On March 3rd, 2010 I arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina and ended my journey to the southernmost city in the world.

On July 25th, I left for Prudhoe Bay on the north shore of Alaska to begin a solo bicycle journey 15,000 miles south along the Pan-American Highway to Tierra Del Fuego, the bottom of South America. I traveled through the vast Alaskan wilderness, into Canada and crossed into the forests of northern Washington. From there I followed the coast down, all the way through the deserts of southern Baja, where I took a ferry to the mainland. I continued to follow the coast south through the rainforests of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Then came South America: Colombia, Ecuador, the endless deserts of Peru, Northern Chile and then finally Argentina. I will ended in Ushuaia and the bottom of the Americas.

This ride is a reminder of what can be accomplished through perseverance and a little hard work. It’s a reminder of what we as people are capable of, of what the human mind, body and spirit can achieve. I hope that I can help people realize that while it may take time, and it may be harsh and lonely at times, we can make our lives how we dream them to be. I do not want to be guilty of owning a life devoid of any living. Comfort and convenience are not synonymous with happiness!

For some reason I am under the impression that I will find both myself and God somewhere along this road. Maybe I won’t find either, but I must look! I want to allow the light of introspection a pure and undiluted chance to examine my soul. I have found greater value in thoughts born in solitude than those that spring from the fray of ordinary life. I hope this trip will be the beginning to a life full of experience, beauty and understanding. I don’t ever want to forget the way the world felt when I was a child: magical and huge, full of possibility and hope. I won’t let go of that. I am an artist at heart, and this, I hope, will be my first great work.

I am riding to raise awareness for 'Acirfa,’ a non-profit organization which provides quality bikes to the people of Zambia, giving them the means to help themselves, rather than depend on charity. A bicycle changes the life of a Zambian in ways that are difficult for Americans to imagine, allowing doctors to see more patients, parents to make a living and teachers to get to school.

To clear the air and clear your head, ride a bike once a week!

On Facebook? Join the Earning the Horizon group!


Thursday, November 26, 2009

Fatigue

Fatigue is an umbrella term we use to describe a range of
psychological and physical states. Fatigue can be a wonderful feeling,
a relaxed sensation of spent satisfaction. It can be a coursing rush
of endorphins and adrenaline which still flood your system even after
the challenge has passed. Fatigue often only really comes only when we
allow it to, and we only allow it to when the job is done, when we
have completed what we set out to do. This completion and achievement
factors in to the general sense of well-being that can come with
fatigue.
At its other extreme fatigue is a rawness of the nerves left by
abuse and overuse. It can leave someone feeling irritable, stressed
and strained. It's the fatigue that comes from spending hours in
traffic, from doing errands, from working a problem which you cannot
solve. It is most often caused by having the wrong frame of mind. It's
a fatigue that someones ones own anxiety inflicts on themselves. It's
a fatigue that comes from overwhelm and from a sense of being
powerless. I can also confirm that it is a fatigue that comes from
spending all day, everyday on a bike. I wish that I were simply able
to adjust my frame of mind and turn the feeling I have into that of
content completion, but no matter how well I begin a day, by the end
the stresses are almost always too great for me to bear with joy. Not
that my life is lived constantly in such a state, but the nature of
the fatigue that affects me at the end of a day is unfortunaltely not
that pure and completed kind. For that, go for a jog, take a nice
shower, and then make a good dinner.