St. Cloud, Minnesota

 

 The Mississippi continues to be my companion.  I crossed it five times in my perambulations about the Twin Cities tracking down the seven Carnegies scattered about its neighborhoods, and I continued to follow it along the Great River Road for seventy miles to St. Cloud, where I will bid it farewell as I head west to Sauk Centre for the next Carnegie.

There are more than twenty bridges over its serpentine route through the metropolis, most of which have a bike lane in this very bike-friendly community.  Many of the lanes about the city had plastic posts separating them from motorized traffic.  Signs occasionally affirmed cyclists the right to take over an entire lane when there wasn’t space for an actual bike lane.  And for once on this trip I wasn’t a lone cyclist.

I was glad for the opportunity to explore the city hopping from Carnegie to Carnegie, most of which were in quiet residential neighborhoods.  The first was in a Hmong community in the northeast of St. Paul.  It was initially known as the Arlington Hills Branch.  It had been replaced in 2014 and became a private library taking the name of the East Side Freedom Library serving as an archive of Hmong materials.

I crossed the Mississippi for the first time heading south five miles to the Riverview Branch, also in St. Paul, on George Street.  It was a similar design of one large room with high ceilings and large arched windows letting in loads of light.  The library is soon to be expanded when the funds can be found.  Plans for the expansion have already been drawn up, though there are still community meetings seeking more input from library patrons.

It was twelve miles, mostly west, to the next Carnegie, this one in Minneapolis with two crossings of the Mississippi.  My climb to the first of two bridges over the River gave a panoramic view of the skylines of the two cities.  St. Paul was dominated by the dome of a large cathedral, as is common in France, while Minneapolis was highlighted by a cluster of mini-skyscrapers, at least in comparison to Chicago.  

The Hosmer Branch was similar to the previous two and likewise in a quiet residential neighborhood, though my route there took me on busy streets.  I had to remind myself that I was in a large city, as it’s streets were lined with small, well-tended homes, a sharp contrast to Chicago.  There was hardly a two-flat to be seen or an apartment building of any sort.  It looked like a most liveable city.  

It was a quick three miles northeast without having to cross the River to the Franklin Carnegie on Franklin Street, a busy, four-lane thoroughfare.  An Aldi was across the street.  It was nearing dinner time, but it’s dumpster was behind a high fence with a hefty lock, so there was no supplementing my ramen and beans.  

It was nearly ten miles to the next Carnegie back in St. Paul and over the River for the fourth time.  It was nearly an hour until dark and I became reconciled to having to find a motel for the night, as it wasn’t likely I’d have time to slip out of the city before dark with three Carnegies still on my agenda.

Wikipedia gave a faulty address for the Hamline University Carnegie, the only academic library he funded in Minnesota.  It clearly wasn’t the towering three-story building with an address of 1536 Hewitt.  A librarian at the nearby new, modern library said the former library was just across the quad, and it was indeed much more recognizable as a building that Carnegie would have funded.  It is now the Giddens/Alumni Learning Center.

I still had ample light to reach the next Carnegie just two miles away, but just past the university I came upon the first motel I had seen in nearly four hours of biking around the cities, so seized upon it.  I had been hoping to hold off on the first motel of these travels until the next night as rain was predicted for much of the day, but I let my better judgment prevail, though I had been looking forward to the challenge of finding a place to camp on the outskirts of the metropolis.

The forecast called for the rain to start at ten the next morning and to continue all day.  My hope was to be well out of the metropolis by the time the rain started. I began the day with the St. Anthony Park Branch.  It was in a more affluent part of St. Paul than the previous Carnegies.  It was well-maintained and featured well-tended landscaping with a variety of flowers. 

It was then seven miles through the heart of Minneapolis, over the River one last time and past the University of Minnesota campus, to the Sumner Branch on the four-lane Olson Memorial Highway.  It was the morning rush hour, but there was little traffic to speak of, as if everyone was still working at home.  

It was only 8:30 but the sky was growing darker as if the rain could start at any moment.  It held off for an hour, arriving a bit before it was predicted, but was light enough that cars only needed intermittent wipers.  It was just fifty degrees.  The rain dropped the temperature a few degrees keeping it below fifty all day.  The rain varied between a mist and a drizzle with only a couple spells of actual rain drops.  When I reached the large city of St. Cloud an hour before dark I knew I had to take advantage of one of its motels.  Even if the rain had let up, my shoes and gear wasn’t going to dry in my tent.  At least the forecast is rain free for the next week and the temperature will get into the upper sixties, promising the best of cycling.

The inclement weather was bearable knowing I was closing in on Sauk City, birthplace of Sinclair Lewis.  I was eager to see how the Carnegie of his youth honored him.  And beyond Sauk City I would have two or three small-town Carnegies a day to look forward to.  It was good to be back in the business of anticipating the new.

Stillwater, Minnesota

My first encounter with a police officer came as I was investigating an abandoned farmstead as a place to camp. I noticed him stopped at a nearby intersection after I turned away from the dilapidated house unable to penetrate the thick overgrown weeds surrounding its backside.  I thought I’d give the barn a try but the presence of the officer gave me pause.  


