2DO Before I Die

'Into Africa' - The latest from the Metal Cowboy...

It's our pleasure to welcome back regular columnist Joe Kurmaskie to the 2DO blog with a brand new post of his adventures as Oregon's original Metal Cowboy. Good to have you back Joe!...

Summer is when we let the child inside us out to play. For me, the bicycle has always been the best way to show myself and others, especially adults, a path back to those carefree days that stretch out from June to somewhere late in September, and to help kids discover adventure and confidence atop saddles, on trailabikes and tucked into trailers.  

I know, I know, if there was a twelve step program for outdoor enthusiasts and two wheeled addicts, I’d have been tackled to the ground long ago.  

Thank God the only interventions I have to wrestle with are a few short-on-daylight, bitter cold days each February.  

I think of adventure cycling, especially the summertime variety, as a public service - channeling my addiction for a greater good; rescuing kids of all ages from the couch, reacquainting them with what their bodies can do, the simple mysteries still residing in the natural world and, in the case of hardcore desk jockeying adults rusty and brittle from seasons of striving, it’s my sworn duty to reunite them with their former selves or introduce them to the kid they never met.  

About those kids. The outer ones not the metaphoric variety 

First, it was my own sons I hooked on the open road. It started with rides to school, then weekend trips, graduating to an epic pedal across America by bike, followed by a madcap adventure across Canada with their Mother... along for the first time. Note to those who believe it’s folly to try to get your spouse onto a bike; mine's rarely been seen out of the saddle since, so it can work. 

'Saving Christmas' - Joe Returns With A Christmas Tale

Given a choice, never camp in the woods behind a frat house during pledge week.

Foreigner music played with the knob torn off, funneled beer and compromising acts involving poultry, pledges, sorority sisters or all three, always circles back to these locations. What the law refers to as class three felonies, good time boys of leisure and privilege call “unwinding.” 

My high school having been a four year internship for such behavior, I was hoping for some distance. A few decades seemed reasonable. 

Leaving the lighthouse tour along Maine’s coast may have been a mistake. A week of easy pedaling through sun drenched salt spray off the Atlantic as each small town competed ferociously for best dressed Halloween decor. 

Men of a certain age and temperament can only process so many Rockwellian postcard moments. I opted for the rugged terrain of the north woods in hopes of getting my Walden on. At nineteen, working up a good lather of angst, scribbling down indigestible poetry and sitting on a cold rock for hours, well, it just felt like a calling.

Dusk forced me to ground. I stashed my bicycle behind a stand of Alders, pitched my low profile tent and drifted off when it became too hard to read a dog eared copy of Ann Rand by flashlight.

Emotional vertigo. My tent appeared to flood with light, a prison yard during a jailbreak. I thought I heard young men screaming something about a tap, this, over the giggling pleas of a girl instructing someone to “keep it above the waist.”  When a Singing Santa broke into jingle bells I pegged it as a vivid dream and rolled over. Variations of this scene repeated several times before midnight, but physical exhaustion and the singing santa soundtrack kept convincing me  I was already unconscious. From there it was a short stumble back into a fitful sleep.

Join The 'Metal Cowboy's' Revolution - One Million Bicyles.org

(When he's not writing his 'Free-wheeling' features here at 2DO, Joe 'Metal Cowboy' Kurmaskie, has his hands full with writing books and raising three boys with his wife Beth. He's also the man behind the One Million Bicycles organization. It's a great project with a fantastic aim - Check it out! - Mike & Chris. Meantime, here's Joe on how it all got started. His story continues after the jump...)

The wind kicking off the Strait of Juan de Fuca is all wrong for a full day of loaded bicycle touring, but I don’t care.  When laboring across Canada with a massive bike train--18 feet of tandem, trail-a-bike and trailer, 450 pounds of gear and three lively sons under ten--what’s a little wind? 

Besides, I’ll endure nearly anything if it means winning my wife over to distance touring. As a travel adventure writer, the stakes are high for me. I cycle; she hikes, camps, swims, sails, rafts, devours one-pot dinners with bread for a spoon, but without the bicycle...

The battle goes well, so well that my second rate racer’s body forgets it’s at the head of a mule train hauling half of America behind it, forgets that it’s not on some lighter-than-air, blessed-by-the-pope, high-performance rig that will leap into action the moment it stands and hammers hard enough. 

