posted 11 hours ago
When I was 17, I had a friend named Beth who was one year older than me. She graduated from high school and the next day, got on an old 12-speed (this was 1987) and rode from St. Louis, Missouri to Portland, Maine and back. It was an adventure, but she found most people along the way were either indifferent or kind. No one tried to kill or rape her. The funniest thing to me was her most effective method of begging for alms. She'd stop at a restaurant -- a cheap place but not a chain and speak with the manager. She'd tell them about her trip and that she was hungry, and then she'd ask if they had any dishes that needed washing or whatever in exchange for a meal. She said sometimes they'd just tell her to get lost, and once in a blue moon they'd put her to work. But usually, they just fed her. Sometimes it was like she was trading a story for a meal like some latter-day bard.
Related to this, we camp on the north-north shore of Lake Superior for a week most summers at Neys Provincial Park. On the way, between Thunder Bay and Neys, we pass a lot of bikes. There's *nothing* out there and the riders are kitted for a trip, so they're clearly not local. I have the sense that riding the Trans-Canada is a real thing -- more of a tradition than any US equivalent. I think that's pretty neat.
Anyway, with a few skills in maintaining your ride, and maybe a couple hundred dollars, someone who wanted to get just about anywhere on the continent, could. Seems romantic.
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