There you have it, in extract form.
After 20 blog posts, I’ve pretty much summarized my Baja tour in an easy-to-read lol format that looked at the experience more than the terrain itself. It was like many others but it was also something I recreated in my own way.
I never intended for these blog posts to become the definition of anything, but rather, to quickly write down some memories of the days spent on the bike and the motivation I had for doing this ride in the first place; and those were actually some of the best days of my life. But instead, these messages became defining and, in doing so, suddenly skewed my life to the extreme. I forget how meaningful words are.
At best, these articles elaborate little on the juxtaposition I had or have with society and instead suggest how well I might fit in as just a fellow cyclist, which must be remote. Or again: to be a cyclist is to be an exception in society and to be an exception is in some way to be alienated. The weirdos, the bike geeks, the tramps, the bums, the tweakers, the rosés, the cyclists, etc., the humble ones, often. My feeling is exaggerated about this, but living as a cyclist will make you realize the difference that cycling makes to the way you live.
It was also my first international trip but not my first international cycling adventure. All other experiences for me have been in the United States. I found it truly liberating and often (or, in fact, forever) desperate to travel by bike. Surprise? Maybe not. The bike is sort of a daily reminder that you’re not far from the earth, and when you keep talking about it – the bike – it becomes a part of you. You and your bike share the same head-to-toe dirt patterns every day. A true message from human and machine.
How it ended: 1700 miles later.
I fled San Javier Mountain through the ranches and arroyos and out into the plains and into federal secular communities No. 1 and No. 2, precursors to the working communities in the foothills before Ciudad Constitución. These communities clustered in flat agricultural expanses and the South of Baja brought heat with the daytime in the mountains exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I can’t say I was sulking, but I also knew the trip was coming to an end as I arrived in these midlands of the southern peninsula. I knew what awaited me and I knew how I felt about it. It was also an absurd statement because the ride can be whatever you want it to be and for me, at that moment, there in Baja, I wanted it to end, I guess. It was another 300 miles to La Paz, and Cape Loop, and then mainland Mexico and none of that mattered as much as a nice cold motel room.
Joe and Helen met there in town. I think we were out for two days before I decided to call it good and they decided to venture out. It was the end. I didn’t want to keep pedaling perpetually. I confirmed for myself in Baja that although I am capable of suffering, I also, like any human being, want amenities if I can afford them, and in that I can. And so I returned to the United States transformed. I was humble and graceful in my movements, and everything was so much slower for me. Because I have changed. I slowed down. And because of my travels, it took – and still takes – a long time to reintegrate into society. In fact, I was, at minimum, aloof or by definition distant when I was cycling. I found this appropriate.
I’ll let this mini-series move forward. I am now and writing from Juneau, Alaska; another overall effort that I’m going to talk about, which still concerns cycling.
The opposite of Baja. Oh how I dream of the desert.
Thanks for reading. The reflection of public scrutiny constitutes a real boundary.
