Suzanne Schlosberg, often seen on the CVC advanced rec. and racer rides, has twice done what most of us have only thought about: ridden her bike across the US. Suzanne, a free lance writer and former senior editor at Shape Magazine, reported to a Florida newspaper on her adventures. Here are more excerpts from her dispatches:
EL PASO, Texas -- You would think that cycling 80 miles a day across the country would provide plenty of time to contemplate the meaning of life, but after nearly two weeks of traversing the remote deserts, winding mountain roads and vast pastures of the Southwest, two thoughts predominate: "How many miles until the next Dairy Queen?" and "Are you guys sure we make a left turn here?"
At this point our metabolism is on overdrive and our sense of reality is a bit warped. We haven't lost any enthusiasm, despite some sore knees and chafed rear ends. But because of our nomadic existence, in which one day runs into the next and there is no work schedule to keep, we seem to have lost our sense of time and place. And a couple of cyclists have lost their way.
When we passed the 1,000-mile mark earlier today, Saturday, on our way into Texas, a few bicycle odometers showed evidence of unplanned excursions. Pat Riordan, a retired airline pilot, logged an extra 23 miles back in Arizona when he accidentally missed the turn to New Mexico. "I never got lost flying a plane," said Riordan, understandably miffed when he finally caught up with a bunch of us who had slept an extra hour that morning.
No one in our group has any problem finding the buffet table.
"We're all vultures," said Julie di Furia, 30, of Seattle who woke up starving one morning at 3 a.m. and scarfed down eggplant and potatoes that were left on the table from dinner. "You forget to chew. It just goes straight in."
"The other day I ate two chili cheese dogs in the microwave at 7-11," said Dennis Ahearn, 35, a police sergeant from Berkeley, Calif. "I sat there looking at them and savoring them. I thought they were T-bone steaks. I still remember those chili dogs."
Town names and dates are a blur right now, but I have vivid memories of the terrain and the people I've met. The biggest challenge so far has been a gradual, 17-mile uphill grade followed by a steep, four-mile hill that connects the Arizona desert floor with the lush pine trees of New Mexico's Apache National Forest (elevation: 6,295 feet).
It was the kind of hill that stops conversation cold. I pedaled up the mountain alongsied Alec Boga, a 44-year-old police sergeant from Berkeley, California, with a competative streak to match my own.
"OK, you talk now," Boga said, gasping for breath.
"No," I said, gasping even more but refusing to pull over and rest. "You keep talking. Police work sounds interesting."
At the summit, the temperature plummeted into the 30s and snow flurries began to fall. Drenched with sweat from the grueling climb up the mountain, we shivered while negotiating the sharp curves down the other side, the wind whipping throught our wet cycling jerseys and jackets.
At the bottom we were greated by higher temperatures and hot coffee at an old one-room schoolhouse in Mule Creek, N.M., a ranching community with a population of "around 100, if you count dogs, cats, and pigs," according to Vonnie Johnson, 63, a Mule Creek native.
Serving cookies with Johnson was Dolly Roach, 71, who plans to spend May chopping and splitting wood for her stove. She and her husband, Charlie, have 11 cords stored at their ranch, but they're aiming for a stockpile of 20.
Lest I think that chopping wood at age 71 was anything out of the ordinary, Roach began telling me about another resident of Mule Creek, 88-year-old Averil Taylor, who has run her ranch single-handedly since her husband died 16 years ago. "She castrates her bulls, brands her cows and climbs up the windmill to fix the blades if they go out," Roach said. "And she doesn't have electricity."
I decided that this was a woman I needed to meet and asked Roach if she thought it was OK for me to cycle to Taylor's house unannounced. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said. "Mrs. Taylor's a good shot."
So Vonnie Johnson drove Boga and me several miles up a dirt road to the Taylor Ranch. SHe met us at the door wearing a maroon and white print dress, a worn jean jacket, and white sneakers that had turned gray. A bit surprised to see visitors in black lycra tights and fluorescent orange windbreakers, Mrs. Taylor nevertheless invited us into her cozy living room.
On one table sat a kerosene lamp, on another was a radio she bought in 1939 but had not turned on in 25 years. ("too much racket and politics," she said.)
Realizing that I hadn't read a newspaper or watched TV since leaving Anaheim on April 18th, I concluded that Mrs. Taylor did have somthing in common with our group of 74 cyclists after all: a sense of time that was slightly out of kilter.
Boga and I thanked Mrs. Taylor for her time, and drove back with Vonnie Johnson to the community center. Johnson asked us which town we were pedaling to next. Boga and I looked at each other and shrugged.
We got back on our bikes and pedaled down the empty road, checking our daily route guide a couple of times to make sure we were still heading toward Texas. We hadn't gone three miles before my stomach started growling, at which point we stopped underneath some trees and devoured our emergency stash of red licorice and McDonald's cookies.
[to be continued]