The Idea

The Idea

The epiphany to ride a bicycle across America, I think came to me, when I joined Rail to Trails Conservatory somewhere around 1988. I had been riding trails in the midwest more than forty years. Remembering the my first trail ride is difficult but it likely it took place in the late seventies while living in Ames, Iowa preparing to ride RAGBRAI VII (Register's Annual Great Ride Across Iowa). Connie, the better half of this couple and our sons, Chris and Geoff joined me on a few training rides in the Ames area. One training excursion involved riding the shoulder of county roads eighteen miles from our abode at 4101 Trail Ridge Circle in west Ames, to Hickory Grove Park southwest of Colo, Iowa. The boys were excited to build a campfire, eat s'mores and sleep out under the stars. Unfortunately there are undesirables in this country who make parks 'their' unconventional playground. Around midnight, a bunch of thug-like idiots rolled-in to claim the park theirs; proceeding to sit-up a kegger with obnoxious heavy metal "music" blaring from coliseum-style boom boxes. Poor Connie, with her keen hearing, was more miserable than the rest of us. When morning finally came and we broke camp, polite and patient Connie, switched into the biggest clang -bang, "No Thank You" heavy metal, angry woman in the park. Her approach worked. The idiots were disturbed enough to emit moans and groans from their pick-ups and vans. Although this training ride was not the best of situations, it did prepare us for a couple of rough nights on RAGBRAI, especially in Fairfield, Iowa, where a rogue storm created a raging river through our tent. Then there was the the last night of RAGBRAI in Wapello, when a terrorizing party ramped up to eliminate any chance of sleep.  

The Glenn Maze’s joined the RAGBRAI VII’s two wheel* rolling party somewhere east of our home in Ames, Iowa.   Connie was not a fan of the bicycle at this point in her life but she was quite the rider in her school days. She consistently pedaled her three speed bike on gravel roads from her rural home seven plus miles to softball practice in Alburnett. That would not be a smart idea in this day and age. She was super trooper to take on RAGBRAI and rode with Geoff while I tried to keep up with Chris. The boys were young, Chris 12 and Geoff 9, maybe too young to be riding 140-plus miles in three and a half days. Chris and I made it the whole way without begging for a lift in a most appreciated sagwagon, brother Don’s van.  Uncle Don (Aunt Donald as Geoff called him), Aunt Mary better half, is my cool brother who rode several RAGBRAIs in a row, starting with the Second RAGRAI (originally called SAGBRAI) in 1974.  I bet Don is one of a few regular bike riders in their seventies who can say they rode with Des Moines Register columnists Donald Kaul and John Karras in the earliest RAGBRAI days. This year, 2012 will mark forty years of pedaling from the Hawkeye State’s western border (Missouri River) Iowa to the eastern border (Mississippi River). For you trivia pursuers, Iowa is the only state that with two of its borders marked by major rivers.
My idea of riding rail trails seemed safer than road biking. Unless one was to go on a ride like RAGBRAI, where half the road was cordoned off by police and highway patrolmen, there are few safe ways to get places without gas, concrete/asphalt, rubber and steel. It will take centuries for drivers to accept that a bicycle has a place. Given that, I am convinced organizations such as Rails to Trails Conservancy (www.railstotrails.org) will have the greatest impact in getting Americans off their duff to commute to work, run errands and recreate on trails separate from the roadways. If it has taken more than thirty five years for the automotive industry to even consider electric vehicles. I know it won’t be in my grandkids lifetime that an ideal mode of transportation, bicycles, will be anything like what occurs in Europe.

To start off this traversing the USA adventure, Chris, Geoff and I will complete an eighty plus mile ride from Anniston, Alabama (Chief Ladiga Trail) to Smyrna, Georgia (Silver Comet Trail) the beginning of April. I hope to publish a blog at least every two weeks, yammering about the various sections of the rides on Rail Trails. Keep coming back and see what I have to offer. Cheers

*Most bikes were bi- (as in two) cycles but there were tricycle recumbents and unicycles too.