10 things to distract me on a long bike ride

 Bootleg Bikepacking Diary-Top 10 things I do to distract myself on a long bike ride

I am usually in a state of situational awareness, almost “trace like state of being” while riding my bike long distance, but sometimes I need distractions so I don’t fall asleep on boring stretches. 

Here are my top 10

• Sing songs

I think singing songs is what I primarily do when I’m on bike tours, even when I’m commuting. It tends to free up the mind and allows you to be expressive as you’re riding your bicycle. And it’s especially fun when you’re in remote places you can just sing to the top of your lungs and just let it rip. Some of my favorite artist and songs are Hang me Oh, Hang Me by Dave van Ronk, and some of his other songs, Bob Dylan, fare thee well, many songs from the Eagles, but a particular favorite is dueling daltons, Neil Young – old man, James Taylor, Imagine-John Lennon, Pink Floyd. So many more.

• Tell stories

I love telling stories and creating them sometimes I’ll just do it based on a subject I see, maybe an animal on the side of the road, maybe a bird in flight may be a story I’ve been working on. And I always love starting off like this, “far away, long ago,  there was a…“ I particularly like to anthropomorphize a story… As I’m a big proponent of nature and see everything is being alive, rather than inert because we’re all created all the same things in the universe. I know it’s deep, but that’s me.

• Listen to something

I don’t listen to anything while I’m traveling. I go with my own internal dialogue. Also, especially if I’m in the wilderness areas I don’t want to be distracted and I want to give all my time to whatever nature I’m seeing and hearing and feeling and tasting and touching. But that being said, I know a lot of people who listen to podcasts, audiobooks, and music. And there have been instances where, like last year I was on a trip and I was somewhere on the transamerica trail just getting ready to come out of Illinois, and I camped in the middle of a thunderstorm at 11 o’clock at night by a river the Ohio river, put my tent up in a torrential downpour, completely soaked and woke up in the morning to find that there was a shelter only 50 yards away, but I couldn’t see it at night, and that morning I rode out of the wilderness area I was in, and there was a long climb, and I wanted to listen to Creedence Clearwater revival, “have you ever seen the rain…”

• Workout mathematical problems

I’ve never been good at math. Probably because I’m just not that interested in it. I understand the basics of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division but you start going to algebra and sister. I’m running out the door. That being said, there are times when I’ve used up my brain cells in other categories that I want to sharpen my mind a little bit and distract myself and I will start doing math, but basic math.

• Contemplating meaning of life

Now we’re talking. Philosophy, my favorite subject. As a philosopher, I'm constantly thinking about all things regarding philosophy: the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. And lately I’ve been focused on natural philosophy, which is really about natural science, especially physical science, and also natural biological systems and how everything’s related. I could go on for days about this, and most likely will another time. Suggest Alan Watts if you want practical, life affirming, well thought out philosophical meditations. I think about Time…a lot.

• Play a game

Games are always fun. I remember when I was a little boy we would drive from Kansas City Missouri and my parents station wagon with my sisters and we were play games along the road or sing songs…”found a peanut, found a peanut”… but I remember the games one of the favorite games was look for a certain kind of car or, an inanimate object, and that was always fun. On my bike trips, I do the same thing looking for something unique, counting something, doing word games in my mind, again, anything to distract myself from the effort.

• Replay a movie, song, story, memory, and your minds eye

So there’s actually two parts here; one is simply reliving a movie or perhaps a story or a play or maybe a book read. But then one can also go into a deeper realm of the mind, and perhaps go into the past, and think about past experiences, and how they relate to one’s life now, and that’s where you start getting into more like the vision quest, and you start growing in philosophy and different things like that as well. The place one can go doing this though can be positive but also negative and scary as well.

