Archives : Originally posted July 21st, 2007
I just attempted to ride after Larry through the busy streets of Cleavland, Ohio. I lost him after he ran a red light and dodged a slow moving car, I had a camera tied in one hand, and the other hand was gripping the front brake, I couldn’t take turns and dodge cars quite as fast as he could. But I did try.
So, instead I tore ass through town, heading towards the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, making my way there based off of what I remembered the last time I was in Cleavland - in high school. I managed to find Larry in front of the R&R Hall of Fame, talking to a few people - the place was unusually packed because of a major skate competition going on along the lake.
Larry opted not to go inside and walk around because a) the doors closed in only an hour, and b) he said he stunk too much to be around that many people… I assume c) had something to do with his wearing salt soaked spandex.
Anyway, we are on our way towards Geneva-On-The-Lake, yes, that’s the town’s full name. I don’t have much time to update, but I wanted to post these three videos that Larry took, they’ve been collecting dust in my iPhoto library.
Above / 1st clip: A curve in the road: North Dakota is flat, I don’t think that’s news to anyone, but it’s also very, very, very straight. So much so that when Larry actually saw a curve a road… he just had to get it on camera.
Above / 2nd clip: ”Let ‘er ride, Larry”: While Larry was at the local bar in Esmond, ND, he met Gary. He’s escaped from Alcatraz, went head to head with Ali, was a tunnel rat in Nam’, and knows everything there is to know about music. Just ask him. He’s a legend.
Above / 3rd clip: Try sleeping through this: This was taken with Nokia, which sadly,the audio isn’t working on it during video mode, butthe video doesn’t leave much for the imagination. This was the first night Larry had a tent - it also just happened to be a incredibly stormy and windy night. The wind was actually blowing so hard, it ripped up the stakes in Amanda’s tent and pulled the floor up so fast it threw her MacBook into her face while she was typing on it. I don’t think any of us slept very well that night.
Archives : Originally posted July 5th, 2007
We’ve been on the road for 33 days now - when we left from Anacortes, Washington, we were meeting different people traveling by bicycle every day - some we got a chance to talk to on camera, some we just got a chance to introduce ourselves to. But somewhere after the badlands of North Dakota - everyone has disappeared.
Not sure if the bulk of people are ahead of us, or behind us - we’re in Fargo, North Dakota at the moment - and after a few videos finish uploading to JETSET’s servers, we’ll be heading east towards Dalbo. I know some of you might be taking the north fork after Fargo - either way, if you are anywhere on or near the Northern Tier - we’d love to hear from you.
Let us know where you’re at, and where you’ll be heading - we’ll do our best to find you. We’d really love to talk to as many different people out riding this summer as possible.
Also, we’re keeping pace with Larry, above is a picture of Larry (he’s looking a bit rough here, but trust us, he’s super nice) - if you cross paths with him, we’ll be close by. Hope to see you out on the road.
Archives : Originally posted July 2nd, 2007
Yesterday, while in Minot, we ate breakfast at Schatz’s, where our waiter had an outrageously cool dekotaaa accent - half-way through my breakfast burrito I said to Amanda that I had a good feeing about finding a bike in this town.
For those of you new to the blog, a few weeks ago, in Idaho, the bike was (mounted to the rear of the van) backed into a tree, and the frame snapped. It was sad.
Ever since, I’ve been looking in every bike shop we passed for a new used replacement - with no luck. So after eating we ran back into town, returned some rain coats we bought at Target, bought some Coldstone icecream, and went to Val’s Cyclery. When I asked if they had any used road bikes, they took me to the back and pointed to the only one they had in the store - which they had gotten only that morning.
It was a beautiful / sexy red Schwinn road bicycle - light as feather - and cheap too. $175 as is, it was obviously much, much more than that new. Barely ridden.
We paid, strapped it to the back of the van, along-side my old now-deformed bike, and drove east on the 2 to catch up with Larry. He about had heart-attack when he saw the bike - we popped off the pedals from my old bike and put them on the new one, and I rode about 5 miles with Larry, into the strong winds (which are blowing the wrong way, east to west, and have been for days).
We stopped at Ganville to look for two girl bicyclist we’ve been hearing so much about, but no one was there. The town had a cool vibe to it, in an old abandoned kind of way, so I leaned the bicycle up against the back of the van and walked around taking some video. As I reached the end of the block (only about 200 feet away from the van), Amanda called my cell phone, she was crying when I answered. “Your gonna’ kill me”, she said, and I knew what happened right away. Amanda was far more upset than I was, she felt horrible, but luckily the damage wasn’t to the frame this time. There was a tiny amount of bend’age near the derailer, but the rear tire came out all crazy.
We woke up this morning and drove an hour back into town - the guy at the bike shop was a bit surprised to see us again so soon. But “yay”, he managed to bend the frame back into place, and found a cheap replacement wheel. She’s back in business!
We spent about an hour poking around an old abandoned farm house yesterday evening. I love old houses - so much subtle history to them: the 1967 copy of reader’s digest on the floor… the years and years worth of pigeon shit covering everything… the two flower-patterned kitchen chairs left behind… the scattered baseball cards in the stairway leading to the second story. The empty rusted-out bed-frames in the master bedroom - from the looks of what’s left, 40-some years ago, it used to be a really fantastic little place.
[5 hours later]
We just finished hanging out on the side of the road with Larry - this head-wind is “sucking his will to live” (Wayne’s World quote). But joking aside, when he caught up with us, he was not too happy. I know the feeling… I sympathize.
We’re on our way into Esmond, ND - Larry wanted to push on past Devil’s Lake, but it’s another 26 miles straight into the “light breeze”. Half of this town is gone and boarded up - it’s been like that a lot lately.
Well, we just arrived at the park for the night - covered pavilions, quarter-showers, volleyball pit - cool place. The cafe’ is about the only thing still open this time of night, I think we’ll go check it out.
Archives : Originally posted June 27th, 2007
Command Center is the new nickname given to the van by Larry. It’s quickly becoming the “Command Center / Weather Tracker 3000 Plus” (or something close to that) because we have a 12ft crane bolted to the top of the roof-rack, and it’s making all the locals do a double take as they drive by. I’ve been asked if I was doing amature radio.
My computer says it’s 10:31pm, but I just realized it’s after midnight here in Parshall, North Dakota. Which leaves me just enough time to microwave a cup of easymac and down a Dr. Pepper, post two rough interviews from earlier in the week, and finally: sleep.
This first clip is of Phil and Liz, who were the first people we’ve met riding east to west (aka: into the raging wind). The sound on the FX1 is just the shotgun, the wide had the boom, so this is pretty much un-listenable. But it looks nice. Every once in a while, when the wind calms, you can hear what they are they are saying. When I have more time, after we are back from the road, I’ll be able to sync up the close and the wide for a second round of post.
This clip is of Hans and Elly, who, let me just say, I love. We’ve been on the road for 25-some days now, and we’ve met a lot of great people who are very cool, and fun to talk to. But it’s been hard finding the “voices” I had in mind for Pedal. Perhaps many of the people we’ve talked to so far are too early on in their rides to really dig deep into their experience. Hans and Elly are on their 2nd bicycle trip - their first was 30 years, when they spent 9 months traveling by bicycle from Holland to New Zeland. Their stories are amazing - I can’t wait to hear more. They really understand that trips like these are 99% mental. Amazing people.
Goodnight for now, world. Just for the record, I’m sporting a “Morgan Spurlock” at the moment - total ‘fu manchu’.