It takes spitting in the face of quality structural engineering, two hills and a change in the wind’s direction for me to catch her. 

A Shining Moment On Mt. Hood: How To Ride Through Winter In The Middle Of July

Pacific North Westerners did not invent clever names for athletic events, but it was wordsmith worship that attracted me to my first Summit To Surf diabetes charity bike ride. With its catchy name, I fully expected to drive to the top of a mountain, plant a front fork at the driveway of Mt. Hood’s historic Timberline Lodge, then clip in for a bone shaking ride, a near vertical run, some sort of a tuck and go like hell, all the way to the Oregon Coast.

Instead, a couple thousand of my friends and neighbors assembled outside of a one room school house in Welches, Oregon for 15 miles of slow going, up and over Barlow Pass, before coasting 30 gentle clicks to the water’s edge - Hood River and the “surf” of the Columbia River.

Don’t get me wrong, Barlow Pass is a lovely spot on the planet, but it’s a far cry from the rarefied air of Timberline - the prize waiting for me at the tip top of a crooked and steep fortress of stone, something Dr. Seuss might have drawn on a frisky day. Or so I was told. I’d never been to the lodge. If I’m going to rise at the crack of dawn, work those pedals in a way that resembles a gerbil of crack, play my gears like a concert pianist performing Rockmananoff, than at the very least, pay my efforts with a million dollar view and architecture listed on important registers. Not to mention that while Barlow Pass pedaling may sound like a formidable accomplishment, when I found myself drafting behind a school group of sixth graders hardly out of breath, drastic measures were called for. Someone throw me a testosterone life preserver, stat, then point out the turn for Timberline.

Two bike lanes diverged in the Oregon woods and I took the one less pedaled. I took the one that held the promise of hypothermia, blowing rain and icicles forming on ones chin at the tail end of July. My rescue came in the form of a small addendum to the official Summit to Surf brochure; something I’d missed until it was nearly too late, a last minute Timberline Lodge option for those hearty souls who find pain and suffering their stock in trade. With a gleeful wave, I bid farewell to the elementary school set, peeling off their raggedy back wheels was the sort of liberation on par with graduating from the kiddy table at holiday dinners.

Once away from the crowds of casual riders - folks in their funny hats, theme music, bells, event T’s and dusted off garage rafter bikes, I searched for a rhythm I could live with as the earth began to tilt up. I knew to pace myself on what would be my lonely flight of folly to the top of the world.

'We’ll Find Your Balls Come Springtime' - Golfing in Alaska

It started innocently enough.

"Are there any states you haven't pedaled around?"

That's how we decided to ride to Alaska! Dreamed up over the tight rails and lush green felt of immaculate pool tables in sufficently disreputable Chicago halls, the plan was chalked with wild speculation and no small amount of wishful thinking. Thumbing its nose at both convention and prevailing weather patterns, this little road trip was just preposterous enough, that its success was all but assured.

Freed then from the pesky burden of failure, Matt, my occasional chromoly windmill tilter, discussed the route while I racked the balls for another run of the table and argued the finer points of pannier packing. Matt worked himself into a lather when contemplating the thinnest lines on the map interrupting his revelry only to pick off three or four balls at a time and sample the next mircobrew. (Since there was no one to hustle in a room full of blantant hustlers, we’d agreed to let the beer taps flow freely, relax the cues a bit and shoot gentleman’s games that evening.)

Turns out that the bicycling isn’t the only childhood hobby we had in common and have unsuccessfully carried dillusions of grandeur and prowess way too far into adulthood. Here's how we became, seperately, pintsized pool sharks before our first kisses, communions and barmitzfahs.

Matt’s a Chicago Jew, urbane and upperclass sans the snobbery, while I’m a fallen away Catholic with Budhist tendencies, a middle of the road wasp from Pittsburgh. Somehow, Matt managed to learn the game in a neighborhood of whitebread tupperware pioneers, while my education came at the hands of old Jewish guys.

Florida circa 1975: Gloves and bats aboard our childhood bikes were for summer playground league baseball three days a week. We rounded out the incendary part of the afternoon with a daily stop at the Jewish Community Center for swimming, foosball, pool and ping pong. The fact that only one of us was Jewish and no one was an actual member didn’t break our stride. (story continues)

Ice Biking - Finding Cold Weather Religion In An Iowa Cornfield

Never again will I whine about pushing silver into a Northwest winter - griping about a chilly little bike trek down to the library in January or slogging my two wheeled steed into the barometrically challenged elements for St. Patrick's Day party supplies.