I was hoping it was just a coincidence that he was stopped at the intersection but when he didn’t move I had to concede he had spotted me and I needed to clear out.  The only way was to go past him.  He called out through his rolled down passenger window asking if I was returning to the highway I had just exited.  He said he was responding to two calls from motorists who thought it was dangerous for a cyclist to be riding on the shoulder of the road.  

I confessed I was looking for a place to pitch my tent for the night.  He suggested I go back down the side road behind us that had a dead end sign and slip into the forest.  He told me I better hurry as rain was imminent.  He was surprisingly cordial, not asking for ID, or running me off.  And thus I enjoyed my first forest camping and softest ground of the trip, as well as the most secluded.

The previous night I camped along the Mississippi besides a beach and a boat launch.  I had followed a sign to the “recreational area” thinking there might be camping.  There was, but not sanctioned.  I was somewhat hidden by two large fir trees besides a basketball court and a soccer field.  As the light was fading a car pulled into the parking lot and I heard the chatter of young voices and the bounce of a ball.  I feared a group had come to shoot some hoops in the cool of the evening.  Fortunately they went over to the soccer field and only kicked the ball around for a few minutes in the waning light.

My sleep was interrupted by an occasional freight train, indicating the union that had been threatening a strike had ratified the settlement of a few days ago. I was closer to the river than the train tracks, but I didn’t hear any vessels breaking the water.  I could see an occasional barge, but no young boys on rafts.

The road along the river offered occasional overlooks which were generally accompanied by a historical marker relating to logging or the construction of a fort and other incidents in the early history of the region. One was at the site of Maiden Rock where a young Indian woman was said to have lept to her death rather than being forced into marriage with someone she “dispised.”  A famous climb in the Tour de France in the Vosges, La Planche des Belles Filles, also takes its name from a legend of women leaping to their deaths rather than being forced into sexual relations with their conquerors.

Not far south of Maiden Rock along the river i passed thoughnthe small town of Pepin where Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the “Little House on the Prairie” series of books, was born in 1867.  It hosts a museum devoted to her as well as her childhood home.  A gift shop was packed with trinkets and her many books.  It was reminiscent of a museum in Red Cloud, Nebraska devoted to Willa Cather that Janina and I passed on our drive home from Telluride last month.

My long prologue, over 450 miles, to the first Carnegie that was new to me came to an end in Stillwater, just over the border from Wisconsin. But first I renewed acquaintances with a Carnegie in Hudson, just across Lake Saint Croix that separates the states north of the Mississippi.  It was still home to a law firm, which had let  the ivy adorning its exterior cover its designation as a library over its entrance. 

And to welcome me to Minnesota the wind switched the day before from the south to a northerly, dropping the temperature twenty degrees from the 80s to the 60s, and then another twenty degrees during the night. I needed my sweater, a recent addition to my wardrobe thanks to Telluride’s Free Box, for the first time.   I welcomed the cool, but not the head wind, though it wasn’t too severe blunted by the forested terrain.  The further north I venture, the more azure the sky and the fluffier the clouds.  The sky is almost as pleasurable to gaze upon as the countryside.

I crossed into Minnesota on a new pedestrian/bicycle bridge and headed straight to the Carnegie just a few blocks away.  At first I feared it had been razed, but it was only blocked by a huge three-story addition.  It’s frontside retained all its majesty and was unmarred by the addition.  It was an early Carnegie dating to 1902 and had been expanded previously by a pair of matching additions to its sides.  It’s rotunda was surrounded by columns and was under a mini-dome.  It was a good start to my set of new Carnegies on this trip.  Now it’s on to the Twin Cities, twenty five miles away for a quick six more.

LaCrosse, Wisconsin

 

The time of Trump is past.  I have biked three hundred miles in the past four days and haven’t come upon a single Trump sign or flag or proclamation.  For the past six years, and as recently as my spring ride around Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota,  rural America has been thick with Trump mania. No more.  I’ve encountered just one lone tired tirade from one of his ilk who avoided invoking his name and so off-the-wall that one could only question the mental health of whoever might be spewing such ravings.

It is a wonder that the authorities haven’t whitewashed these blathering.  Even those who might agree with his bent would not want to be associated with such crazed forthrightness.

The most common sign on the byways of Wisconsin has been “ATV Route” and in small towns “All streets are ATV routes unless otherwise posted.”  I have yet to see an ATV, only hearing a couple barreling through the forest.  They may be more common in the winter months.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen signs warning of horses and buggies on the roads as they have been a common site.  It may be that motorists are so accustomed to seeing them that there is no need to note their presence.  They frequently overtake me on ascents.  I can hear the clip-clop of horse hooves coming up from behind me at better than ten miles per hour.  I can fly past them on the descents.  All greet me with a smile and a wave, whether passing me from behind or approaching me from the opposite direction.  

