The romance of pedaling the open road is well established: the camaraderie between strangers, the innate introspection, the breaking-down and getting lost and being found again.

The lure of escape and the search for transcendence were the auspices under which I began riding my bicycle. I was fifteen the first time I slipped out from underneath a rough blanket in a cheap roadside motel along highway 50 near Montrose and hopped on an old Diamondback mountain bike. I paused at the door, wondering if I should bring something along to eat. It would mean stepping over my two little sisters, sharing a rotting mattress on the floor beside the toilet and the mop bucket, near where the mice lived. I decided instead to ignore the emptiness welling up inside my gut and took a long drink of warm water to calm the gnawing. Read more