• Do yoga exercises while you’re riding- cat cow, breathe, seated twist, calf stretch, lions breath

I learned a long time ago as a yoga instructor, that Yoga is not meant for just sitting in a room on a mat, you can do yoga from almost anywhere, E.G.shower, work, the bathroom, in the kitchen, as well as from a top a bicycle, just a few modifications, kind of a hybrid form of chair yoga, per se, anything to loosen up the body and get oxygen flowing… At the very least focus on your breathing.

• Listen to somebody else’s story

I mostly travel solo, but when I do have a traveling companion, I like hearing their stories, on one of my last trips on the great divide mountain bike route between Polebridge, Montana, and Eureka, Montana. I was regaled by a friend of mine who I was traveling with for a few days, Kyle T. Randall, who is now an artist out of Portland, Maine, shared stories of his experience playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I found it fascinating, and it made the time go by very quickly.

Well, thanks for reading my writing. Tell me some of the things that you do to distract yourself on a long bike ride or running errands or out for a few months?

Peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter

Diary of a writer

 Dreams (the diary of a writer) by Bill Poindexter

I don’t know why this is happening. But it is. Mind you I’m not afraid, although I should be terrified. But I’ve always been this way the more extreme the situation the calmer I become the more lucid, in the more focused, and somehow I manageto make it out of the darkness into the light, but I’m sure someday I won’t make it back out -could this be that time?

I’m unsure. 

I’ve been having dreams and visions really over the last couple of months ever since I got back from the journey of being attacked.

Humans, I think, they’re trying to hurt me and then find myself alone on an island that’s one of the predominant dreams that keeps happening-I am alone and standing on a ridge, the highest ridge of ‘the island’

and being able look down all around me and seeing just land and ocean but there’s no infrastructure no people no cars even very little vegetation no nature no animals. And now here I am on an island alone. 

I woke up about two hours ago it was midnight and I went out and sat under the stars I’ve been sleeping in a tent on the ground and something woke me told me to go out and watch the sky so I’ve been sitting looking up at the sky it reminds me of when I did it as a child and college reminds me of all those hiking trips and Bikepacking trips where I wake up in the middle of night and just go out and stare at the stars. And doing this reminds you of how small you are in the universe, insignificant really, in the bigger scheme of things. I’ve been questioning what my purposes in life again sometimes I feel lost and other times I feel found. I want a relationship with God, but sometimes I don’t believe in God especially an authority God, But I still pray to God, because I always feel better when he’s around. I’m not sure what the next step is going to be, things haven’t worked out like I thought they would. And I feel like I’ve been grasping for something that I shouldn’t have been grasping for, the cliché trying to fit a square and a round hole. Oh god what do I do? Why am I so alone. Has it all comes down to this, the choice is pretty simple go back home, play it safe. You have people there that care about you, well -really care about themselves more. And that’s OK. The cats are safe, although I miss them terribly. Sometimes in our lives we have to leave our loved ones to go grow ourselves, to become the people were meant to be, I don’t mean that in a selfish sense I mean that in a purely necessity sense. I think it might be time to release the bondage of society from my soul, and it’s time to go back on the road and find my humanity and find my connection with the earth again, and either live or die. This is part of the heroes journey, from Joseph Campbell, the hero heads out into the wilderness, your battles evil, focuses on self introspection, lays it all out …as it were, and gets to a point after a series of adventures where the hero is not afraid of death. And with that the hero is in free to do whatever it takes to complete the journey. Hero? Me? No, only in the sense that I’m not afraid to die. I haven’t been afraid for a long while. And that’s giving me a passion for life that I did not have when I was younger. I love to live!

