Leon Steber’s North American Bicycle Journey

In my wildest dreams, I’d do something like Leon Steber did: cycle around North America (that’ll include Canada and Alaska, folks) for almost eight months. Continuously. Without, apparently, much direction. Except, you know, onwards.

I know Leon, in a six-degrees kind of way; he lives right here in Brighton with a work colleague, and when she mentioned his love of biking and his photography, I asked for his website address. As well as taking very nice photos he’s also catalogued his epic journey around the US in the summer of 2004.

This guy’s dedication to a cause is exemplary. Or, possibly, insane. Or both. Not only has he written about every single day he was on the road (although, admittedly, I have no idea if he wrote about events after the fact), he’s also made some fantastic maps that show you his route. (The only tiny, tiny quibble I have is the lack of geographical detail; sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s passing by mountains, or over huge expanses of nothing. Perhaps he should be introduced to Bikely.)

I find reading the thing incredibly compulsive. Even though I can see the end of his journey on his maps (in Mexico; keep in mind he started in northern California), I keep reading just wondering what he might find down the next stretch of road. Which, incidentally, is generally not a whole hell of a lot; one thing Leon’s journey teaches me is that the US and Canada are filled with a whole lot of nothing. Still, his laconic, casual writing style (almost, I’d guess, an inevitable byproduct of being a Western Australian… nothing phases ‘em) is link-clickingly addictive, and it’s worth reading hundreds of pages to get to long stretches in the remote Yukon, with entries like this:

“Today was the worst. Colder than buggery again. I had far too much time to think today. What does one think about for ten hours a day and almost six hundred miles of riding in the freezing cold? One feels extreme anger (ANGER!), jealousy (JEALOUSY!) and resentment (RESENTMENT!) at every passing car. I started to wish that I’d had a misspent youth and had learnt to break into and hotwire a car. A car with a good heating system and a coffee cup holder. With a thermos full of hot coffee to last the entire day. A car that does one hundred miles in an hour and a half, not a day. A car with a strong heater blowing right onto my feet. A car that says a big “Fuck you” to headwinds and drizzling rain. Words like “toasty” and “warm” keep running through my mind, and I get angrier and angrier. It seems like I can’t remember the last time I was warm and comfortable. I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold and miserable before in my life. I’m low, real low.”

All I can think is ‘Keep on riding, Leon’.  He’s doing it for all us armchair tourers out there. Oh, and incidentally? According to my inside source he’s off around France right now. Jammy git.

A typical coastal route

Well, I’m back after a week spent in Germany at a consumer games show, sweating up a storm as I helped run our stand. Since I got back in the small hours of Monday morning I’ve been pretty much exhausted, which culminated in a day off today with an exhaustion-induced cold.

With not much more to do but sit around and get better, I was browsing around and found new site Bikely. It’s early days, but this seems like a damn good idea - it’s a mashup between Google Maps and a route-planning interface. So far a lot of the routes seem to be commuter based, and as I only found one other route in Brighton… I went ahead and doubled that amount.

Without further ado then, here’s a typical route for me - down to Hove Lagoon from my front door (potential stalkers, please consult with our local weirdos for tips on what to do that’ll freak me and the wife out).

Only problem with Bikely? It’s not their fault; it’s Google Maps’. Windows Live Local, much as I hate to admit it, has fantastically detailed maps of Brighton (and 3D views, to boot). We just need them to be a bit more free-and-easy with their APIs….

So, uh, like - what happened to July?

The observant among you - and as there’s probably only one of you, I’ll assume you’re observant for the sake of argument - have probably noticed there was a great big honking gap here between me buying the bike and then, apparently, blogging about riding it. So the question is, what happened in July (that stopped me blogging)?

The easy answer is “I got a bike”, ha ha. Truthfully that had something to do with it, but not very much really. I was biking all over the shop during July, getting acquainted with Brighton’s roads and seafronts… but not blogging. I think the honest truth is I got intimidated, clammed up, and just didn’t force myself to get on with it and get down my thoughts.

As you can see, I’m now trying to change that. Nothing like writing posts about why you’re not blogging to get you motivated to blog again.

So, what do I have to get written down? Let’s see:

1. The rest of the story of Buying the Bike, currently entitled ‘Nigel looks after me’
2. The Tale of The First Bike Ride (This one, I really should have gotten down on the day… thank God I did notes)
3. Something about my favourite routes
4. A classic ‘whinge’ post about ‘being a biker’ (so I can pretend to be part of the ‘in’ crowd)

And I think that’ll do for now. Other things I want to do, in no particular order:

• Take my digital camera out and get some snaps during a ride
• Figure out a way to show my most frequent routes (dull though they are)

And that’ll do for now.

WordPress, baby, WordPress

I switched.