The sound of clip-clops is so ubiquitous they’ve even intruded upon my dreams or so I thought, as when I awoke I discovered I wasn’t dreaming as someone was actually trotting by in the midnight hour. I heard them well into the night when I camped along the road in some high weeds behind a pile of rocks when no cornfield offered itself, only soybeans.  So far I’ve only seen one of the clan who forego motorized vehicles on a bike, a woman in a bonnet and dress leisurely pedaling along with a wicker basket on the front of her upright handlebars. 

The landscape has become much hillier and forested after crossing into Wisconsin.  There are patches of corn, but nothing on the scale of the vast fields in Illinois that have narrow grassy breaks amongst them that are ideal for camping.  I’ve camped the past two nights in high weeds shielded from the road by thin bands of trees.  The dew has been heavy and there has been a lingering fog in the morning, not so thick as to limit visibility too much, other than putting a mist on my glasses that I have to wipe every minute or so.

As I closed in on the Mississippi and LaCrosse I had a couple of options of what road to take.  A retired school teacher at a Casey’s General Store where I was taking a break advised me to stick to the main highway rather than going off on the county roads, saying it’d be less hilly.  He returned a couple minutes later saying he’d taken a poll inside and the consensus was it’d be better for me to take the county roads.  No one knew though that ten miles down the road a bridge was out, forcing me to take a detour.  There was no traffic, so I just appreciated the extra miles it allowed me in such a pristine setting.

Only one Carnegie has presented itself so far since crossing into Wisconsin.  It came in Platteville and was as pristine as it was when it opened in 1915 having been recently fully restored.  It had served as the town library until 1975, then had a brief tenure as a teen center before an architectural firm bought it. A plaque gave credit to the present owner of the building, who bought it in 2015, for a six year renovation of the building, completed in 2022. 

Platteville was once prominent in Chicago sports as its college hosted the Bears pre-season training camp during their years under Mike Ditka.  I was among the legions of Chicagoans who made the two hundred mile drive there for a close-up look of those Super Bowl Bears on the practice field.  I took an Australian friend who had a short stint as a professional in Australia Rules Football.  He was astounded at the size of his American counterparts.  He played without pads and couldn’t imagine trying to contend with someone the size of William Perry, the Refrigerator.  

Shortly before LaCrosse I joined up with the Great River Road that will take me along the Mississippi for better than one hundred miles.  I am ready for a cascade of memories of biking it from the opposite direction with Don Jaime twenty years ago.  His account of our journey from Minneapolis to Chicago can be found on the blog in July of 2002, ten posts worth.  You can read of our intrusion upon a church social and finding a Bible along the road and Jim’s time on a nuclear submarine. 

Darlington, Wisconsin

 The first two nights of my annual fall ride have been spent in a Grant Wood painting, as I’ve camped amidst forests of gallant, towering corn stalks awaiting harvest.  Wood has firmly been entrenched in my consciousness after Janina and I visited the largest collection of his works in the Cedar Rapids Art Museum, formerly a Carnegie Library, on our drive out to Telliride a month ago.  Rural Iowa predominated his paintings with fields of corn a common theme.  As I’ve bicycled past miles and miles of cornfields in northwest Illinois on my way to Minnesota I catch one view after another that I’d have to stop and paint if I were Wood. 

I can thank the threat of a rail strike for these miles through the cornfields, as Amtrak cancelled all trains on its Empire Builder route that I’d planned to take to Minneapolis after our return from a month in Telluride, which would have deposited me beyond the corn belt up in the north woods.  I was too eager to be off on my bike to wait around for the strike to be settled or averted.   Even if it were to be settled it could be days before a seat became available, since several days worth of trains had been cancelled creating a backlog of passengers.  

I didn’t mind at all biking the four hundred miles to  Minneapolis, as it allowed me the interlude of five days of rural biking from one huge metropolis to another rather than plunging straight from one into another.  Seven Carnegies await me in the Twin Cities and then fifteen more in the northern tier of the state, then I’ll have completed another state, having already visited the twenty-six in the lower part of the state. I might even slip into Ontario for three more. 

Having completed Illinois and Wisconsin I didn’t have to alter my route for Carnegies, though I’ve been able to revisit a handful that were on my way, always a treat.  It’s surprising how vivid the memories of previous visits can be.  Rather than approaching them with anticipation of what version of grandeur and grace awaits me, I approach with the anticipation of renewing acquaintances.  I’m never disappointed.  They are as noble and stately as I recalled.  

The first in Oregon, on the wide Rock River, had added a bike locked to its bike rack with a wooden box offering free books. It is a rare Carnegie that hasn’t  been expanded, though it did have a couple of alterations—the addition of an elevator and the conversion of its fireplace from wood to gas and a plexiglass window atop its circulation desk, none of which diminished its charm.

The next in Mount Carroll, a town with historic plaques on homes and buildings throughout the small town, was undergoing renovation.  There wasn’t a chance this town with a strong sense of its past would demolish its Carnegie as have eighteen communities in Illinois, the same number as Minnesota.  The  temporary library was half a block away in the former Senior Center across from the County Courthouse, which filled an entire block in the center of the town.  Old cars were lined up on two streets for a vintage car festival with crowds of people giving them a close look.

