Disneyland to Disneyworld
Suzanne Schlosberg, 27, a free lance writer and former senior editor at Shape Magazine, wrote a series of articles about her 47-day bicycle trek from Anaheim to Orlando. When she's not bikeschlepping across America, Suzanne rides with the Advanced Rec and Racer groups. Here is another of her dispatches:
Navarre, Fla. -- In the five weeks since we left California, on our bikes, we've been asked a hundred times -- at truck stops, gas stations, diners and Dairy Queens. "Where are ya'll headed?" "Florida", we've said over and over again. But our destination has always seemed so far away to us that we might as well have answered, "Nairobi."
Well, we're here. Today, Wednesday, we crossed the Alabama/Florida border at Perdido Key, and with the help of a glorious tail-wind, flew into Navarre at 25 miles and hour on a straight, smooth road that skirted the white sands and turquoise water of the Gulf of Mexico. It's hard to believe: We're just nine days and about 600 miles from Orlando. After 38 days on the road, our original group of 74 is nearly intact -- four cyclists left early as planned because of work commitments, and one man left the group in Texas after breaking his ankle in a bike accident.
But, with 2,669 miles under our butts, we don't look or feel like the same bunch of cyclists. Our legs and lungs are much stronger, and with this strength has come confidence and freedom. It takes us less time to cover the 80 miles or so we cycle each day, so we have a lot more time to check out the sights and visit with the locals.
"I used to start days with a complete fear that I wouldn't be able to finish," said Seth Segel, 25, a management consultant from Miami. "Now, 80 miles is like a Saturday ride in the park. It's amazing -- the miles come off so fast."
For the first two weeks of the trek, Marti Darling's knees hurt so much that she had to finish each day's ride in the support van. The first day, she made it only 40 miles. "I just felt like a total failure," said Darling, 44, a sign painter from Twisp, Wash. "It was such a humbling experience."
Today, Darling was among the first two dozen to arrive at our seaside campground. "I don't even get warmed up until 40 miles," she said, smiling. "And I don't have to argue with my legs anymore. Before, they'd be aching and hurting. It was like they were on strike. Now I've got all kinds of confidence. It's fun to see yourself get stronger every day."
Perhaps no one has gained more strength than Ellen Halliday, who turned 64 on Mother's Day -- day 21, 1,524 miles -- and is the oldest woman on the trip (the oldest man is 66). During our 90mileaday journey through the California and Arizona deserts, Halliday was on her bike from sunup to sundown, stopping only for food and rest. "I was always exhausted," she said. "At the end of the day, I couldn't wait to crawl into my tent."
By the last week, when we meandered along the lush Louisiana bayous, Halliday was a new cyclist. "I had it in my mind that I'm slow and that no one's going to want to ride with me," said Halliday, a grandmother who lives in Escondido, Calif. and took up cycling at 50. "But I discovered I have a lot more stamina and endurance than I thought I had. If someone passes me, I don't just sit there. I try to speed up. When I can keep up, it's exhilarating."
Her confidence on the bike has spilled over into other parts of the trip. On the Alabama coast, Halliday went jet skiing for the first time. "I'll probably try a few more things before it's over," she said. "I feel I can do anything now."
When the trek began, many cyclists were so anxious about completing each day's ride that alarm clocks started beeping at 4:45 a.m., and the symphony of zippers -- from sleeping bags and luggage -- was in full force by 5. These days, nobody sets an alarm, and most people sleep in until 6.
"We always know we're going to make it, so we challenge ourselves by leaving as late as we can -- it's a game," said Ed Villareal, 20, who will be a freshman at Boston College in the fall. On Monday, Villareal and his brother Rod, 24, left New Orleans at noon after shopping all morning.
We don't thing twice about stopping for an hour or two if a person or a place seems intriguing. On Monday, when we crossed into Mississippi on a rural, tree-lined road, a couple of us stopped a kid on the street and asked him to take our picture at the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign. Afterward, the boy, a 14yearold named Tray, invited us to his house for a Coke, introduced us to his enormous pet hog named July, and showed us the alligator he had captured in a a mud hole the day before.
Ironically, as our group has gotten stronger, we've become less competitive. Most people no longer care whether they pedal into camp first or last. Arriving late in the day doesn't necessarily mean you're a slower cyclist. It could mean you simply stopped and had fun along the way.
Dave Merlino, 20, of Seattle, said he began the trip as a "type A" personality, "My biggest thrill was passing people on the bike -- moving up the ranks. Subconsciously, I was keeping a log of how many people I passed." For two weeks, he said, he hated the trip. "I couldn't understand why I was on vacation getting up at 5:30 in the morning to spend 12 hours on my bike, just to go to bed and get up and do it all over again."
Now, he said, "I'm kind of sad it's ending. I've mellowed out a lot and learned to be more spontaneous. I'm actually seeing the country. Yesterday it took me three hours to do the first 10 miles. I stopped at every store that was open."
Not every stop has been a success. At Gulfport, Miss., Merlino sneaked into a casino and gambled away $20 in a halfhour.
As a group, we've become less competitive partly because we've become friends. When you've battled 103 degree heat together, scrambled for shelter during driving rainstorms and been feasted upon by swarms of mosquitoes, you're not about to create extra obstacles for one another. You're a lot more likely to buy everyone a round of beers. People are always eager to help out.
"When a person has a flat tire, everyone else takes over," said Julie di Furia, 30, of Seattle. "The person who gets the flat never changes the tire." As the end draws near, people are appreciating the group more than ever.
"When I first came on the trip, anyone who was snoring near me, I wanted to kill 'em," di Furia said. "But in New Orleans, when we had our own rooms at Tulane University, I couldn't fall asleep -- no one was snoring. And I missed the zippers."