- "Youth is wasted on the young." --Emerson
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- Climbing. It's hard work having fun. My legs
pay a price in the mountains. I never complain because mountains provide
beauty not found on the flats. Many times, pedaling becomes incidental
because my eyes gaze at a distant canyon. At other moments, I may crest
a pass that offers a 50-mile view across cloud shrouded summits. With
every climb, a descent is inevitable. From hard work to gleeful fun.
After cranking for hours on a steep grade, at the top, pedaling becomes
easier. I shift into a higher gear, and seconds later, my gravity-motor
takes over. No more pedaling. I glide down the other side. It's sheer
delight after a long climb.
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- Yet, with mountain touring, it's in the back
of my mind that whatever I lose in elevation on a descent, the road will
make me pay with another climb.
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- That's the way the snaking road treated me
on Route 89 heading into Jerome, Arizona. What made it even more maddening
was the incessant up and down--all that morning. By the time I reached
the cobbled streets of the town, I felt tired. It was hot and sticky from
not taking a shower the night before. I stopped at a small park.
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- Jerome is perched on the side of a mountain, overlooking
the Red Rocks of Sedona 10 miles across the valley. After leaning my
bike against a table, I spotted a bench facing the valley. It was quite
a view. Sitting there, relaxing my legs, I looked up and down the street.
It was a ghost town. The well maintained storefronts were built in the
1800's. Hotel Connor (1898) stood on the corner of the main street. Jerome
had prospered during a gold strike, but was abandoned when the ore ran
out. If not for the cars, I could imagine horses and wagons, along with
cowboys riding up and down the streets. I sat there wondering how the
horses pulled heavy wagons up 2,000 foot grades from the valley.
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- I was chomping on my third banana and was about
to peel an orange when I noticed two riders coming up the street below
me. -They rode mountain bikes. One appeared younger and the second was
much older. They kept cranking until they spotted my bike. The older lady
turned toward me. She dripped sweat from her face and arms. Her jersey
was soaked.
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- "How are you doing this morning?"
I said, greeting her. "Looks like you've been working overtime."
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- "Ah," she smirked. "It's all
downhill from here, 'cept what's up."
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- "I guess you could look at it that way,"
I said, noting her rather odd statement. "Where you coming from?"
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- "We just busted our tails riding up from
the valley," she answered. "I'm training for a tour around Europe
for three months this summer. I wanna' be in shape for the Alps. I'm
gonna' do another 3,000 feet yet today."
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- "You're a glutton for punishment,"
I said. "These up and downs are killing me."
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- "I've been living in these mountains my
entire life," she said. "It's a matter of attitude, and you
won't find anyone with a better attitude than mine."
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- "I like you," I said. "My name's
Frosty."
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- "Katie Lee," she said, gripping my
hand. "I like your bike. It's a beauty. You sure have it loaded.
I like that orange flag out to the side and the one on top."
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- "I like drivers to see me long before
they pass," I said.
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- "Smart boy," she said. "I think
I'll do the same for my trip."
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- "I recommend it."
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- We talked, and talked some more. At 65, going
on 25, this lady was a walking dynamo. Her energy exceeded most people
one- third her age. She had been a dancer, cowgirl, bartender, guitarist,
mother, waitress, bookkeeper, saleswoman, farmer, mountain guide, horsewoman,
and was currently a singer in a country band.
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- As we talked into the morning about touring.
The conversation turned to people. She thought many folks had given
up their lives to television and cars.
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- "Damn boob tube anyway," she said.
"It's damn well ruined the youth of this country. They think their
problems should be solved in one hour. They think they can have something
for nothing. When they can't have it, they fall apart. You ever notice
how lazy everyone one is today? I mean, they drive the shiniest cars
while their bodies go to hell in a basket. Not me by God. I'm gonna'
make a hundred, and give 'em hell all the way."
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- Katie talked my ears off. Her spunk rubbed
off on me. I loved her spirit. She didn't know everything, but she knew
how to live. Her life force touched me. She picked me up that day.
She raised my consciousness. She had been through tough times, but never
sat around feeling sorry for herself. I promised myself that when I grew
older, I would remember her, and I would be like her.
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- In the afternoon, I coasted down a long curving highway
to the floor of the valley.
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- Free ride. It was fun, but at Camp Verde on Route 279,
the road climbed. Soon, trees replaced cactus and the road meandered
toward the sky. It carried me toward Strawberry Hill. I burned my
legs cranking up a steady incline. Twenty miles later and I was still
busting my butt wondering if that Queen Medusa of a mountain had a backside.
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- My legs exploded with blood. I guzzled quarts of water.
A monsoon of sweat from my body splashed onto the pavement. I munched
slices of bread, inhaled apples and swallowed chunks of banana like a
street sweeping vacuum cleaner at Disneyland. Into the- late afternoon,
the mountain still climbed ahead of me. I looked around each bend with
high expectation that it would be the crest. Forget it. This road was
taking me to heaven while putting me through hell.
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- In the early evening, golden sky banners waved
across the horizon, lit by a fiery sun. Just when I was about to call
it quits, and accept my fate of no bath again that night, I hit the top.
Shifting into higher gears, I rolled along easier, then faster. I leveled
off in high gear, going down, slowly at first, then faster. My whole
attitude changed. From a grinding struggle to ultimate success. A mile
later, a campground with a shower came into view. Then Katie popped into
my consciousness. She had said, "All you have to do is keep pedaling."
She was right.
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- It's all downhill from here, 'cept what's up.
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- Excerpt from: Bicycling Around the World: Tire Tracks
for Your Imagination by Frosty Wooldridge, Copies available at: 1 888 280
7715
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