Okay, I didn’t make that switch - not yet, at least - but I left Blogspot behind when I discovered this morning that WordPress also does free blogs. Which, considering the competition, is some fine news.

(Incidentally, the process was incredibly painless (importing was snap!) and the WordPress interface is much nicer than Blogger’s; although to be fair they’re in Beta for a new Blogger, no doubt spurred on by their perpetually-in-Beta-owners.)

Anyway. I have told myself that I need to keep this thing up to date, and that’s what I’m going to do, starting… now. WordPress is just an extra incentive.

Defeated by wind

The wind. Never before have I been so aware of air currents, as when I got on a bike.

A good wind will basically take the… er… wind right out of your sails when cycling. I knew this before I even saddled up for the first time - thanks, Nigel - but still, it’s one thing to know, another to experience, etc. Also, because my preferred route most days is along the seafront, that means I get the benefit of unfiltered sea winds, blowing straight in from the Channel and onto my face. Or, when I’m lucky, onto my back.

The difference can really be dramatic; I’ll easily drop or add five MPH depending on wind direction, and that can be a quarter of my top speed most days. With that in mind, I tend to look more at the wind speed and direction when I’m checking the weather forecast these days. Too high, and I’ll reconsider a ride.

Yesterday though, I was determined to go out. After my glorious discovery of the Undercliff Walk on Wednesday, I wanted to get back out there and see some more. There was also the small issue of my little ‘episode’, which I wanted to make sure, at least in my own mind, was only a temporary thing. So, out I go.

An unexpected afternoon

Wednesday afternoon, and I suddenly find myself with some free time.

I’ve been on an in-house course for two days, and it’s very much about self-improvement - so Jane, the HR manager running things, insists that we all take the rest of the afternoon to ourselves when we finish early.

Who am I to argue.

So I head home. It’s been a few days since I’ve been out, and then it was my first time out in weeks, so I figure I should take it easy. But not that easy. I need to get my mileage up.

On with the white fun-run t-shirt, shorts, helmet and iPod, and dialling in Franz Ferdinand as I hit the road. I weave in and out of the North Laines, doing my usual route… and then a set of roadworks I hadn’t seen before force me down onto North Street. I’ve done it before, so I weave through the traffic and onto the Steine.

The £400 question, redux

I don’t go out to spend £400 every day. I know some people do, especially in our credit-card wielding, guilt-free, devil-take-my-credit-history society - but I don’t. Particularly on stuff for me.

(Sure, I’ve blown wads of cash on ordinary, necessary, socially acceptable things like sofas and beds. We did a lot of that when we got to Brighton… but ever since then we’ve been good. Well, fairly good. Plane tickets don’t count, right?)

I just don’t go on shopping sprees of any sort of size. In fact, I feel guilty buying stuff on sale these days. So after I recovered from the shock of my wife-remembered savings, and I figured I should get myself down to the bike shop and put my money where my mouth was, that’s when it suddenly hit me. I was thinking about spending £400 on a bike. An object which, last time I checked, was something that kids rode around on, perhaps with brightly coloured tape tied to the handlebars.

“We still have savings?”

Or, “Where the hell the money came from”.

I think the title maybe gives it away. On Saturday I told Amanda that I wanted to talk about when I could buy the bike - just talk about it, mind you. I was thinking perhaps I’d use the remaining credit card that we have, then pay it back over a couple of months. And then she says the obvious thing:

“Why don’t you just pay for it out of the savings?”

We’re back to the post title. After I realised she was right and that yes, indeed, buying a bigger fridge earlier in the year hadn’t wiped out our carefully stockpiled winter nuts (of cash) , and that as she put it “It’s better to pay for it out of the savings now, and then pay it back with the money you were going to just pay off the credit card with” well, I was outta there.

Not actually strictly true. As you’re about to see.

Ladies and gents, I have a bike

And here she is… bikes are female, aren’t they? Well the male in me says if I’m riding it… ahem.

‘She’ is a Dawes Sonoran - not a Sontaran, as I suddenly thought I might have purchased while riding it earlier today. (That would be a Doctor Who villain with a head like a… wait, this is a family blog. Right, right….)

The £400 question

So, last night Amanda and I had the briefest conversation about The Price of The Bike.

She knows about the decision to buy it (obviously) and supports it too (bonus, considering how many other gadget fantasies I have, usually involving items of imported, Asian origin). Now the real question is how we are going to afford the damn thing.

I do pretty well for myself, thankyouverymuch, but living and working in Brighton ain’t cheap. Nor’s paying off our debt, which isn’t mountainous, more… hilly. Still, it doesn’t leave much cash aside each month to fritter away on things like two-wheeled vehicles.

This is where you expect me to slap a PayPal icon on the side and ask for donations, right? Wrong. But hey, I need something to talk about before I can go on about the wind in my (lack) of hair and the road underneath my wheels.