“I’ve had strangers just give me money. Single Mom’s take you in. People buy you a hotel room for the night when you didn’t even ask for it because they want to contribute to what you’re doing.”
Most of us live our lives looking forward to things. This is fortunate. This is the privileged position that we are in. It also means that we often neglect the present and miss out on the magic of the mundane. We look forward to getting off work, so we don’t have as productive of a day. We look forward to the weekend, so our week seems less fulfilling. We look forward to getting to our destination, so we overlook the beauty in the journey. Being present in the here and now is a popular philosophy, but few of us truly embrace it the way that today’s guest has. Reed is a tour cyclist. He rides his bike 100’s (sometimes 1000’s) of miles on vacation. He has ridden similarly freakishly long distances to work and back, day after day. Reed has taken what for many of us is the thing that stands between us and being where we want to be, and embraced it as the place that he does want to be.
“He was like, ‘You guys are gonna get it.’ And we’re like, ‘Get what?’ And he’s like, ‘You’re doing it, you’re out on the road, and once you go home real life isn’t gonna register for you the same way that this experience has.’”
“When you go from town to town depending on where you’re traveling the pendulum can swing pretty fast from you being a pariah to a hero.”
Interview Contents
2:20 - What is tour cycling?
3:00 - Reed’s first experience with tour cycling.
5:00 - Planning the trip and traveling without an iPhone.
7:00 - Determining what roads to travel on.
10:00 - Aches and pains.
11:45 - Traveling in cities.
15:00 - Cost of tour cycling.
17:30 - Necessities and other things you might want on the trip.
20:00 - Having life changing experiences on the road.
22:00 - Negative experiences on the road.
26:45 - Being a good receiver of gifts.
28:00 - Best cities/states for cyclists.
31:30 - The pros and cons of not owning a car.
45:00 - The history of cars and cycling in the United States.
54:30 - The Bikery.
58:30 - Bike tips.
1:00:00 - Advice.
Links
THIS EPISODE WAS MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Kevin Cole
Marcus Batson
Roxanna
Michelle & Jim Wortner
Janelle Swanson
Jimmy Seymour
