“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life…I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.” –Joseph Campbell
The majority of the adventure “bike-packing” I have done has been with my good friends Jim McLure, Jonathon Anderson and Michael Santiago-Ignasiak who all still live in Milwaukee, WI. They are true cyclists and, in my opinion, they do it for the correct reasons. I am an imposter. These gentlemen are my inspiration for this trip and it would not have been possible, or even conceptualized without them. Jim, Mike and Jonathon ride bicycles to be better athletes, better explorers, better campers and better backpackers. I partake in adventures with them solely for one selfish reason: “an experience of being alive”.
“It’s not about the bike.” –Lance Armstrong…… Well, maybe it is.
Why the bike?
Things look differently from the seat of a bike carrying a sleeping bag and a tent. You’re cruising through the natural environment, completely connected with your surroundings. There are no windows or windshields separating you from your experience or framing it in the distance. You’re engaging unfamiliar muscle groups, working on balance, timing, depth perception and judgement all the while listening to the comforting buzzing of the bicycle tires. A well-made bicycle, aside from hearing aids and prosthetic limbs, may be the most perfect match of man and machine. When I am on a bicycle I just happen to be a physical machine with muscles.
Perhaps bicycle riding, to quote Kurt Vonnegut, is “dancing lessons from god”. The skills I have acquired from long distance bike riding are immense: style, speed, grace, purpose, value, form, integrity, health, humor, music, breathing, strength and buoyancy, all of which makes your pulse dance. When I ride in cars, busses and particularly airplanes I feel like I am being cheated out of seeing beautiful scenery and meeting interesting people along the way. There is also the satisfaction of knowing that it is my very own legs, my strength and conditioning, which is propelling me this far and continuing to move me in the direction of my adventure. Traveling by bicycle gives you much more of a relationship between the beginning and the destination.
The Long Hard Road From Cancun to Playa Del Carmen
No adventurous travel mission would be complete without, mishaps, embarrassment and complete and udder failures. I got a late start hitting the road on January 30th for my bicycles maiden voyage which meant two things: the sun was already hanging high in the sky AND my unconditioned and unseasoned body was already suffering from dehydration. As I stacked my skateboard, tent and guitar onto the rear or my wobbly bicycle, my new Argentinian friend Daniella said, “And you want to add a yoga mat to that? Maybe you should just choose one sport.”
I knew Daniella was correct, but in my romanticized idea of how this year of biking and backpacking was going to go, I wanted to be a skateboarding, guitar playing yogi vagabond cyclist. All of my favorite hobbies and comforts from home were going to accompany me and no one was going to interfere with this personal narrative… I should have listened to Daniella.
Less than 20 miles south of Cancun, with the oppressive sun right above me, one of my panniers broke under the weight of my skateboard. All of my belongings, which were tethered to the back of my bike using bungee chords and plastic twine, went spilling all over the shoulder of the highway. Fortunately, before leaving Milwaukee, my father, a problem solver and tactical engineer of the highest caliber, gave me a bundle of zip-ties. “Here, you’ll need these”, he said. I didn’t suspect that I would be using those zip-ties so early on in my travels, however they came in handy and got my rig back up and running in less than 30 minutes. I was peddling down the highway again, sooner than I anticipated….But only for about 10 more miles.
The particular stretch of highway between Cancun to Playa Del Carmen is well traveled. This was observable by the many cars which sped past me dangerously close and well above the suggested speed limit. This was also observable by the impressive amount of jagged debris and car parts abandoned on the shoulder of the road: screws, nuts, bolts, nails, broken glass, old tires, springs and other unidentifiable pieces of sharp predatory metal. It wasn’t long before one of those predatory pieces of metal kissed my tire rendering it flat. To add insult to injury, this flat tire occurred directly outside of a CLOSED tequila distillery. The sun was setting rapidly and I could see street lights in view. A shot or two of 80 proof distilled agave, may have taken the edge off. The sign for the closed distillery felt like it was mocking me as if to say, “Sorry champ, but air conditioning and tequila and comfortable bar stools are reserved for smart travelers. For those who start biking earlier in the day, who travel with less crap and who have a back-up plan for when they’re bike breaks down at night in the middle of the jungle.”
I attempted to fix the flat by patching the tire and re-inflating it with my travel-sized hand pump, but my pump had been siting in my parents garage for years and one or more of the seals were dried, cracked and broken. Even if the patched inner tube could withstand the weight of my heavy gear (which it couldn’t), I wasn’t even able to inflate the tube temporarily for emergency purposes.