I had a long fast descent out of Mount Carroll, explaining the town’s name, going over thirty miles per hour for the first time since leaving Chicago.  The misty rain pelted me hard at that speed.  Turning north towards Wisconsin, thirty miles away, I was finally able to take advantage of a slight tailwind after having mostly ridden west.  The forecast called for a slight southerly breeze the next three days, keeping the temperature an unseasonable eighty degrees.

The warmth has had me intent on keeping my thermal water bottles packed with ice from the self-serve fast-food ice dispensers.  The ice can keep for a couple of hours, each sip a divine pleasure.  I was thwarted at my first Taco Bell, as it’s ice-dispenser was out-of-service, and I was only offered a partially-filled small cup of ice with my burrito.  And to add insult to injury, the Taco Bell was further economizing by having done away with its WiFi, not an uncommon act these days with so many people having phone service that provides it.  At least it hadn’t covered it’s electrical outlets, as some do, so I could do some charging.

The last Carnegie in Illinois is the northernmost in the state in Warren just shy of the Wisconsin border.   As with Mount Carroll, this town of 1,500 hadn’t expanded  its Carnegie.  It was just off its Main Street, on the other side of the train tracks beside a history museum. 

After crossing into Wisconsin I was able to take advantage of its lightly traveled county roads designated by capital letters.  They provide as fine cycling as one could ask for.  And it’s only going to get better the further north I venture.  As always, it is a great pleasure  to be off on the bike with nary a concern.

A Tour de France Course Marker for Greg LeMond

The Telluride Film Festival  is the rare film festival that does not announce its schedule in advance, so I didn’t know until the day before the festival started when the schedule was released that a documentary centered on Greg LeMond’s 1989 win of the Tour de France was to play and that LeMond was to be in attendance.  That may have been the most exciting revelation in the thirty years I have been attending the festival, anchoring it’s shipping department for a four-week paid vacation in the spectacular San Juan mountains.  Well knowing the intimacy of the festival I knew I would have the opportunity to meet Greg, a heroic figure who had granted me much happiness during the height of his career, and that had me hopping with delight.

Luckily the first screening of the film, “The Last Rider,” was on the first day of the festival, so I didn’t  have to endure the anticipation of seeing LeMond and his film too deep into the four-day festival.  It would be my second screening on its opening Friday night at 8:45 p.m. in the 60-seat Backlot Theater in the town library.  

By sheer luck I had brought along from Chicago a Tour de France course marker as a gift for a friend from Los Angeles who was an ardent Tour fan.  It was to be a surprise for her.  I had yet to see her, so it remained in my possession and I could offer it to LeMond or maybe have him autograph it for her if he didn’t want it.  I had a similar experience with Christian Vande Velde.  I presented a Tour course marker to him for an autograph when he made an appearance at a Chicago bike shop, not so much for his autograph but out of curiosity to see his reaction to the marker. 

I didn’t know how aware riders were of these bright yellow signs with a black arrow on them pointing the direction at intersections since they were led by a phalanx of motorcycles and hardly needed them to guide the way as they served me when I was riding the Tour route preceding the peloton. I learned from Christian that the riders are fully cognizant of them and regard them as much of a holy relic as fans do.  They are the ultimate souvenir for the fans and the riders, especially since they are not for sale, but must be scavenged after the peloton has passed. Christian has been delighted to accept a handful of them from me over the years.  I wondered if Greg would have a similar reaction. 

He was late arriving at the theater, and I wasn’t even sure if the husky, white-haired masked gentleman was Greg, as he wasn’t accompanied by an entourage, though he did have a blue lanyard around his neck worn by guests of the festival.  I had been waiting in the lobby after claiming a second row seat.  He proceeded into the theater and took one of two seats in the  fourth row that had evidently been reserved for him at the far end from the aisle, as if he wished to be anonymous.  

I went to my seat and dug the course marker out of my backpack and discreetly held it at waist level pointed in his direction.  It immediately caught his attention.  His eyes lit up and he gave me a thumbs up. Hooray, it was him and the marker meant something to him. I sat down to await the introduction of the film.  The director of the film, Alex Holmes, whose previous film was the much acclaimed “Maiden” about a group of women who competed in an around-the-world sailing race, introduced the film.  He told us we were the first audience to see the film and nodded towards Greg and his wife, who had joined him, and said they were seeing it for the first time too.  He didn’t say anything about a Q&A afterwards, so I could ambush Greg when he rose from his seat and came to the aisle.

I couldn’t fully concentrate on the film knowing that when it ended I’d have the chance to meet this three-time winner of The Tour and have a bit of a chat.  The first half of the movie charted LeMond’s career from a youth to  becoming a Tour rider, finishing second to his teammate Bernard Hinault in 1985 and then winning it himself in 1986 in a most agonizing battle with Hinault, who seemingly reneged on his promise to help Greg win after Greg sacrificed himself to help Hinault win in 1985, his fifth Tour title, tying him with Jacques Anquetil and Eddie Merckx for the most ever.  Greg felt betrayed by Hinault and could hardly enjoy his victory, the first by an American.  He didn’t even want to attend the team victory party, putting in just a token appearance.  