So the story goes like this: so the man on the island leaves his shelter middle the night and lays on the ground look at the stars. He sees things in the sky he cannot explain, looks like one star goes to another star and then stops, one star blinks off and on for a period of time, he sees a falling star, and then he closes his eyes and he imagines heading out into space imagines and realizes how small he is and then significant …insignificant. For he is just a man. And so his journey just began. He takes all of his identification, his cell phone, his shelter and the belongings he has and decides to leave them on the island. And then with just the clothes on his back, alone, to complete his journey of discovery for truth and nirvana. The Buddhists say, most of us live our lives like we are living in an egg shell, safe, prophylactic, stuck in traditional social bounds that become very hard to break out of, but some of us are able to crack the shell and head into a New World on the other side and that for some of us is when life begins. As a truth seeker, and as a writer, the man who heads out into the wilderness with nothing to find his true soul and then will understand the soul of the world, the universe i.e. God, or as the Taoists believe, maybe the best way to live is to have no purpose no direction no goal but just be and exist in the moment?

… This writer must write unapologetically the truth as he sees it, no fluff just raw life. And thereby sets himself free.  Oh my gosh yes and once free of those false fears, one becomes not afraid of the journey of life. 

And only then he’s  

truly lived and dreamed. 

Authors note: I’m a free writer, that is important for you to know. Some of it’s me typing /dictating… There will be mistakes as there’s minimal editing. I hope you enjoy my writing there’s much more coming… Authentic, transparent, real, raw. I’m always interested in your thoughts although I won’t alter the way I write. Feel free to share. Peace and love from the road, Bill Poindexter

You can find me on Substack 

Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter

 Dispatches from the road, but Bill Poindexter

Jamaican Dave 

Hi, like you, have a favorite grocery store. And in my grocery store, there is a man in the meat department , and his name is Jamaican, Dave, well, it’s just Dave but he’s from Jamaica so he’s known as Jamaican Dave. I love that. He’s 54 years old, a black man , and one of the nicest people I ever met in my life. I see him periodically, and we always have a nice chat, and he knows I don’t make a lot of money so he’ll occasionally tell me that just pick up whatever kind of meat you want and bring it over to me and I’ll give you a good discount. Humanity is alive and well. So tonight I went into the grocery store and I hadn’t been there for a while. He asked me -where I’ve been, but then said something about that since I ride my bicycle to the store that maybe it’s just been too cold. He was right. And I decided to take a break from the bicycle for the last couple of weeks for a couple of reasons one is it’s been very cold, snowy, icy. Lots of snow and ice on the ground and I just needed a break. Secondly, I’ve been riding my bicycle every day to work or for errands, for the last two years I would say probably every day. Anywhere from 10 to 30 miles a day. And my body just need a little break. I’ve had an injury that I got when I was working at Trader Joe’s last year on my left quadricep, but still hasn’t healed. At least not fully. So it’s good. It was good to take care of the weeks off. And do a little walking instead. Although I don’t think the walking helped it much. Anyway, Jamaican Dave and I had a good conversation day for about 10 minutes, we talked about me, riding my bicycle for transportation, and how he loved, riding his bicycle for exercise in the warmer weather. And we talked about people and humanity and somehow the conversation came around, traveling to different places and meeting people and that honestly most people are the same they’re good people they just want the same things, food, shelter, clothing, education for their kids, good health and a decent job with a decent wage. And that even with all the weirdness in the world, he still watches TV because he likes watching sports and if he watches the news, he discerns that there is news that is right and there’s news that is wrong and he’s able to through common sense figure out which is which. Very optimistic man in a world gone awry. I guess it comes down to the fact that no matter how crazy the world seems but there’s a lot of good people out there. And that is something to be celebrated. Thanks Jamaican Dave for your insight. I needed it.

Before a journey

 Before a long journey on my bicycle

A 3am rant from a adventure cyclist 

By Bill Poindexter 

I am always amazed by the fears that swell up before one of my expeditions. I become plagued by doubt and guilt-old friends. Questions like “is this a good decision” slap me hard, sort of an ongoing self check with a cacophony of the typical excuses: am I fit, enough money, work, my cats will miss me, what if’s rise like smoke and then everything starts to settle like leaves falling to the ground. It’s really my own fault, I don’t like to plan too much, I hate using gps, a vague map and directions from locals is really more my suit. “Where you going?” they, the curious, ask. “Northeast.” Is all I can return. I have always been that way as I have a strong intuitive understanding of direction and can figure where I am from the stars or moon or sun and if I get lost well, that’s a bonus because then fear will come out and play-we are dear old friends. 