Few realize how good we have it here on the Left Coast. Only a handful, in my estimation, have the appropriate appreciation regarding the flat out luxury, the absolute joyride that is a Pacific Northwest rainy season by bicycle. That, or maybe I'm the last slow learner who needed an object lesson in the relativity of suffering.

Consider me schooled.

There will be no more bemoaning the many ways in which rain is ruining my morning commute or that, with the wind-chill factor, it feels like 20 degrees along the river during the Sunday morning loop ride with my club pals.

You see, I went to the promised land one February and came back a changed man - the cycling equivalent of Bill Murray's character reborn in the film Groundhog Day... only the backdrop for my deep freeze drama wasn't Punxsutawney Pa., but Perry, Iowa.

'Cold enough for you?' This became the traditional greeting echoed by every taxi driver, waitress and desk clerk during my four day stay in Des Moines, Iowa. As the entertainment for the Iowa Bicycle Coalition Summit and Bike Night Auction (thankfully, held entirely inside the climate-controlled confines of the downtown Holiday Inn Conference Center - love that Midwest buffet tradition, but people, three full troughs of breakfast sausages can not be FDA approved).

Bowling For Armadillos

(If this one is on your 2dobeforeidie list, I'm calling the authorities)

I braved the Florida border - helping mom settle back in. Like Jack Nicholson, who thought we couldn't handle the truth, Mom couldn't handle Oregon’s winters. She lasted a year and some change. Who can blame a woman who spent the better part of her working life fighting seniors for lane space on the A1A? Now that she'd officially become a senior, it seemed an inalienable right (that of driving very slowly with the turn signal on) had been taken away. Every time Mom stepped aboard Portland’s clean, quiet, mass transit system, a little piece of her died inside.

A quick bike ride in the sweltering recesses of Florida was all I needed to ease mother, son tensions. While in the saddle, I spied a group of three not-so-wise young men, all fans and followers of the mullet hairdo, all advertising their favorite beers and monster trucks above the bills of Day-Glo orange, John Deer green and duck shit yellow ball caps.

Before anyone phones the politically correct police, I did an involuntary residence, a stint if you will, in Florida. In technical jargon, also referred to as my childhood.

Somewhere between the feathered hair years and the parachute pants experiment, I even sported something dangerously close to a mullet, visualized myself behind the wheel of a Camaro and whored my favorite BBQ joint across the bill of my cap. For a time, I posed as one of those boys.

Then someone shook me hard, changed the radio station and hoisted a copy of Catcher in the Rye into my mitts. If that doesn't cover me, too damn bad. Now I'm someone else's stereotype.

This, of course, gives me politically correct immunity with no statue of limitations.

That said, if anyone can find a twisted level of lively distraction on a Tuesday afternoon, my money will always be on those rough and ready boys of rural Florida. (continues)

Hawaii's Rim to Reef - hiking, biking, sailing, swimming and snorkeling in one day

Here’s one for the list: When in Hawaii, go from rim to reef in one day, working in five sporting activities and one inadvertent act or ecowarrior protection. That is to say, hike through some gorgeous off the path plantations, bathe in waterfalls, eat mangos in the bush and keep going up through the altitude of Hawaii’s volcano country until you’re on top. Humbling and stunning is all that azure colored ocean below. From there it’s a screaming good time on bicycles down to the water’s edge. Before the brake pads have cooled, you’re loading onto a excursion vessel to sail a reef and swim with turtles, snorkel with schools of technicolor clown fish and, if your bobbing around in the right spot, spy the occasional octopus.

Beth packs supplies for the day.

“I’m up for all of it but the sailboat ride. Yesterday put me off to the open water for a while.”

Ah, yesterday. Cue the McCartney music.

Let’s just say never board a sailboat with a outfit run on a first name only basis. Captain Bob didn’t actually make the voyage, doubtful in his hung over state that he could have, but saw us off at the dock, sending his best college fratboy sailors to crew the catamaran. It was billed as a top of the morning tri-hull catamaran ride to a reef for some snorkeling, then a flat out tear across the water to get the blood flowing and the waves splashing over the trampoline. Some fun that only looks and feels edgy and dangerous. Beth was not enjoying herself and the soda jumping in her pale fist didn’t seem to help. I held Enzo tight as we bounced on the trampoline. Quinn was tucked in tight against his mother. Good, woozy fun, that only two of us seemed to savor.