Several months after his win he was shot by his brother-in-law in a hunting accident and was lucky to survive.  It took him three years to regain his form.  He was ready to quit the sport when he attempted his first Grand Tour after his shooting riding the Giro in 1989. He struggled mercilessly.  But by the end of the three-week race he had a strong time trial giving him a modicum of confidence going into the Tour de France shortly afterwards.

Fignon won that Giro and was a strong favorite to win The Tour.  He and LeMond traded the Yellow Jersey throughout the race.  It culminated with a time trial from Versailles to the Champs Élysées.  Fignon had a seemingly insurmountable fifty second cushion, but Greg pulled out a miraculous effort defeating Fignon by fifty-eight seconds, winning The Tour by eight seconds, the closest ever.  Fans of the sport know the LeMond story well, but it was still exhilarating to watch it unfold, especially accompanied throughout the movie by commentary from Greg and his wife.

The movie ended with hearty applause.  It was several minutes before I could speak to Greg as others around him engaged him in conversation as he headed in my direction.  With course marker cradled in my arm I said, ‘I didn’t notice any of these in the film.  Did you have something similar to this in your day?”

“Yes we did, I know them well.”

“Do you have any? This is for you if you’d like.”

‘I’d love to have one, but are you sure you want to give it up?”

“I have a few, as I’ve ridden the Tour route as a touring cyclist nearly every year since 2004 when Lance was going for his sixth win and always bring back a few to give to friends, including my favorite bike shop in Chicago, and Christian Vande Velde, a fellow Chicagoan, who I’ve given several to over the years.  He’s always happy for another.”

He wanted to know more about my Tour experience, asking where I camped and how many miles I did and if I shared the experience with others. When I told him I enjoyed that first Tour experience so much that I’d returned for sixteen more, he exclaimed, “That’s more than I’ve ridden.”  He well knew the pleasure of cycling in France and expressed the desire to experience France and The Tour in a similar manner.  

I said the festival director had mentioned that Greg might lead a ride to his final screening in one of the two outdoor theaters on the last day of the festival on Monday.  He said he didn’t know anything about that and that he hadn’t ridden his bike in two months after being diagnosed with leukemia In June. He said he was feeling much better than he had been, as he had started on a new medication.  He looked as if he was in the best of health and was as buoyant and upbeat as could be.  He betrayed no hint of being in ill health in any way. 

Several times more as we talked, while he clutched the course marker, he reiterated, “Are you sure you want to give this to me?”  I assured him that it was an honor to share it with him.  I knew others wanted to have a word or two with him, so after my friend Ralph, who has ridden a few stages of the Tour with me over the years, and is a staff photographer for the festival, posed a photo of us in front of the screen, I stepped aside and let others have the pleasure of time with him.  He seemed to be in no hurry and was as affable as could be.

I had much more to say to him, so I returned the following day for his next screening.  He and his wife and director were half an hour early this time lingering in the lobby.  As I approached them Kathy immediately greeted me with, “That sure was nice of you to give us the course marker.  We really appreciate it.  We already have a spot picked out for it over a doorway.”  

That was music to my ears.  I told them I had a Tour experience that related to Greg.  During my second Tour, which was consumed by Lance mania drawing thousands of Americans to the Tour, an older French cyclist, who wasn’t so enamored with the throngs of Americans new to the sport taking over the Tour, asked me if I’d heard of LeMond.  At first I thought he meant the French newspaper, but then realized he was a typical Frenchman who thought Americans had no appreciation for the past and he was actually referring to Greg.  Rather than taking insult that I wouldn’t know of LeMond, I replied with gusto, “Of course I know LeMond! He won the Tour three times, just like Bobet.”

“You know Bobet,” he replied in shock. “He was my childhood hero.  No one remembers him.”

Having won the Frenchman’s favor he invited me to his home to watch the end of that day’s stage.  I couldn’t take him up on it, as I needed to keep riding to get further down the course to keep up with the peloton. As Greg quizzed me more about my Tour experiences, I told him he could read my daily Tour posts with lots of pictures of course markers and fans along the road and Tour decorations on my blog.  He could find it by simply googling “George the Cyclist.” I said I would turn up, just above George Hincapie.

Kathy chimed in, “As it should be.”

Greg pulled out his phone and immediately googled “George the Cyclist” and there I was.

“You must have two million followers,” he said.

“Not that many,” I replied, “but quite a few around the world.”

I told him that I had emailed Christian to tell him that Greg had joined the fraternity of cyclists who have received a course marker from me. Christian replied, saying I was fortunate to meet Greg and his wife too, adding that she had midwestern roots and that he liked her a lot.  That was no surprise, as she was as easy-going and charming as her husband.

