The Person Who Went

Nothing can ever bridge the gap between the person who stayed and the person who went. This is what I learned in 1982 on my first bikepacking trip. I really wanted the students who rode the bikes they designed and built to experience that glorious sense of accomplishment, seeing clearly how it is that a person can learn valuable lessons that extend far beyond cycling by doing hard things, one mile at a time.

The students - Ben, Jordan, Carter, Sayre, David, Ryan and Mickey - trained, researched gear, made frame bags, researched the course and of course built up the bicycle frames they designed and made.

On the first day out of Council Bluffs, hot weather, muddy level-b roads, climbing to the deck of an abandoned bridge to be able to cross a river, getting spanked by the Loess Hills, two mechanicals in three hours, navigation and coming up short by 10 miles on our target of Atlantic.

Bikepacking makes you flexible and adaptable, or you quit riding. And if you go 470 miles of gravel and trail you will be faced with obstacles, and so you will be required to be self-reliant. You will endure challenges, you will push through adversity, build resilience, and quite critically you will value attunement to your buddies having success.

Maybe the most rewarding thing in life is to have the opportunity the witness things come full circle, that is sticking with something and working back into it, over and over until the picture you had when you began burst out into the world with humming brilliance, a discovery that will never let go of you.