Of course, if you don’t release your main sail when coming about at high speed, things have been known to break or tear. In this case, the main sail ripped in half.

Beth looked over for assurances. I have several years of sailing experience, including some white knuckle racing through tropical depressions in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shrugging my shoulders and offering up a look that said, “That’s not good.” Maybe this wasn’t the kindest assurance I could have given her. (story continues)

Living Strong, Wrong or Bong

“Yellow bracelet?”

Two racers on a training ride flank me at the light. We’re at the top of the hill. I passed them coming up, but traffic laws allowed them to pull even. As we wait for the green the one on my left, executing a decent track stand, rephrases the question. It sounds like something closer to an accusation this time.

“You’re with Lance’s fight against cancer, right?!?”

I look at their wrists, yellow plastic loops are on prominent display. I’m down with that, with all my heart really, but what’s throwing me into a state of stunned confusion involves guys in that much spandex and wraparound eyewear speaking to me in the first place. Normally, racers talk only amongst themselves, like ants in a colony (if you look closely you can make out their antennas). They’ll occasionally acknowledge my existence with a slight nod if I happen to be wearing one of my sponsor’s jerseys and forget my panniers at home. Barring that, I’m dead to them.

But I did just pass these svelte gents on a hill, with loaded bags... on a tandem... attached to a trailabike... which is hooked to a trailer... with three sons in tow. Might this have caused a tectonic shift in our lines of communication?

What I want to say to them is this; “Hey, if blowing you guys off the back on that hill doesn’t count as living strong, I doubt a yellow band of plastic is going to tip the balance.”

But you don’t diss the yellow band and live... long.

Superman Winters in Costa Rica

Jesus drives a 1983, midnight blue BMW through dawn's early light at speeds that would frighten a veteran NASA test pilot. We careen for Costa Rica's capital as though pursued by stampeding rhinos or an airborne plague. For some reason I'm not concerned, This is quite out of character. Control freak is on my family crest. See it up there, right below the pint of Guinness and that sack of potatoes. Those are, in fact, images of my ancestors back seat driving from the front seat.

Not this morning though. It has to do with the casual posture Jesus assumes behind the wheel. If I didn't have a clear view of his eyes I'd swear my host is asleep. A big man with a bad comb-over, Jesus is Central America's version of Dom De Luise, but damn, the way he's handling himself so deeply situated in the bucket seat of this mint condition sports car, driving with Steve McQueen offhanded confidence, today I'd say he's more Burt Reynolds in Smokey And The Bandit.

And there's always the vagabond traveler's code to consider; the one regarding suspension of common sense safety rules when on foreign soil. Tourists wear money belts, fanny packs and move about with authorized carriers, I ride with Jesus. Though perhaps I shouldn't have told him that I prefer arriving at bus stations early.

Also keeping my fear factor down... growing up in The South, birthplace of NASCAR. I know from boys and their cars. Jesus hasn't put this much time and money into his Beamer, given it a woman's name; Molly or Kitty or Teresa or some such nonsense (MotherTeresaKitty maybe?) air brushed across the hood. (It's hard to read at this angle and velocity.) No matter, Jesus will do whatever it takes to keep her upright and unblemished.

All that leaves me is the floral countryside's growing humidity, a side mirror and an honest assessment of the features I'm presenting the world. Shocking is the only word that comes to mind. Can hair do that? Hemingway once said, "It's a privilege to participate in one's own decay." These days I feel overprivileged.

"Today, you'll become Superman," Jesus says, removing his remaining hand from the wheel to imitate something taking off. "Today, you fly without wings."

And here I thought I was going to a nature park, canopy viewing for wildlife. Sure, ropes, pulleys, cables and some aerial swings, but obviously Jesus has a warped view of the scope of his country's canopy tours.

"Not the canopy stuff," he winks as he speaks. In my experience, the winking thing always spells trouble when delivered from a portly gentleman with a bad comb-over before sunrise - regardless of continent or hemisphere.

"I've set it all up. You're going to try out and write about our Superman. It's my cousin's park's crowning achievement."

With this, I nod and grip tightly as Jesus threads the needle between four lanes of bridge traffic, causing me to forget all about Superman. (story continues)