My affairs are in order just in case. I say my good byes as though they are permanent just in case. I walk out my front door with my overloaded bike with 2-3 weeks worth of food so as to save money. Never been a saver, this trip is the bare bones I have ever done, I feel like a hobo getting ready to hop a train, this trip going to have to be creative and place myself in the hands of Humanity because I am one of the naive who believes in the goodness of the regular people and I need their help and I want to know their thoughts about what really matters in life, and right now in this time. I will be happy for stale bread and yesterday’s coffee. The universe is a big place and I am going to fling myself into it one mile at a time and learn what it has to offer and then know my self a little better. “But you have so much experience Bill, why is it hard for you?” I don’t really know, I am just human. I am not afraid of the  dangers of cycling on roads, or wild life, or weather, illness, bandits, camping alone, or being solo and broke. I guess the real fear comes from the long days on the bike, and delving into my own mind and seeing the bad and good and facing my truth head on-That terrifies me. But, my friend, this journey, more than any other will be the Hardest. There is no insurances, no money cushion, it is early spring along the final cusp of winter, and I still have my physical injuries;a fib, sciatica, bursitis, and more with the age of 60… Jesus how did that happen? I plan to take a few days to do a Vision Quest-a 3 day fast somewhere no one is around 

and most likely in a forest. It’s a time for past present and future to meet and figure my place in the universe…”Here lies the dead body of Billy P, better it be him and not me!” No, I should be fine. I love nature and most happy when sleeping on a patch of ground. I haven’t decided if I will tell this next story while I roll or wait until after. The story will be good. 

Dispatches from the road: alone

Dispatches from the Road by Bill Poindexter

Alone 

There’s something very romantic about traveling solo

by bicycle and being self-contained: carrying my camping equipment, tools, clothes, food and water. I guess you could say I’m more of an old school bicycle traveler as I don’t carry a bicycle computer, I prefer a map and compass, sense of direction intuitiveness and common sense. I anticipate certain dangers, and therefore know how to self rescue-as I don’t put anybody else in danger. I do like to travel alone. But I can’t say I’ve ever been really alone, like a solo sailor in the middle of the ocean, or maybe like one of those people that do solo Arctic trips, or may be like adventures of the past who would head into the jungles by themselves, or across the desert, or live in a cabin in Siberia in winter with no one around them. And I wonder what that alone is. But with that I will say that on many of my trips I’ve been alone. I’ve slept in areas where there was nobody around for miles. I think the farthest I’ve ever been from a town was just over 100 miles not to say there probably wasn’t somebody living closer than that and definitely a road near were the one I was on. But traveling alone is relative to where you are and what your situation is. I’ve been on roads where I saw no other sign of life for a day and a half and at some point, I pulled off into a field or a forest and laid my bedding down and fitfully slept under the stars. No anxiety just me in the universe. But traveling solo scares me I’m not scared of the wilderness or of people or wildlife. I’m scared of those dark caverns inside my head those locked up thoughts of doubt, guilt, regret, self loathing, memories of things I wish would just stay locked up, and that I could forget forever. That’s what I fear. Even though I can distract myself with singing a song or making up a story in my head. Just being in the moment and appreciating that I’m alive and able to do what I do which is travel extraordinary distances by bicycle. And occasionally sometimes Fear has a way of creating stress and anxiety, and sometimes that can manifest itself into physical issues like, erratic heartbeat, an anxiety attack, nausea, diarrhea, neck, pain, vertigo, I fear those physical attributes as just an inconvenience and with proper self-care… Usually a few deep breaths, and a little bit of time, maybe some water and food and rest those issues will pass, but it’s being on the road mile after mile sometimes for me up to 100 miles a day maybe a little bit more but most days is 40 to 60 that’s enough. And it’s that self talk self encouragement and if really alone it’s just saying to myself “what’s the worst that can happen“ I guess just dropping dead? But typically my friend when I’m on the road and I’m solo I’m alone but I’m not lonely. I marvel at the earth around me and my bicycle rolling over a crunchy gravel road and animals and all the nature. Things, “visions” show themselves while traveling solo, especially when you’re on the loneliest part of the road, and you start to drift into another plane/Universe/dimension. It’s like that moment between being awake and sleep you get into that Zen zone and it’s almost like you’re flying, or leaving your body. People pay good money to have those experiences doing things like LSD, or Ayahuasca, or mushrooms, but I do that by traveling long distances on my bicycle. And at the end of the day I pull off somewhere, lay my bedding down eat some food, make a hot drink, slip into my sleeping bag, fully content, knowing that everything I need at that moment is with me, and no matter what happens I’m gonna be OK, and I drift off to the stars, maybe the sounds of critters, and the smells that are around me like-sage, pine, arid desert smell, and my eyes slowly become heavy and hard to open, and I fall asleep, with a heavy sleep. I wake in the middle of the night periodically, because sleeping out under the stars is different than sleeping in a confined space and I where can I look at the stars in listen to the wind or to the stillness maybe a beetle walking past me, ignoring the  little being perhaps the hum of a mosquito, looking for supper, and I fall back asleep content that I am at home on my planet as insignificant as I am, I feel at that moment like I’m part of everything all at once. And I wake up first light a bluish hue that turns into a golden hue, and then the sounds of the life become prevalent. And I get up and I pack my gear up and I roll-on alone alone into the solo wilderness. Thanking god for my short existence.

