We Travel and We Write

We travel and we write. As I toiled with the details of Stage One of the 2019 Epic Ride yesterday, occasionally comparing my route deviations from the path traveled on both prior trips, in ’93 and ’96, I notice some items of interest. The first and perhaps most important is that I am being WAY more aggressive. As an example, the Stage One mileage totals 613. That is from our starting point on Bainbridge Island, WA, over and down 31,000 feet of rolling countryside, in 8 days, to Brookings, OR., seven miles from the California border. The daily mileage numbers, 87,88,75,56,74,80,68 and 85 are formidable. Quite possibly outlandish. 

As well as the grand adventure itself, and remember we will be riding in the peak of the summer heat, when both the sun and tourism are their hottest, adding another degree of difficulty to the obvious one simply measured in kilometers, is the one I call esoterics. 

The secondary goal (doing it is number one) has always been to capture video of the event. I will offer each participant the opportunity to ride with one of my trusty GoPros, thereby providing an alternative point of view from which to edit. With the SAG vehicle recording the entire route, and three cams on bikes, I should be able to capture sufficient footage to mash up something fairly interesting. Adding camping, the ocean views, sunrises and sunsets, people and places, along the 1,600 miles absolutely fills my creative sails with enthusiasm and anticipation. Some quick math: 21 days with an average of (conservatively) 6 riding hours per day is 126 hours. Times 3, number of cameras, makes that total a robust 378. Plus SAGcam 126, gives us over 500 hours of hi-def video of just the road. Oh My!

And that is just the start. Adding what amounts to B Roll footage, interviews, non-riding sequences, atmospherics and other points of interest, only adds to the available media. I am stoked. Maybe this is how Kerouac, Robbins, Egan, Steinbeck and Wolfe felt too. 

Therefore, the detail I do not want to lose, or even allow to be compromised in the slightest, is the writing element. There must be commentary along the way. I need to ensure that as many Epic Riders as possible contribute to this effort by adding their thoughts and emotions to the collective work. I volunteer to go first. I will be adding my notes, musings, observations, hopes, dreams and fears in this very log along the way. Hoping it will be a long and winding road on a long, strange trip. 

If those collective words can act as a rolling narrative as we reel in the destination, one long day at a time, I truly believe the result will give us something of immense value. 

I refer to my notes from the ’93 trip and I read that as I sit on a park bench in Northern California watching the Pacific Ocean relentlessly crash wave after wave onto the rocky shore, a fearless gray squirrel pleads for a bite of my peanut butter and honey sandwich.