This trip was born from the integration of two main factors. First, I had now allowed over fourteen years to pass since the last trip of any length. I only got out occasionally on local rides – primarily because our last residence was not the most conducive for spur of the moment rides as steep hills and windy-type roads, not particularly safe, led to and from home. Second, I was now finished hiking the Appalachian Trail and needed to turn back to the longer bike trips to satisfy that need to just go in one direction to see what is over the next hill. Of course, whether it is hiking or biking, what is over the next hill is usually the same as what I found over the last hill!
And, of course I needed to see if I could still do this as the years keep adding up. Adapting new Arkel panniers made the bike into as ultimate a touring machine as I could imagine. A friend I originally met on the trail named Lee (LeeBob was his AT trail name) lives in Madison, WI and provided a convenient starting point. Well, not that convenient when considering that I decided to carefully pack the bike and all the gear into three separate big boxes and ship ahead via UPS, and he had to arrange to pick it all up at the local depot. Another friend, met on the trail named Ron (his trail name was ‘IB from Tennessee’ – the IB for ibuprofen!), made for a convenient end point about 800 miles away. My wife then drove down from Pennsylvania to Ron’s to ‘rescue’ me.
All went well and the weather cooperated. I did not camp much at all on the trip, opting for motels most of the time. One in particular was a real dump, giving all other dives a measure of class.
I did not feel I had quite the stamina on hills as on previous trips, but did not think much of it and wrote it off as simply old age showing its face. Two months after the trip, at home, I started having some shortness of breath in bed. I ended up in the hospital for several days. Diagnosis: congestive heart failure! Needless to say, quite a shock. Interestingly, not caused by some of the more common causes. Further diagnosed as amyloidosis and causing thickening of the heart wall by overproduction of a particular protein. Left untreated it kills with in 6-9 months. The type of amyloidosis I have, if caught early enough, is treatable with chemotherapy. Thanks to an expert doctor at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston that has studied this disease for 30 years and the chemo treatment he directed, the protein remains in remission. Progression of the disease is halted, however damage done cannot be undone.
Since then I completed another trip in 2017, and as of 2019 I am biking more than at any time in my life. I rode over 3000 miles in 2018 and hope to do another 4000 miles in 2019. We’ll see. I call the Avatar my ‘Mobile Fountain of Youth’!
Not many pictures from this trip despite taking my good camera.
