sla book review: bicycling beyond the divide

bicycling beyond the divide

Reviewed by Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University

APRIL 12, 2008 archive

Bicycling beyond the Divide

In Bicycling beyond the Divide, Daryl Farmer (University of Nebraska, English Department) reprises a 1987 bicycle journey he took as a twenty-year-old college dropout by getting his wheel out of the basement, dusting it off and retracing the route nearly twenty years later. Undoubtedly, we have done similar journeys, reliving an event by returning to places not visited for a long time. In 1989, I rode from my home in Ashland, Ohio, to Provincetown, Massachusetts, on the tip of Cape Cod. Part of my ride took me on old Route 17, aka the New York Quickway, which now runs under new Route 17 (now I-86) for a stretch in upstate New York. In my mind 's eye, I often relived different parts of that ride; about ten years ago, I had the good fortune to be traveling by car along Route 17. I recognized the old route beneath me, got off the highway, parked and walked along the road I'd bicycled. While interesting to me and perhaps for a few sentences to you, Farmer has that rare ability to do the same, holding the reader's attention for 300 pages as he looks for and finds his lost youth.

Lance Armstrong and Daryl Farmer both share the same misconception that "it's not about the bike." Armstrong defies the odds and his doctors prognoses by triumphing over testicular cancer, which had spread to many other parts of his body, including his lungs and his brain. While his autobiography focused on survival, the reader has to acknowledge and accept the role bicycling played in his miraculous recovery. Farmer's book is about his journeying through life, how the college dropout and the English Ph.D. see the world from the saddle of a Trek 520, a classic American made touring bicycle. Like Armstrong's book, the bicycle provides the raison d'être for not only the book but for the life as well. Only after his bicycle is stolen during the second journey does Farmer realize its importance. One night he slept in the bleachers of a high school athletic field in North Bend, Oregon, and awoke to find his wheel gone. No matter that he knew the loss of a bicycle for an adult did not equal a tragedy, he understood it did have a certain identity, and he left North Bend, lost without it. He flew to San Francisco to meet his wife, accepting the end of his journey. There he learned the police had recovered his bicycle and gear intact. Elated he returned to Oregon to continue his odyssey.

As all good long distance bicyclists do, Farmer kept a journal as he rode, dutifully recording his mileage, his average speed, weather conditions and the daily, often mundane experiences of life on the road. The first time he thought of making bicycling his lifestyle; the second time he intended, beyond reliving his youthful experience, to improve his health, thus making both journeys about lifestyle. Unlike this writer, who is a "credit card" bicyclist (I do not camp-my definition of roughing it is a cheap motel), Farmer traveled with tent and camping gear lashed to his rear rack. When I rode to Provincetown, I met Peggy in upstate New York and rode with her for some twenty miles. A nursing student at Portland State University, she traveled across country to visit her aunt and uncle in Connecticut. Until she crossed the Mississippi, she often just camped alongside the road, as did Farmer. Although he carried the essential equipment for life on the road in his panniers on the second journey, that time he spent much more time in motels and campgrounds. He soon learned that the West had changed in the twenty years between trips, discovering the differences resulted in far fewer opportunities to unroll his sleeping bag and camp wherever he wanted. Were Peggy to cross the continent again by bicycle, I suspect she would have a similar reaction.

Throughout the book, Farmer takes the reader along as a participant rather than an observer. The reader feels the struggle of climbing the Going to the Sun Highway that crosses the Continental Divide in Montana, the relentless rain or the debilitating wind. Despite the difficulties associated with the weather and the topography, the reader also feels the sheer joy of life in the slow lane, the thrill of the descent after a long climb, the warmth of the sun, and the friendliness of the people along the way. People perceive bicyclists as non-threatening and, therefore, often open their yards, their homes and their lives to them in ways they would not to someone driving an automobile. In another comparison between the bicycle and the auto, Farmer recalls his crossing of the central Nevada desert. When he had driven through Nevada, he found it desolate and forlorn; on the bicycle, he saw it full of life and beautiful. Even if you have no interest in bicycling, if you haven't ridden one in years and have no intention of getting it out now that the weather is warmer, ride along with Daryl Farmer to learn more about living.

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