Just Keep Pedaling: A Corner-to-Corner Bike Ride Across America
Posted by Levon in Books
Just Keep Pedaling: A Corner-to-Corner Bike Ride Across America What started out as one personÂ’s bike ride to lose some weight became the story of a slice of America from the Pacific Northwest to the Florida Keys. There were big cities, rural towns and great stretches of open land. Heroes and villains are out there too, but mostly itÂ’s fine people living day-to-day and unknowingly impressing strangers. The weather wasnÂ’t left out either. From the first winter storm in the mountains of Washington through the tailwinds in Idaho to the heat and storms of the South, weather kept things from getting boring. Seeing America at ten miles an hour without the protective shell of a car allows all of the senses to get to know the country. It was an interesting ride with insights into culture and sore muscles. And then there was the awesome chocolate sundae in a ranch town in UtahÂ…
This personal narrative also has an appendix that acts as a guide for others that might want to try their own adventure. There are details on gear, route selection, and expenses and most of all encouragement. You donÂ’t know what youÂ’ll find out there on the road until you get there.
Customer Review: A ride - A bicycle ride across America
This book is the story of some dude who works for Boeing and lives in Seattle, who takes the autumn off to ride his bicycle diagonally across America. With a 1 week interruption because of a broken bicycle in Oklahoma, and a year interruption in Pensacola, Florida because of the depletion of funds, he finally makes it to the Florida Keys and then back home. There are many aspects of his trip that I thought were a touch bizarre. He undertakes this entire venture on a bicycle very poorly designed to do this trip. He rides the interstate highway system preferentially. He limits his nights only to motels/hotels, and eats at mostly fast-food restaurants. The account of his travel is told in an awkward fashion, corrected only when he recalls the Florida leg of his venture–each day is started by an e-mail note for the day, and then reiterated in a slightly more expansive form in his general narrative. Thus, you were constantly reading the same account twice over. Better editing would have eliminated that problem. The final insights that you achieve from such an adventure are somewhat skewed by the odd nature in which he did cross-country bicycle travel. His insights are helpful in telling you what helped make the trip a success, and how the over-arching principle was the need for determination to endure in a bicycle saddle for months at a time through the extremes of weather and traffic conditions. His personal style does add to some pleasure to reading his tale, but this book never really gave me the insights was was looking for in deciding whether to perform a similar venture.
Customer Review: A Good look at America - at 10 mph
This book is a delightful metaphor for our journey through life. We set out with goals in mind and find that life surprises us with twists and turns not unlike the roads the author followed on his cross-country trek. This is a journal of the daily frustrations with weather, health, and the logistics of riding a bicycle from Friday Harbor, Washington, to Key West, Florida. It is told partly through the author’s email along the way to his wife and friends in Seattle (the introduction to each of the chapters), but mostly by his personal journal of the trip formed during and after. His intimate writing style lets one get to know him and the landscape along the way, but more important is his capture of the peoplescape - literally a cross-section of each state he visited through the people he encountered, and a refreshing look at our American society as we live it. I enjoyed it very much. More pictures would have got it 5 stars!
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