We outgrew our first bikes, and it was time to decide what to get next. My brother bought a BMX bike to be cool, but I wanted to ride long distances, so I bought a ten-speed I could barely straddle. It was blue and had a pad on the crossbar for the sake of my future children. I had a friend with a similar spirit, and together we rode the backroads of southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts, trying to get lost and then finding our way back before dark. We followed narrow one-lane roads through old woods, found hidden graveyards, out-of-the-way tiny ice cream shops, and discovered shortcuts between the main roads we came to know in the area. It was a thrill to set off and find ourselves on new roads in unfamiliar territory. When we felt lost enough, we'd try to find a new way back. We always rode loops, never caring for there-and-back rides. I enjoyed the challenge of finding our way back, but I was always a little sad when we came to the first familiar road and we knew the rest of the way home. It was as if, in that moment of recognition, the world suddenly collapsed from an infinite expanse into the old familiar surroundings of our everyday lives.

I moved to Manhattan after college and wondered if I'd ever ride again. I was terrified on the first short ride I took in New York, but I rode aggressively and found it enjoyable to keep up with traffic and pass all the cars stopped at the lights and stuck in congestion. Every ride in the city was an adventure. I commuted ten miles a day in the city, and loved that all else faded to insignificance in that time on the streets. City riding requires complete focus, and surviving each ride puts everything else into perspective.

After a couple years of teaching, I finally had absolute freedom in my life. With a summer off and no obligations, I could go wherever I wanted and do whatever I wanted. With that freedom, I turned to my bicycle. In college I had read Peter Jenkins' A Walk Across America. Unsure what to do after graduating from college, he walked from New York to Louisiana, and on up to Oregon. I loved the idea of seeing the country under my own power, but walking was too slow. Bicycling seemed just right.

Never having been west of Iowa, I flew to Seattle with my bike and some camping gear, and rode all the way back to New Hampshire. It was an absolutely wonderful trip, a celebration of life. Beautiful mountains, gorgeous rivers, the great plains I had only heard about, a short leg through Canada, and then a ride through New England to the coast I had known as a kid. I had wondered if such a trip would satisfy my wanderlust. It merely whet my appetite.

I dreamt of riding from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but I wanted to do a more difficult ride than the northern United States before taking on such a long trip. So the next summer I rode from San Francisco to Savannah, Georgia. It was hard riding, hundred-mile stretches through Nevada with no water, 114-degree days in Utah, mountain passes over 10,000 feet in Colorado, strong headwinds on the plains, and 95-degree heat with 95% humidity in the southeast. But I saw Yosemite for the first time, fell in love with the southwest, and felt the oppressive history of Mississippi and Alabama. When I reached the coast of Georgia at Tybee Island, I sat in the surf and lost myself in a vision of the land disappearing under the ocean. After driving myself so hard all summer to find a way around every obstacle I encountered, my mind could not help but see the ocean as another difficulty which I must find some way around. Finally comprehending the end of the road, I took a train back to New York and wondered what to do next.

And so Sara called from Wyoming on a December night, catching me grading papers but subconsciously trying to figure out if I was ready for the ride from Alaska to Argentina. We had met in college, and she had always enthusiastically supported me in all these adventures. When others told me I should get a master’s degree or do something safer than bicycle all summer, Sara said, “Do it! You only have your twenties once.” Our craziest ambitions always seem more feasible if we can find at least one other person who understands them, and Sara has always been that person for me.

I had always wanted to do a trip with Sara, and this was the perfect chance. We decided to take the northern route across the country, because it is so much more enjoyable than any other. But Sara agreed to head north into Canada at the Great Lakes, to keep from repeating any of my previous routes too closely. We were both looking at our atlases, two thousand miles away from each other, when I said “Chibougamau! Let's go to Chibougamau! It's the northernmost town in eastern Canada on an east-west road, so we'll hit Chibougamau and then head south to Maine, where we can end at your father's house like you want!”

Sara agreed. She had no idea what she was in for.