Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter

 Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter

Hi there! Thanks for reading my dispatches. Yesterday was a good day, I seem to be finding my groove. I had hoped to do more mileage by now but I’m finding that 45 to 60 miles a day on this tour is good. I haven’t really talked about my bike that much, it’s a surly long-haul trucker, it’s a traditional long distance touring bike, made out of steel, two years ago I replace many of the parts with steel parts versus aluminum, the wheels are hand built and made for heavy loads I have 36 spokes in the front and 40 in the rear. The bike has 27 gears for a wide range of terrain Which in my opinion is essential when doing a long bicycle tour like I do where I utilize primarily paved roads but also I like the option of riding gravel and dirt. The handlebars are a drop bars like you see on traditional road bikes and this ensures a wide variety of hand positions in my opinion are the most comfortable handlebars for a bike tour. The pedals I use are platform pedals which allow me to wear any shoes I want and they’re wide enough to cover a good portion of my feet so I have less fatigue. The bike itself is extremely comfortable having a steel frame in my opinion is the only way to go the durability is the best out of all the frame materials and I can tell you this from experience after having a carbon fiber frame fail on me, And I just never really liked aluminum that much, too stiff for me. And like I said this is just my opinion everybody’s different. The bags I use my handlebar bag is a waxed canvas bag from Rivendell. The pain errors I’m using are the XM 45s from Arkel Out of Canada, they were given to me when Arkel sponsored me on a tour I did in 2011, and I’ve use them ever since Commuting all year long and on most of my bike tours as well, they have held up for the most part the two top zippers sometimes work sometimes don’t and the rain covers don’t really work that well anymore but the bag are fantastic if you look at them they seem like excessive but they hold everything you need and are extremely tough and durable and that is the most important thing for me versus weight I want some thing that last a long time and some thing I don’t have to worry about. On this trip I am using 1.95 inch CST tires which are holding up fine, I’m using tubes with sealant inside. Can I carry a pretty decent tool kit with me. And one spare tube and a patch kit. The long-haul trucker is a bike with little moving parts, so it is easy to repair and because it’s not a weight saving Bike, it is a very strong durable bike for long long distance. So far on the trip it is flawless.

Today is my 14th day on the road. I am in a campground by a lake, Little Grassy Lake just south of Carbondale, Illinois, and I should be in Illinois for the next 2 to 3 days and then I’ll make my way into Kentucky. Turtle who is the host at little grassy lake was a joy to talk to she gave me my choice of staying anywhere in the campground I wanted for free as I am a cyclist and the next morning she invited me down to the marina store where she made some coffee and I got to meet the owner who is an environmentalist and he knows my friend Stan from the Brookside Farmers’ Market they’re actually best friends so just a small world.This part of Illinois is really beautiful I am just above the Shawnee national Forest, I’ve read a lot about this area and I’m excited to explore it. Yesterday, Thursday, day 13 was a good day I woke up in Chester at the fraternal order of eagles were I slept in a bunkbed and I am grateful for them for having a place where Cyclist can sleep for free. It was a cold start yesterday at 33° I made my way to a McDonald’s for some breakfast Walmart for some resupply and headed out to Murfreesboro which I made about 12:30 PM, and then made my way to where I am now. I waited too long to eat lunch so I kind of bonked a little luckily there was a church on the route that was open and I was able to get some water and use the bathroom and they had a lovely wooded area out and back with a picnic Bench and I had a good lunch and took a short nap. And then made my way to where I am now. I met one of the elders of the church and she wish wished me well on my journey and made the statement “go with God“ I thought that was really beautiful and very poetic. And so simple. Well that’s it for this dispatch. Thinking about writing some poetry it’s one of my favorite forms of expression so look for that coming. 

4/16…

Yesterday was a good day I started off at little grassy lake with Coffee with turtle and Kurt one of the owners, and then made my way towards Kentucky and my goal was to try to get to Cave in Rock state park but didn’t quite make it around 3 o’clock the rain started and it wasn’t too terribly bad but with the Rollinghills it took a longer time to get than I thought it would and I ended up riding into Elizabeth town and eating a bunch of food and then it got dark and I needed a place to camp and the only campground was about 5 miles away so I rolled to the campground and thunderstorms on a lonely dark road by myself with my lights blazing and made my way to the campground around 9 PM in the middle of a thunderstorm and it was extraordinarily beautiful as when the lightning burst you could see the Ohio river which I was right next to and it lit up the whole campground I was by myself I set my tent up in the middle of a thunderstorm so I was completely soaked but I kept my sleeping bag dry so I was fine through the night and actually once I set up the tent called Aimee we chatted and I made a cup of coffee with my stove and I was good to go. I woke up this morning and only about 50 yards away from where I set up the tent was a bathroom area that had a overhang for a shelter that I could’ve used last night but I didn’t see it in the dark, well I was just glad to learn how to set my Tana in the middle of a thunderstorm I’ve never done that before. Very thankful for all the gear I brought everything‘s protecting me really well. This morning I got up and packed all my wet gear up and rode to Cave in rock State Park which is right next to Cave in rock, Il. This is where the ferry goes from the town across the Ohio river free to Kentucky this is where I make the river crossing. No bridge just a ferry!