Thank you for reading my writing. I appreciate you and I hope you’re well. If you like my writings, let me know in the comments below. 

Support this journalistic endeavor: I am working on expanding my writings, into podcast, and videos on my YouTube channel 

Thanks to Elizabeth for helping Steve and Robert as well. And then many of you who bought me a cup of coffee and a sandwich on my last journeys, I’m grateful. I feel this is my destiny and I’m glad you’re along for the ride.

Peace and love, Bill

Feel free to email me at poindexterrecruiting@gmail.com

About Bill Poindexter, author, adventurer, philosopher 

Although Bill has been writing his whole life, he has in the last 23 years made a name for himself, writing about his lifestyle, living without a car, bicycling and walking every year for transportation and then also traveling by bicycle to various locations and writing about his experiences on the road experiences with food, culture, his own fears, the people he meets along the road, and what he observes in the world, in terms of nature and humanity. Bills has had an extraordinary life living life on his own terms for the betterment of humanity. The planet to Bill is pretty important too. Bill speaks the truth, no matter what the outcome.

Dispatches through Time in space

Dispatches 

 by Bill Poindexter

January 5, 2024 2:59 AM

Time and space 

Dear friend, 

Hard to believe another year gone by. I wanted to thank you for reading my words. I don’t expect you to read them all the time when I send out dispatches out or rants.

 I appreciate you reading my words as that in itself entrenches my writing desires. The older I get, and I’m 60 now, I realize that I’ve always been a writer/story teller. Today I was re-reading some of my dispatches from my bicycle tour from Kansas City to Yorktown Virginia via the transamerica Trail as I am organizing, a book about that experience. The dispatch amused me and brought back some fun memories. 

I’m laying here in bed, holding the phone in my right hand dictating this I’m laying on my right side Coyote my oldest cat I think she’s around 15 or 16 now the black-and-white one you’ve probably seen pictures of her she’s tucked into my right side up against my chest and draped over my right arm holding the phone and my left arm is wrapped around her. A cold night outside, the weather’s been a little strange it’s been kind of a wet cold without the rain or snow but every morning there’s a lot of frost out there and when I go out to feed the squirrels, stray cats and the birds, I can feel it in my bones. I woke up many a morning on the bicycle tour with that wet cold feeling. 

