It Takes A Rolling Village
By Joe “Metal Cowboy” Kurmaskie
Calling the custom-made Santana Quad in my driveway a bicycle is on par with saying Star Wars is a little picture show, or the Grand Canyon is a geological depression. Though technically accurate, it misses the mark by a long shot. The four-seat work of art my family (Quinn, Enzo, Beth, and toddler Matteo) and I will use to cross Canada this summer is the QE2 of the bike world.
It’s massive.
It’s heroic in length, really, making the bike, piccolo, and trailer I used to haul my two sons across America a few summers back seem downright petite.
The Santana should come with its own area code, especially after we attach the Chariot trailer for Matteo and sundry supplies (sleeping bags, fresh produce, and one very long replacement chain).
I’m afraid to take an actual measurement in case it qualifies as a long load, thus forcing me to hire an escort truck with signage and flashing lights warning others of our arrival.
But that’s the beauty and absurdity of this endeavor. A cover story in Bicycling Magazine later this year and footage for a Discovery Channel project don’t provide enough motivation to do something like this… The desire (or a sizeable undiagnosed chemical imbalance) has to be in your blood. You see, there will be no back up, no SAG, no support vehicle of any sort. We’re tooling up Vancouver Island, catching a boat through the Inner Passage, hopping off at Prince Rupert, pedaling our way across BC to Calgary, taking a train to avoid the heat and black flies of the prairies, then putting rubber to the road again all the way to Nova Scotia.
Lest you think we’re the first to pioneer this sort of family riding style, I give you:
The Romp Family, who rode a quad from Vermont to Alaska seven years ago.
The Eber Family, who pedaled their two teenage girls around the world on two tandems.
The Vogel Family (John, Nancy, and twins Davy, and Daryl), who recently completed a sweeping loop of the United States and Mexico on a triple and a single. I had a chance to pick this family’s brains.
Metal Cowboy (MC): Describe your best and worst day on the adventure.
Davy: Best—The day we spent the whole day building forts out of sand, rocks, sticks, and flowers. And then we destroyed them just to rebuild again!
John: Worst—Rain. As we pedaled from PA to NJ to catch a ferry to Manhattan we got caught in one monster rainstorm. We were antsy to get to Manhattan and it was supposed to be a three-day rainstorm, so we just went anyway. By the time we got to the ferry, which we missed by minutes, we were drenched!!!
Nancy: Best—I would have to say it was one of those days when Mother Nature broadsided us with her beauty. One time was when we were in San Juan Island and stood there watching whales frolicking in the waves, with blackberries at our feet, and a huge bald eagle presiding over everything from atop a tall, solitary tree at the water’s edge. Or when we discovered tide pools at Yaquina Lighthouse along the Oregon coast—sea stars, sea anemones, sea urchins, etc.
MC: How did you couch this idea of riding around the Americas to the boys?
Nancy: When we first started bouncing the idea around we asked the boys what they thought of it. Of course, they were only second graders at the time and didn’t have the foggiest idea of what we were talking about. They said, “Great!” like it was an afternoon outing to the zoo or something. They never did really look at it like it was something “different” or “unique” or “special”. It just was.
MC: Biggest obstacle before the trip?
John: Probably just making the decision to do it!! We had to quit our jobs and spend $6000 on a bike. That’s a tough decision—do we give up our safety and security on a whim, or do we live the “American Dream?”
MC: Biggest surprise about the trip (about the riding, camping, etc.)?
Davy: “It was actually fun!”
Daryl: No surprises...
Nancy: The fact that the riding took second place. In the past, when John and I used to tour, it was the hours spent in the saddle that I remember most. On this trip, it is the breaks that are most memorable.
MC: What did you learn about your family?
Davy: I learned that my parents are very determined and will do it even if I don’t want to, so it doesn’t do any good to argue.
Daryl: That Davy is mean.
John: I learned to interact with the kids on many levels—entertain, placate, feed them, get them to sleep, etc.
MC: What did you learn about attitudes toward cyclists?
John: It’s not attitude toward cyclists in general, but attitude toward us as a family on bikes. People went out of their way to help us because of the kids. It is very different from my experience as a single male on the road.
Davy: People are nice and kind.
Daryl: They’re nice.
MC: What surprised you about Mexico?
Davy: Everybody talks about how horrible Mexico is, they talk about horror stories of people robbing you or running you over with their car. But it isn’t like that at all.
Daryl: They are poor.
MC: What was your diet like?
Answer: Diet? What diet? We ate anything and everything we could get our hands on. We did try to eat whole grain and healthy food, but there were times when we just couldn’t. We ate a ton of peanut butter and jelly and lots of pasta and rice. We tried to cook, but there were plenty of times when cooking was just too much hassle. When you are camped out in the middle of nowhere with limited water, the idea of cooking itself isn’t too bad. But then you consider all the water we would need to clean up. Of course, we could just pack dirty dishes (which we did quite a few times) but then we needed to remember they were dirty and make sure to unload the panniers to wash them the next time we found water. It was kind of awkward to carry a load of dirty dishes into a store bathroom to wash up… Of course we had our share of chocolate bars and raspberry donuts too…
MC: Did you ever consider quitting?
John: Never.
Nancy: No. Although, there was one time John talked about quitting (in Missouri), but the kids and I talked him into continuing on. He says he wasn’t serious, and that he didn’t even consider it.
Daryl: No. The only time it ever even occurred to me that quitting was a possibility was when my Dad was talking about it.
Davy: Once. After about a week, I decided that playing with my friends back in Boise sounded infinitely more interesting than pedaling through the Oregon desert in 105-degree heat. Mom bribed me with a trip to Disneyland. Later, I decided it was all worth it...
MC: Favorite phrases that the family made up or used during the trip?
Answer: Boogiehand.
Nancy: Davy tended to tell Daryl to “STOP!” a lot—when Daryl was talking to himself or singing or whatever. So John & Daryl made up a song that said, “STOP! in the name of Davy…For you are driving us crazy…”
MC: Favorite section/leg of trip?
Davy: Baja. It was warm and beautiful and we had a very, very great time there.
Daryl: Staying at the condo in Mexico.
Nancy: The West. (As opposed to the East.) I really liked the desert, riding through the remote stretches where we could see for forever… the incredibly stunning desert landscapes…camping out beneath massive cardons or boojum trees… I think it was just so much more remote and solitary than the East.
MC: Most memorable encounter with a person, place or thing?
Davy: Harry. We met him at the Grand Canyon and then he came down to hang out with us at Carlsbad Caverns. He’s a really neat man and we all enjoyed getting to know him.
Daryl: Can’t think of any one thing that comes to mind.
John: Certain people like the man in Texas who used to be a member of the KKK, the people who rescued us from the rain in NJ, the man who drove up alongside us in CA and asked if we wanted to spend the night at his house, the woman in Portland who handed us the keys to her house and told us to go on in and make ourselves comfortable—she would be there in a few hours.
Nancy: Gatorade Angels.
Joe Metal Cowboy Kurmaskie’s latest book “Momentum Is Your Friend” has been nominated for a Northwest Booksellers Award. Autographed copies, with all proceeds going to “Camp Creative No Child Left Inside!”, are available at http://www.metalcowboy.com/.
To find out more about their adventures, visit:
Metal
Cowboy’s blog: www.metalcowboy.com/blog
Romp Family: www.uncle-sams-home.com/
Eber Family: http://bikeforbreath.org/Family.htm
Vogel Family: http://www.familyonbikes.com/