I am sitting at the state park overlooking the Ohio and looking down into Kentucky where I’m heading next it’s very beautiful I had a wonderful breakfast here nice gentleman who I talk to for a while bought my breakfast and four postcards that I had Botton and it’s just amazing to me on how kind people are the last two places I’ve gone to people of bought me or let me stay there for free or bought me food I just really appreciate the kindness. This place is really beautiful it’s gonna be hard to leave today to go into Kentucky even thinking about taking another off day just to hang out here and do some riding and maybe a little exploring but I haven’t decided yet we’ll see what happens it’s only 10:30 in the morning probably wait till noon to see how I feel. God I love traveling by bicycle! There is an explosion of growth in leaves on trees and wildflowers and grass and as I roll down the road I can smell a vibrancy myriad of odors of the earth awakening from the winter to the spring it is quite extraordinary and I feel very thankful that we have this earth to live on.

Until next time peace and love from the road.

Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter

Supplemental dispatch April 16. Well I made my way into Kentucky took a ferry from Cave in rock Illinois to Kentucky and now I found myself in Clay,Kentucky and I was looking for directions to get to the city park so I could camp and I stopped a fellow, Cory,  who was mowing a lawn and asked for directions. He explained he was a pastor of the first Baptist Church here in Clay and that I was welcome to camp out in their rec room tonight if I wanted. After my last night sleeping in a wet tent and thunderstorms speedily excepted. And gladly to as I was looking for a church to go to tomorrow for Easter service. As I’ve shared before and I try not to bring religion or politics into my post but I am on a spiritual journal journey personally and this trip and others have brought me into relationships with the mana of the universe a.k.a. God and somethings are just kind of hard to explain unless everybody out there is a Christian I just keep bumping into genuinely good people and it doesn’t have to be Christian it can be all religions as I have for Muslim friends Jewish friends and a few other religions. And even some with no religion in their background. But at this point in my life especially with the last couple of years and all the ugliness and evil in the world just feel better when I believe in something versus not believing in anything. Especially being on the road alone when you are at one with nature and truly the universe can throw you in many different directions I don’t worry about nature as a whole but I do worry about human nature basically humans. I don’t know, I’m sitting in a rec room right now warm drinking a nice cuppa coffee getting ready to go out and have a good meal at a restaurant. I am 58 years old and I am rolling to the East Coast to Martha’s Vineyard to Mermaid Farm and Dairy where I plan to be a field hand and a cheese maker for the summer. And this journey going across country on a bicycle is about as I’ve already reported finding commonalities of humanity and showing the goodness of humanity and I think I’ve done that I’m also seeing some degradation of nature the environment which I’m gonna start talking about a little bit and I want to see and I’m really excited to see this tomorrow here at this church communities coming together. The church was created to be a safe haven for small villages in towns in Europe initially they built the high steeples so people could see where the church was so they could come to it for sanctuary for prayer for education for food safety whatever was needed and with that came the belief in God. The church also brought law and order education and taught people responsibility among many other things. I think there’s a huge need for that now especially with younger people who seem to be lost and I’m seeing that a lot on the road I’m seeing a lot of drug abuse I’m seeing people just wasting their lives working in gas stations with no future focused on their cell phones. One of the things I wanted to do in talking about this trip I’m on is originally the founding fathers started to expand west and we’re on from Kansas City was really a frontier town in the 1800s for the expansion of the west and I want to reverse history a little bit and get back to the fundamentals that the founding fathers had which and not all but it was really about honesty integrity working and working on something that was needed versus just having a profession that doesn’t really mean anything. I’ll go in the more that later. But this is what I found in the communities and with the people that I’ve talked to so far whether it’s on this trip or my trip in a Mexico or on the great divide mountain bike route or just around the people I know in Kansas City even the homeless people I know. Is that really the majority of people just want in their lives food shelter warmth clothing education for their kids good health and a decent job that’s what most people want. And I’m gonna throw some more things in there that we need to have is honesty and integrity intact, and we also need to become better stewards of the environment because this is the only planet we have. OK enough of my ranting. I’m feeling very empowered though on this journey both physically and mentally between you and me I’ve had some beautiful meditations with the universe, God, Mana whatever you wanna call it. And I feel the need to share with you. As always I am open to your comments. I am planning on doing some writing of nature poetry that I’ll be doing pretty soon as well. OK I need to go eat some food I just had a nice shower life is good. Eat sleep Bike… That’s my mantra!