04.20.03 Geezerpalooza: In search of a conversation

By Dick Maynard  

 What motivates any human to ride a bicycle from sea to shining sea, Oregon to Connecticut, coast to coast? 

Countless words have been written detailing how the hours spent on a bicycle seat are akin to a voyage of self-discovery. Others have gone on at much too great a length peddling the notion that a cross-country bike tour must be much more than merely a journey that involves great physical effort. They maintain that the daily expenditure of energy must also be accompanied by a rider’s continual search for his or her inner soul.  

Some have opined in the multi-syllabic words favored by the intellectual set that a trans-America bicycle tour is nothing more than a hyperbaric chamber of time allowing a rider the space necessary to contemplate a self-directed search to a new horizon on the road of life.  

Well, not on the Geezerpalooza Tour. Unh-uh.  

My brother-in-law, Gere Smith, and I are much too far along life’s path to deal with the angst and self-flagellation necessary to turn a bicycle ride into an intellectual exercise. We’re just two old guys looking for a unique conversation starter at the weekend cocktail party.  

With our lives well into the seventh decade — that means our ’60s — and both of us having lived almost half of our years on this big ball in the same respective locations, we decided it’s time to temporarily change the landscape of our lives. (Gere resides just down the street from the high school in San Luis Obispo, Calif, while I drop in from time to time to Grand Junction, my home for the past 35 years.)  

For years I have been sharing face time with friends and acquaintances at various local groupings, be they chamber-after-hours socials, country club events or neighborhood get-togethers. And at those tête-à-têtes, discussions continually revolve around the ad infinitum of our children, grandchildren, Bush (the elder and Dubya), Clinton (him and her), the infirmities of our peer group, day trading, Viagra and "What the hell is wrong with the Broncos?" Out there, somewhere between the Pacific and the Atlantic, there has to be a fertile field of new subject matter just waiting to be harvested into a unique conversation.  

In the back of my cranium there’s a vision of the future finding me at a social gathering, bottle of Fat Tire in hand, being queried, "How are your kids?" That single oft-repeated question will herald the divine moment that prompted a bike ride of over 4,000 miles.  

"I don’t know" will come the reply, "Haven’t seen them in over 3 months."  

And before the questioner can quickly move on to another oft-discussed subject such as, "Can you believe the Broncos, they haven’t been worth a damn since John hung it up," I will proceed to detonate a conversational carpet bomb on the heretofore-unsuspecting soul. "Haven’t seen ’em because my brother-in-law and I were riding our bikes across the United States. And we pulled our golf clubs along behind the bikes so we could peddle and putt our days away."  

What words will follow that eye opener in the world of conversational repartee? At this moment I have nary a clue, but out there ahead of me is a ten-week minimum to be utilized in peddling, putting and figuring out a follow-up to the conversations ahead.  

Right now I’m stuck with, "Have you ever spent Saturday night in Kooskia, Idaho? Man it’s something! The locals told us the Industrial Development Committee of the Kooskia Chamber of Commerce is mulling the possibility of funding digital gas pumps for the local Texaco station." This, admittedly, is not the greatest of rejoinders but also keep in mind I have a myriad of miles in my future, miles than can be utilized in contemplating the perfect conversational bon mot.  

The ground rules for the Geezerpalooza Tour are still under discussion. I have always espoused the heartfelt conviction this bicycle tour will not be involved in dining on a daily menu of nuts and berries nor sleeping the nights away under God’s celestial munificence. Such blatant rejection of the Thoreauvian ideal of living one with nature troubles my wife’s brother. He is, by job description and emotional conviction, an environmentalist, an Earth firster and — dare I say it? — a tree hugger.  

Me? I couldn’t be more the reverse. I am admittedly addicted to a bicycling life where roughing it includes showers, innerspring mattresses and flush toilets. My ideal cycling day is one that includes a 75-mile ride, 18 holes of golf and a dip in a hot tub followed by an evening meal best described by epicureans as a "grease hit."  

Smith also looks forward to a daily bike sojourn and round of golf but equates my need for physical comfort and a daily repast of heart-clogging consistency as the foundation of a radical right-wing Republican philosophy. To which I respond. "And the bad news is?"  

This trans-American trip will be a credit-card tour, a phrase usually heard emanating from the curled lip of disdain possessed by a sallow-eyed, slack-jawed, emaciated, exhausted cyclist who, after tens of thousands of miles in the saddle, considers himself to be higher up the bicycling food chain than the bourgeois, Comfort Inn-loving kind of cyclist embodied by {M4moi.  

Smith feels this rejection of all things comfortable has some merit. I, however, possess not one ounce of guilt over violating the unwritten rules of bicycle-tour decorum and will leave the Oregon coast with an extensive list of motels, B and B’s, and golf courses, public and private, that will possibly be on the route ahead. Plus, my itinerary also contains the exact address of every restaurant named "Mom’s" between the Atlantic and the Pacific.  

What lies ahead? Well, let us discover that together. I’ll ride the bike and pull the trailer that contains clothes, I-book and golf clubs. My wife will drive the car, also known as the sag wagon, bike a bit and generally do what she has done for the past 38 years. And that is, make my passage through life a whole lot easier than when I’m on my own.  

And my friend Gere? Well, I’m sure he’ll be there, pedaling, putting and keeping me continually informed on the errors of my libertarian ways.