I told them how much I enjoyed Richard Moore’s highly-detailed book “Slaying the Badger” about LeMond’s 1986 win and wondered how much time Moore spent interviewing him.  “Only about an hour, isn’t that right Kathy?,” he replied.

 “Wow’s all.  I figured he must have spent a couple of days with you going through all the twists and turns of that race.”

“No that was it.  You know he died a little while ago.”

“Yes, that was a great tragedy. I’ve met him a couolof times during the Tour.  He was as nice a guy as you.”

In my brief time with them I could clearly see they were warm and caring and kindly folk, just like Christian, who has gone out of his way to acknowledge me a number of times during the Tour, even once breaking from his teammates to greet me during the opening ceremony in Liege as each team slowly rode a route through the city past thousands of fans after they had been introduced on a stage in the city center.

It was a gesture that seemed in character for Greg too, who couldn’t have been more humble and considerate, and like Christian deflecting attention from himself. I greatly look forward to crossing paths with him again, maybe even riding together in France. 

An addendum from a cycling friend and journalist who rode a three-speed coast-to-coast decades ago and holds Greg in the highest of esteem.  He sent me a copy of the note he had written to Greg while he was in the hospital recovering from having been shot.

Two Wheels Good, Jody Rosen



There can’t be too many books celebrating the bicycle, though one always has to wonder what prompted the latest and what qualified the author to address the subject.  “Two Wheels Good” may have been inspired by the so-called bike boom during the pandemic, which the author of the book, Jody Rosen,  called “without question the largest in history.”  This surge of interest no doubt led him and Crown Publishing to think there would be an audience interested in reading another book passing itself off as a history of the bike. If nothing else he came up with a catchy title.

Rosen has written bicycle-related stories for the New York Times magazine and the New Yorker and claims to ride his bike every day around New York City, qualifications enough to write such a book.  He is an avid enough cyclist to proclaim “cycling is the essence of a New York existence…to live in New York without a bike is to only half-experience the city.”  

He doesn’t reveal his deep passion for the bike until the third to the last of the book’s sixteen chapters when he breaks from his reportorial mode and turns personal detailing his close relationship to the bike, which included a stint as a bicycle messenger in Boston one summer when he was nineteen.  As with many messengers, myself included, it was the best job he ever had, though he wasn’t particularly good at it. He rode so dreamily his dispatcher asked him, “Don’t you want to make money,” as one is paid by the delivery.  The job did confirm to him that he “didn’t want to be off a bicycle.”

The book might have had been more engaging if he had personalized it from the start rather than making it a series of what could be stand-alone magazine articles—venturing to Bangladesh to profile a rickshaw driver, to Scotland to profile the stunt rider Danny MacAskill, to Montana to profile a couple who met on the 1976 Bikecentennial coast-to-coast mass migration of cyclists and married, to an island in the Norwegian arctic in the dead of winter that is a bicycle haven, to Bhutan to document the unlikely bicycle scene in the Himalayas.  

He passes on the cliche of going to Copenhagen and Amsterdam and describing those bicycle idylls that all cities should aspire to, but does go to Beijing, a former bicycling stronghold, where the bicycle is being choked out by everyone now wanting to drive around in a car.  The bicycle is now regarded “as embarrassing, old-fashioned, ‘for losers,’ ‘for the poor.’”  Bike-share is trying to get people back on bikes, but it almost seems that as many bike-share bikes get thrown in rivers as are ridden.  

One chapter is sixteen pages of odd stories about the bicycle from newspaper clippings from the 1890s.  A story from the Nebraska State Journal quoted the president of the Women’s Rescue League that bicycle riding by women is “leading them headlong to the devil.”  She was seeking an act of Congress to forbid women to ride bikes.  If Amy Goodman had been around at the time she would have gladly given this dissenter a voice on Democracy Now if only to pose her favorite question, “What are you demanding?”

Rosen inserts a wide breadth of bicycling anecdotes, including Frank Zappa strumming a bicycle wheel on the Steve Allen show, speculating about the whereabouts of two exercycles on the Titanic, Annie Oakley blasting clay pigeons while riding a bicycle.  Though he pointedly warns early on that his  book will have nothing about bike racing, he manages to insert Maurice Garin, the winner of the first Tour de France.  

The book starts with an array of creation theories as to the origin of the bicycle, most of which he debunks, including the myth of Leonardo da Vinci having drawn one up.  There are way more claimants to being the inventor of the bicycle than one could imagine.  Even the Russians and Chinese join the fray, pointing to obscure countrymen as the first to create a bicycle despite all evidence pointing to a German, Karl Friedrich Drais, who concocted a two-wheeled device in 1817 that one could sit upon after propelling one’s self by foot.  Pedals came later added by a Frenchman in the 1860s.  So many books have been written about these early years, each seeking a fresh angle, I just wanted to skim over it all, wondering what Rosen would find to write about in the coming pages.