In all of my travels my misfortunes and hardships have never lasted very long. Call it luck, the law of attraction or divinity, but I have always encountered helpful souls (travel angels) who have shown up out of nowhere to lend a hand when I have needed it the most. That night I walked 2 hours in the dark before arriving at a highly illuminated full service gas station. Upon arrival I met two enthusiastic (and very inebriated) mechanics who got to work immediately helping me patch my tire. They refused any money and before they disappeared offered to let me camp on their land near by if things didn’t go well.
Despite the hard work and generosity of the tipsy mechanics, the problem was that the weight of all of my belongings was still too heavy for the patched up bike tire to sustain. My tire deflated 3 more times in that gas station parking lot, before I was forced to replace the entire inner tube. The next 3 hours was a slow and arduous night time procession that took me way longer to arrive at my destination than I had previously anticipated. I was on my way to visit my good friend Chris Hunt who was living in Playa Del Carmen. Fortunately, he was not too annoyed by my lack of communication or my late arrival. He had food, a hug and a comfortable futon waiting for me when I arrived.
Playa Del Carmen
My time with Chris was a well needed break and distraction. I had only peddled 68km (43 miles), but I was already feeling a bit defeated. My rig was broken and off balance, the heat was too intense, and I was losing hydration by way of sweat faster than I could replenish it by drinking water. And water was HEAVY, meaning that the more liters of water I carried with me, the higher the risk of me popping more tires. Chris saw my heavy load and witnessed my frustration. In a profound act of friendship and generosity he took me off to visit beautiful beaches, cenotes, art festivals and live ocean-front music. I knew I had hundreds of miles of cycling ahead of me without the entertainment and creature comforts of a touristy beach town. I soaked up every last ounce of this indulgence.
On To Tulum
The bicycle shops in Playa Del Carmen didn’t have the front rack or panniers I needed to redistribute my weight and Chris was nice enough to hang onto some of my heavier items until I will see him again. 6 books and a skateboard were some of my heaviest possessions and, for the sake of minimizing the potential for future flat tires, needed to be left behind. This was mildly heartbreaking since visiting regional skateboard parks and meeting local skaters is one of my favorite things to do while traveling. I am also a voracious reader and I was looking very forward to quiet nights in my hammock with a headlamp and a few books after long days of cycling. The one book I did hang onto which has been keeping me company is DUDE MAKING A DIFFERENCE by Rob Greenfield.
Now with less weight, my next two destination was an experiment in peddling, weight management, camping and hydration. It was 40 miles from Playa Del Carmen to Tulum. I arrived with no problems and checked into a cheap hostel. I spent the following day investigating local bike shops in efforts to find a front rack and panniers to redistribute my weight. No luck. Fortunately, Tulum is a funky little beach town with a friendly vibe, so I also spent a day biking around checking out the beaches, food and artwork.
The next phase of this journey will take me 135 miles south to the lake town of Bacalar and then in to the interior towards the city of Villahermosa. This is where it will get interesting. The seldom visited small towns in Mexico’s country side is where the real charm of this adventure exists. This is where the workers and families and farmers and truckers and cowboys and heroes of this great country reside. They are usually overlooked by the beach-focused tourists and they remain undiscovered by anyone hurrying through in an air-conditioned rental car. It will be the kindness, openness and generosity of these locals which will shelter me, feed me and keep me hydrated over the next 491 miles.
If I Am Missing or Dead
I was originally going to call this string of blog posts The Patagonia Express, inspired by the excellent book of the same name by author Paul Theroux. The truth is that there will be nothing “express” about this adventure. It will be slow and sweaty and powered primarily by my legs. Nothing could be slower and more geriatric (no intention of perpetuating age-ism) than riding your bike to the end of the world. This adventure will inevitably be turned into a book, which will also include entertaining and enlightening travel stories from my last 15 years of vagabonding. So I have decided to call this book, “If I Am Missing or Dead: A Love Story About Travel”. This may sound like a morbid name for a love story, so let me explain. Every time I leave on my travels I have multiple people, including my mother, who tell me, “Be safe”, “Be careful”, “I worry about you!”, “Stay safe” or “Isn’t that place dangerous?”. And my answer is this: I would rather be alive and lost in the world than feel stagnant and uninspired in a place where I am disconnected and slowly dying under fluorescent lights. To quote Jack London, “I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” Fortunately, after all my years of adventure travel, which has put my mother in a chronic state of worry (especially when I can’t access reliable internet), she has only ever asked me to promise her three things: 1.) Graduate college. 2.) Don’t sneak into North Korea. 3.) Travel by bus across any areas of Mexico that the locals have advised me are dangerous or unfit for bicycle travel.
If anyone is reading this, and I truly am missing or dead, please tell my mother I never snuck into North Korea.