber Mt. Sneffels today. Its my first fourteener!

Just watched the Pro Cycling Challenge crest Cerro Summit. A great change of pace from picking vegetables!

Buckhorn Gardens going-ons (abbreviated)

Well, I'm at the end of a busy week at Buckhorn Gardens. I've mowed, and I've harvested, and I've cleaned veggies pretty much all day every day. In addition, Farm Camp was this week, so I got to help out with a passel of rambunctious 7-10 year-olds. Today we made ice cream and mulched rows with hay, and I introduced the kids to the fun of making hay forts and tunnels!

I'm currently exhausted, filthy, itchy, and thoroughly enjoying myself. I'd post pictures, but my camera cable is currently a couple of miles away, so those will have to wait for another post.

Looking forward to the weekend, during which I intend to sleep, sleep some more, cook, clean my stuff, and possibly (but only possibly) climb Buckhorn Mountain and Storm King back behind the ranch.

Stories from the road: Grandfield, OK

I rode into Grandfield as the sun was slipping towards the horizon. A straight line demarcated the border between town and not-town. Inside that border, trees and buildings cast long shadows; a thing I hadn’t seen much of for the last several hours while crossing miles of open farm fields.  

I was hungry and low on supplies. My last planned stop, Randlett, turned out to be little more than a ghost town amid dried up fields, so I was glad for the chance to pick up dinner and supplies at the general store before riding on into the evening in search of a campsite. The periphery of town consisted largely of crumbling, boarded up buildings and abandoned equipment. I rode past cheap apartment buildings and an old man on a bike making his slow way over to the next neighborhood. 

The general store had little in the way of variety and nothing in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables, so I purchased a half gallon of ShurFine vegetable juice, a packet of jerky, and three slices of supreme pizza from the heated oven at the counter, then rested at a table in the front of the store as I ate. As I finished eating, an old man asked me if the bike out front was mine. I told him it was, and he asked me where I was going, expressing customary disbelief when I told him where I was and where I was going. We talked for a short while in front of the store, and then I rode on. 

A few hundred yards from the edge of town, I came upon a young woman walking down a side street. As I rode past her she called out to me “Hey!”

I turned and pulled into the side street. 

“Hey, you know where Sheldon is?”

I, riding a fully loaded touring bike, filthy from days on the road, and clearly on my way out of town said: “Umm, no…. I’m not from around here.”

She, slowly processed this, and regarded me with heavy-lidded eyes. “Oh, well I thought you looked like his cousin.”

“Nope, I’m from Florida. Riding from Florida to Colorado.”

“On that bike?!”

“Yep.”

“Dude, that’s pretty cool.” A short pause, during which she swayed uncertainly. “Hey, do you smoke weed?”

As I opened my mouth to reply, a blue Chevrolet Aveo whipped off of 70 and onto the side street, tires crunching on gravelly pavement. A guy perhaps in his early 20’s, slightly heavyset with strong Native American features leaned out of the window and sharply addressed the girl.

“Hey, why weren’t you at the store? You said you’d go to the store then come back home! Why are you out walking around here?”

“I’m taking a walk, like I said I would!”  She replied, her voice rising. “I needed to clear my head;  get out of the house!”

“Yeah, well, you been gone for a long time, and you left the babies at home. They need you!”

“You take care of them for a while!” She spat back. “I said I needed to get out of the house for a while!”

He turned and regarded me for the first time, suspicion written on his face. “Who is this?”

“He’s riding his bike across the country. I thought he looked like Sheldon’s cousin so I called him over and we been talking about-”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He cut in. He threw the car in gear and began to turn around.

“Where you goin?!” The girl asked, her voice rising into a panicky whine. “Where you goin?!” Again.

“I’m taking the babies to Grandma’s. At least she’ll look after them. Not like you ever take care of ‘em anyways.”

He sped off. She turned, suddenly seeming to realize that I was still there.  “Uh, I… I have to go,” she said, her eyes wide for the first time. She turned and began walking rapidly away, down the gravelly street and back into the neighborhood. 

“Hope you have a good evening,” I called after her sadly. “Hope you have a good life,” I added in my mind.

I swung my bike around and headed west, gaining speed as I neared the edge of town, blowing past the invisible barrier separating town from empty fields, leaving the shadows of trees and houses and rusting warehouses behind. 

A few miles later, I stopped and turned around to regard the town. From distance, it looked like a smear of trees and houses sandwiched between endless plain and sky, walled in by the emptiness around it. 

I stood there for some time, watching a car leave town and make its slow way towards me. As it neared, it slowed down, coming to a stop in the middle of the road beside me. The passenger window rolled down to reveal two girls, who wanted to know if I was stranded, if I needed to use a cell phone to call for help. I smiled, replied that I was fine and thanked them for stopping. 

They drove off. I watched the town a while longer before I too, turned and rode towards the vanishing sun.

Thelongbike gets an itinerary

I just checked train fares from Grand Junction, CO to Washington, DC. Looks like it will cost about $230 and take around 48 hours to get me and my bike over halfway across the country. New trip plan: Work  and live at Buckhorn Mtn. Gardens with Jeremy for the next month and a half or so, with frequent trips and mini-tours to explore the surrounding areas. Then onwards to DC, where I'll visit friends and family and see the sights for a few weeks before touring the 1100 miles back to Pensacola FL. If I time it right, I might even be able to chase the fall colors back home!

Walking through downtown Ridgway when a man on a horse rode up. "You like drinks?" he asked. "Sure" I said. He gave me a voucher to a distillery and rode on.

I don't have internet access at the ranch, and won't be traveling much for the coming week, so updates will be limited.

I suppose that I should post something about my whereabouts: I'm currently staying at Buckhorn Mtn Ranch with Jeremy Kester.