He devotes thirty-four pages, ten per cent of the book, to Barb Brushe and Bill Samsoe, letting them tell in their own words the story of their riding across the country in 1976 as part of an entourage of over four thousand cyclists in multiple small groups celebrating the Bicentennial.  Bill was a group leader and Barb was in a group just ahead of Bill’s.  They repeatedly crossed paths, making a connection that led to marriage.  Forty years later they repeated their crossing, though with a sag wagon and staying in hotels rather than camping.  In describing their first crossing Rosen says riders were continually “catching” flats, an unorthodox description of riders “suffering” flats.  Another red flag to his bicycling acumen is his acknowledgement in his “Personal History” chapter that “to this day I can barely patch an inner tube.”

He makes several passing references to the Critical Mass phenomenon that originated in San Francisco in 1992 and swept the world, but it’s not until his last chapter that he describes it in detail, though only giving it two pages, and never seemingly engaging in one himself.    After the first mention on page ten I checked the index to see if there would be more and was disappointed to see it wasn’t listed in the twelve page index.  Thus it came as a pleasant surprise when he did give it more than a nod.  It could have been one of those subjects, like racing, that he didn’t care to write about since it had been written about so thoroughly elsewhere.  It may have been overlooked in the index, but “corking” was not, a feature of Critical Masses, of cyclists blocking intersections holding bikes overhead so the critical mass of riders can continue flowing through.  The index also had other obscure references such as ball bearings and rain riding and ghost bikes.  

Curiously the book doesn’t include a bibliography though plenty of books are mentioned in his forty-three pages of footnotes.  Two of the footnotes are included with his email address if one would like him to send a copy of an article he had found.  I’m still awaiting a response. 

There is no mention of his fellow New York bicycle devotee David Byrne nor reference to his book “Bicycle Diaries” or his recent show on Broadway that included bicycling.  Simone Beauvoir merits a mention and Steve Jobs and Hitler and Henry Miller and Mark Twain and, of course, H. G. Welles.

He doesn’t harp on the bicycle as being a savior for the environment as much as he could.  He veers off on several tangents that the bicycle hasn’t always been good for the environment since producing bicycles causes environmental damage and exploitation of workers, rather irrelevant issues in a book titled “Two Wheels Good.”  But it is his bent to embrace all, as he does when he chooses “she” rather than the standard “he” for a generalization of all humans.  

One senses at times he ventures off topic to fill up his quota of pages, such as two pages on a relative of the stunt rider MacAskill who was a giant—seven feet nine inches tall.  He also includes several paragraphs on Drais not relevant to the bicycle story, but interesting, fleeing Germany for Brasil in 1822 because his father a judge made an unpopular decision.  One often can’t help but to think, “That’s interesting, but what does it have to do with this book?”

It’s all made up though with his occasional rapturous endorsements of riding the bike.  It can be dangerous he acknowledges, especially in New York City traffic, “but to trudge through your days without biking—that’s no way to live.”

 

“1001 Voices on Climate Change,” by Devi Lockwood

Devi Lockwood set out to bicycle around the world in 2014 at the age of twenty-two shortly after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard with the goal of collecting stories on climate change.  She endured for nearly two years until an amoeba turned up in her intestines in Cambodia at about the same time she began to suffer panic attacks following a harrowing van ride. She regretfully curtailed her travels, feeling like a “failure,” and returned home to New Hampshire to regain herself.

She had already gathered plenty of material for a book, largely thanks to a sign she carried that read “Tell me a story about climate change“ on one side and “Tell me a story about water“ on the other.  But she sought more material, resuming her travels for another couple of years, but unfortunately not by bicycle. 

Although the first half of the book is laced with almost enough incidents of cycle touring and endorsements of the bicycle as an ideal means to connect with people to qualify the book as a travel book, there is no indication on the cover of the book in words or in design that this is a book that would appeal to cyclists. Rather than inserting a bicycle anywhere on the cover to lure those with a bent for the bicycle, the cover is entirely blotted with an array of water drops, including one that forms the “O” in “Voices,” emphasizing the book’s theme of water.

She is a strong advocate of the bike, paying tribute to it in many ways, including saving her final thanks in her two pages of acknowledgements at the end of the book to her grandfather for teaching her to ride a bike.  It is well-nigh inexplicable that she would abandon the bike after it being her featured means of transport in New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia for nearly two years. Not even when she resumes her travels in China, a former stronghold of the bicycle, does she take advantage of it to get around, nor in Denmark either, where the bicycle is a dominant feature.  

After writing so much about how the bicycle drew people to her and how she loved being outside all day with “no windshield, just immersion,” the no-bike second half of the book came as a disappointment.  It was hard to fathom that she could lose her loyalty to the bike after expressing such devotion to it,  and didn’t at least rent or borrow a bike in her further travels.  The bike as a means to combat climate change could have been a prominent theme of the book.  She shouldn’t have let a page pass without demonstrating the utility and wisdom of riding a bike, not only for the good of the planet, but for one’s personal well-being.