 I generally would wake up between two and four, doing some writing like this, or in my journals with my pencils. If I hand write, I like writing with the pencil, there’s  something about a pencil in the way it feels on a piece of paper that I like and I prefer writing in a journal blank pages versus one that has lines on its paper.

I’ve never been one to be organized in a traditional sense -organization to me is having the lot on the table in full view so I know where everything is to me that’s order to other people it’s called clutter. 

I also have a cup of hot, tapwater coffee, freeze dried maxwell house I think it is. And this coffee always sends me back to military school as a 14 year old boy. It was a rough time for me, being alone, becoming a man I’m sure you know the story of me getting hazed that first couple of months I was there. I’ve written about it a few times, but as I got used to the school there I would wake up in the middle of the night as well, the time from bedtime around 1030 to 620 was my time I relished and like now I would get up in the middle of the night and write at my desk looking outside the window listening to the woods and words, sparking my imagination, and even then I would go down to the bathroom to pee, and get some hot water from the tap and come back up and make myself a cup of coffee with freeze dried coffee, if I had it. And like I said, I would either write, or just think, or maybe read a story, and at that time I would read stories of ghosts in haunted houses or stories of great white hunters in Africa and their adventures, or stories of explorers. Military school had a good library not in the amount of volumes, but the way it was set up and that it was easy to find books and it wasn’t a large selection, I mostly would skip the card catalog, then walk down  the dusty  isles reading the titles until something interesting pulled me in. Many of the books had that old smell to them and had not been checked out for decades, at least the books I wanted to read. I liked that very much as I felt the books were in hibernation and waiting for someone like me to come wake them up. It wasn’t like cheap books of today the fall apart easily. These were books with proper bindings and thick paper the kind they were made to last a long time.

That was back in 1979 along time ago. 

One thing I learned in military school was how valuable my time is as the school was very structured so almost every hour of my day was taken up with something, so my free time was between 1030pm and 620 in the morning.  And every morning when I woke up, I would usually dread the day not that I would be scared of it, but that I would dread the structure of the school, the mundane, the ridiculous, the classes bored me, the food was awful, but I knew I just had to get through it. All I have to do is make it until bedtime and then I have my time. I still think that way whether I have a job or or just riding out a normal day. 

One of things about being on a bicycle tour is, as long as one is solo, every day is your day, and there is a strong inner voice of introspection during the long distance cycling when you’re bicycling from an hour or two after waking up until late in the afternoon or possibly sunset. And for me once I’ve set up camp, and had my supper, then I get into my sleeping bag with my journal next to me looking out at whatever I can see in my surroundings in the dark and usually angled so I could see the sky and the stars if they were out and I would be reminded in my safe little home, the tent or the piece of ground I was laying on as sometimes it would just be me on a patch of dirt with a ground pad and my sleeping bag waiting for sleep to come and remembering my day then it starts to transcend it is just me, the earth, and the universe at that moment in time and space on that patch of dirt, or in this bed, or at that military school in that bed, or at the writing desk, being aware of the past, present and future, not being afraid but embracing life. To be clear, actually, more clear it’s that feeling you have when you are outside looking up at the stars and you feel small, but yet somehow are attached to everything. And everything is as it should be.

Thank you for reading my words. 

I hope you’re doing well. It’s been along time since I’ve talk to you. Drop me a note and let me know how things are going and if you’re in the area, let me know. You’re up for a cuppa coffee and a chat. And I’ll share wonderful things with you. 

Peace and love, 

Bill Poindexter.

If you’re interested in supporting this endeavor, I am also trying to raise money for my next expedition, which I’ll be talking about an upcoming post please consider buying me a cup of coffee and a sandwich. You can find me on https://venmo.com/code?user_id=2935349168832512847

thank you!