I was 14, perhaps 15, sitting in the back of the big Oldsmobile Delta 98 at some random stoplight on a random day. The light was red and we were stopped. I don't know what was on my mind, which likely means that it was nothing of importance, nothing out of the ordinary. At that same second that the light turned green, as my father started the beast car forward - a motorcyclist blew by. No, be rather instead breezed by. He didn't get stuck by the light and as he passed at full, but slow speed it wasn't the fact of it, but rather the feel of it that stuck in my mind. He had an attitude, a body language that was, to me, unmistakeable. He was free. He was reveling in it.
I wanted that.
My freedom had no motor. Even better, as there were fewer rules. I lived on my bicycle. From age 12 when I got my first ten speed "racer" I was on it, exploring around. My culture and my family had a different outlook than the prevalent canadian outlook and for better or worse my parents had faith in me and would never have thought of watching over us like hawks, as parents today do. No. It would suggest that I was a nit-wit. At worst if I got into a scrape of some sort I would likely get in trouble at home if I didn't show independence and good judgement. For better or worse as I've said - but the upshot of that was that I had freedom. On many a Saturday or Sunday I would, from age 12, go adventure, further and further in my neighborhood and slowly broaden the circle out further and further. As long as I was home by dark I had the freedom to go all day and often would. I've often wondered if those early days of broadening my horizons developed in me an wanderlust or if it was the other way around that the wanderlust and yearning for solitary exploration, for seeing the unfamiliar and being comfortable with the foreign instead brought out what was in my soul? I wonder? But it doesn't matter does it, all that counts is that it is there -and I can't get away from it, even when I would like to.
My father was an Engineer who had a portfolio of patents and worked on designing various processes for industry. In the course of that he traveled a moderate amount and when I was sixteen, we were uprooted to move to South Africa for two years. When you are sixteen your aren't really equipped for life on your own, but I pondered it. I did't want to go. I was scared to death. Heck, I read the papers! I think they (my parents that is) tied me up hand and foot and dragged me with them. Ya just can't seem to get respect, when you are sixteen, even though you know everything you are talking about!
So they dragged me to South Africa despite my outrage.
That is another one of those unanswerable questions. Do you automatically have the sweetest time of your life because you are sixteen, or is it the other way around, that you have to have an epic time and sixteen and all of what sixteen means is simply a coincidence? I dunno.
It simply was the time of my life. I learned things that are essential to freedom. Freedom of course is mostly a state of mind, and if it is then my experiences in South Africa made so much possible. I now know not to pre-judge too much. That kills a trip, don't you all agree, when there are preconceptions are so strong where we have expectations and prejudices and go somewhere to find out that they are true. And don't get me started about on that tall subject, on reading newspapers or listening to conventional outlooks. Heck, today it would then be best to put our children in a nice padded cell, early on and ourselves as well.
South Africa blew my mind and was the time of my life as I look backwards with tinted glasses. Freedom again is what it was and just as earlier, a bicycle happened to be essential to it. I did't call it touring. I was not aware of such a thing. It was a bit more innocent and unaware. I simply got onto my bicycle, frequently and went somewhere. Sometimes it would be for a fast ride for several hours and other times it would be for days. My father, who if he were still alive, I would like to thank, was still the same. He believed I could take care of myself, indeed he demanded it and as long as I explained when I expected to be back allowed me my indulgence. He pointedly would not help me though, except in case of an emergency. I had to babysit for my money and there was not much of it. Funny though, that now when I/we have so much in the way of gear, that back then when I had none to speak of it made no difference. I had a rack and a bag. One blanket, one tarp, one change of clothes and some rope was all that it would fit. I slept on the beach and sometimes would not eat except for peanutbutter and bread. How is it that I loved it so much then? How is it that now I'm outfitting myself out with everything possible and preferably the best there is? It crosses my mind that I may be insulating myself that way from what it is that made me love bicycle tripping and freedom.
I wont bore you with but an outline of the time between then and now. I of course didn't appreciate the concepts, even as I enjoyed the time. It was almost foreshadowing. Our time in South africa was up and Australia was next ... for three years. But we didn't go. Did I slip into different ways? Accidental comfort? When my father announced that we would be going to Australia my sister and I talked my mother into talking him out of it. I missed my Canadian friends and familar routines. It think it happens that there is a cyclical aspect to travel. You are enchanted first, then you hate everything and finally it becomes normal life, what was an exotic storybook adventure. I was in that second phase. We went back. No Australia.
I've never been to Australia. Perverse is it not that when I think of all the places I'd like to cycle through, somehow Argentina and Australia seem most romantic while still being doable. Dang, I hate paying for mistakes!
It seems that the cosmos has a sick sense of humour.
We landed in Canada, our frozen home in in early March. Right in the middle of a blizzard. I had forgotten that I used to hate snow and frozen toes. I remembered in a hurry. I can't describe how I felt that first day of school among all of my old friends. I almost started to cry when I realised how my old friends didns't seem like friends anymore. I was dark and suntanned and they thought that was funny in a way that made me feel clearly that they didn't value my same sense of the different. They were cold, not warm like the teenagers in SA. The rudeness and cynical attitude shocked me and I think they thought I had turned into some kind of choirboy who said thank you and please. Your travels change you and how you see the world, don't they. So I changed schools but it was all the same. I felt outside the same way I had in an alien culture but you expect that when you go to new places, not when you come back to ? home.
I gave up cycling because my girlfriend, who was later my wife didn't get into it. But, she did love driving motorcycles so that became the focus for about 15 years. It was just like the bicycle had been and just as it should have been as I imagined it that day when a motorcyclist breezed by at that stoplight at that intersection when I was fourteen or fifteen. I was lucky perhaps. My daughter arrived when I was forty years old. I became responsible on cue. Its a long story but typical and predictable so we can skip it. She is now eleven. Marvelously spirited and has a joy in learning new things which are a lesson to me, the old guy.
So .... W'yDoWeDoWotWeDo? Speaking for myself, some of it is in the above sketch, the pale outline above. Perhaps a pathetic reach backwards. Didn't I say that we should not have expectations, that they ruin any fair chance. I think they do ... but I don't any longer know how to do that. I'll let you know how it is when my bicycle life part two starts sometime in a week or two with the arrival of my aptly named "Nomad". There is hope in that name!
But really, it doesn't matter anyways. It's not about me very much, now. Bicycling is such a simple thing. You pedal and you go somewhere and see some - thing. In the process you get a taste for freedom, adventure and a sense of the world being large. That is what I want. I want that for my daughter. That timeless urge - To pass something forward. ThatIsWhyIHopeToDoWhatSeemsLikeAnOddThingToPlan! Wish us luck.
And while I'm pondering the imponderables - whats a good frame size for a 156cm tall girl, with long legs who is growing? A tough frame that carries a load securely - and with a Rohloff hub, of course, and thank you? One that can take her everywhere?