She gives no reason for abandoning the bike as a means of immersing herself into the many countries she later travels including Morocco and Turkey and Peru and Scandinavia.  It wasn’t because of any frights she had while cycling.  Those only occurred when she was off the bike, the worst when monsoon rains in Laos forced her to take a fourteen-hour van ride to cross into Cambodia.  She was crammed in the back seat next to an American who she accused of “mansplaining” for a condescending remark he made.  He responded by calling her a “feminazi cunt” and tried to strangle her when the trip ended in Phnom Penh.  The driver was no help, as he had earlier thrown a can of coke at her head irritated that she checked on her bike at every stop when more cargo was placed on top of it.

She had another unpleasant, but more benign, experience earlier when traveling by cargo ship.  While in New Zealand she met Chris Watson,  the author of the book “Beyond Flying,” a collection of essays discouraging travel by air, who tells her that “flying is by far the worst thing that many of us do for the planet.”  That convinces her to cover the 1,200 miles across the Tasman Sea to Australia by boat and to try to avoid flying for the rest of her trip.  She launches a kickstarter campaign to pay for her expensive passage on a cargo ship and raises the funds in “a day and one hour.”  She’s the lone female, which was unsettling at times.  

She manages a couple more legs on sailboats but after four months of trying to find passage to Thailand by sea gives up and flies. The ease of flight is hard to avoid, even for someone committed to doing as little harm to the planet as possible.  Later in the book she admits to flying from New York to San Francisco without any explanation for not taking advantage of Amtrak.  It may not be as egregious as flying, but she also reveals that she went to a Starbucks in Instanbul forgoing the countless local coffee establishments.

The book was published by Tiller Press, an off-shoot of Simon and Schuster, that specializes in non-fiction on “real-world problems.”  She and her agent spent quite a spell trying to find a publisher, commenting that it felt like they suffered “1,001 rejections,” mostly on the grounds that books about climate change don’t sell.

She does make her book readable, not bogged down by statistics, but rather anecdotal evidence that the climate is changing from the “1,001” people she meets during her travels who respond to her sign.  Most of the stories are about how much hotter it has become and how water is becoming scarce or in the case of the island republic of Tuvalu, raising the ocean level threatening its survival.  

She begins the book in Tuvalu at the suggestion of “my then girl-friend,” the first of several mentions of her sexuality.  She does no biking on these nine coral atolls that comprise ten square miles and receives just 150 visitors a year, some who merely stop in to add to their list of countries visited. It’s highest point is thirteen feet above sea level, which is gradually becoming less elevated as the ocean inches upward. The stories of water there are not only of the sea rising but the loss of well water that used to supply the islanders their drinking and bathing needs. The only non-salt water now available to the islanders is from rain, which everyone assiduously collects. She stayed with a family, as she often does, sometimes through the cycling “Warmshowers” community.  To shower she snuck into a Telecom building at night along with one of the family members who worked there.

Rain was another of her water stories from a woman who’d arrived in Sydney in 2002 during a severe drought.  A torrential downfall brought everyone out, even office workers in suits and dresses, to dance with hands up to the sky so thrilled to have water.  A couple people respond to the water question with stories of tears.  A 70-year old woman told her, “My biggest water story at the moment is shedding tears when I heard my grandson play the piano as part of a symphony.”  Another woman recalls giving birth, breaking water and ending the birth with tears, “my fourth water.”

The sign Lockwood wears around her neck became such a part of her at times she’d forget about its presence.  Once as she was sitting under a tree reading she was startled by a woman asking “what is that all about” referring to her sign.  She tells her a story of gently washing her just-deceased mother.  Her water question struck a non-climate change chord with many.   Another was about a guy’s younger brother who died from a pot of boiling water falling on him, the water having to be boiled to purify to make it drinkable.

She is told multiple times that it’s not advisable for a woman to travel alone. She knows that plenty do and that she does it not only for herself but for “all the women who are unable to do so.”  She bikes for several weeks in Australia with a Belgian woman she met through Facebook who is less leery of stealth camping than she is.  Their time together gives her greater confidence to stealth camp on her own, coming to prefer it to staying in Australian caravan parks, as she found them to be “hostile places for a solo female.”  

If this had been a true travel book she would have devoted more than two paragraphs to her time with the Belgian.  She didn’t even credit her with a water or climate story. Her many descriptions of sunsets and sunrises in the first half of the book were however symptomatic of a travel book.  There were thirty-one in the first 159 pages, but only four in the second half when she didn’t travel so much as fly to environmental conferences.  She had been so attentive to the sun’s comings and goings, as one is who is outdoors all day, she used the sunset as a metaphor for her reaction to the abundant use of vowels in the Tuvalu language.  She wrote, “The vowels in this language taste as delicious in my mouth as sunsets are bright.”  One sunset was so stunning she wanted to throw herself into it.

How much of a difference this book will make is hard to say, maybe no more than the messages she wrote on telephone poles and highway guardrails as she cycled—“Just play” / “Slow is beautiful” / “Read more poetry”.  She was just happy to give voice to so many, hoping it could inspire others to think about the issues they raised.  Only one library in the Chicago system has acquired it—the Chinatown branch.  But like every pedal stroke it is a motion forward.