Host: Mr. Lowry, thank you for this opportunity to discuss your book “Chasing Spring: The Life Affirming Joy of Touring America by Bicycle.”
Author: You are welcome! I love talking about bicycle touring!
Host: Briefly describe what it’s like to be on a bicycle tour.
Author: Bicycle touring is beautiful, inspiring, and meditative. If you are on a fully self-supported bicycle tour, your life will also be simple and self-sufficient. If I had to choose a single word to describe bicycle touring, that word would be “freedom.”
Host: Does the title of your book, “Chasing Spring,” have any special significance?
Author: My route is organized around the seasons. I start pedaling in Texas in early April when the Texas wildflowers are at their best and then I “chase spring” all the way to Glacier National Park. When I get to that park, the snow on the Going To The Sun Road has only recently melted and the spring flowers are just starting to bloom. The title also suggests a somewhat quixotic quest to retain a youthful outlook and physical strength into old age.
Host: I find it surprising that a book about touring America on a bicycle would interest so many readers. Were you surprised?
Author: No, I wasn’t surprised. After all, if a book about folding socks namely Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” becomes a huge bestseller, it only makes sense that a book about bicycling, which everyone loves, would also be of great interest. Riding a bicycle is simply more fun than folding clothes!
People love things that are somewhat subversive. In a materialistic society like America, it is totally subversive to suggest getting rid of everything that doesn’t spark joy, as suggested in Marie Kondo’s book. The word joy is subversive in itself. People aren’t used to thinking in those terms. Traveling across America by bicycle is also subversive. It surprises people. The tiny house movement is subversive. People just love stuff like that!
Host: Why do you say that everyone loves bicycling?
Author: Think back to that magical moment when you first realized that you could ride a bicycle.
Host: OK
Author: This is a glorious moment most of us do not forget. Mom and Dad are looking on and you suddenly realize, hey, I can do this!
Host: Yes, triumph, and then I toppled over into a rose bush!
Author: Exactly, that’s why we all remember that moment. Its real. Its outside. Also, even though you just toppled over, you could feel that steering thing that allowed you to keep your balance, even though you weren’t sure how to stop. You knew you had it. Just a few details to work out!
There are four things Americans aren’t getting enough of these days: moving around, nutrition, sunshine, and having face-to-face conversations with other people, like we’re doing right now. Staying in your room with your screens is not the best way to interact with the world. It doesn’t get you anywhere. A bicycle takes you somewhere. You get stronger. You see things you’ve never seen before. You talk to people. People see my bicycle trailer and they know something is up. They want to know where I’m going. This leads to many great conversations.
Host: Early in your book you write about being in flow state. What is that all about?
Author: Flow state means being so engrossed in an activity that time seems to stop. A lot of craftspeople, people who work with their hands, achieve flow state while they are working. When my daughter is decorating a Christmas tree, time stops for her. She is completely focused on making that tree beautiful. She loves Christmas. Most of us have certain activities like that. This is a great blessing. I believe the bicycle is a great tool for achieving flow state. You are focused on the road, the wind, the physical act of pedaling. Time stops. The cares of the world fall away. I want other people to experience this also.
Host: You have been touring by bicycle continuously for ten years. What are some of the things you’ve noticed? Things that really stick out.
Author: Stand in front of any Walmart or McDonald’s and just watch the people walking in and out. One shoulder is higher than the other. Their feet are splayed outward. Their posture is terrible from all that screen time. They have huge stomachs. Many are limping. These are often young people. It is a vicious cycle, you lose mobility, you gain weight, your joints can’t take the strain. Pain. Pain pills. Sometimes an early death.
When they go to the doctor, they say something like, “I lifted a suitcase and now my back is killing me.” That’s not really the whole story. The suitcase is a trigger. The underlying cause is a lack of physical motion. We thrive on moving around. Primitive man had to keep moving just to find food and water. We haven’t really evolved that much. There is not much difference between primitive man and us. We still need clean water, natural foods, sunshine, and lots of exercise, just as we always have.
Host: What are things you would change about America if you could?
Author: Wow, what a great question!
First, I wish all families would eat dinner together at the kitchen table and talk to each other. That’s where those conversational skills start.
Second, I would change the highway building code. I wish there was a requirement for every street, road, and highway in America to have at least three feet of nice smooth pavement to the right of the white line that defines the right edge of the traffic lane, not including any rumble strip. America could have been a cycling paradise with a code like that! A lot can be done with paint. You can make each lane of traffic slightly more narrow and get that extra three feet. That’s what happened in Austin, Texas, my home town. It was amazing. Streets which used to be terrifying were now comfortable for cyclists. That white line is so important psychologically. If you are to the right of it, you feel great. If you have to be in the actual traffic lane, it’s not a good feeling.
Third, if you are hiking with a backpack, or cycling with panniers or a trailer, it should be perfectly legal to put your tent in any safe location within, say, 200 feet of the highway, including on private land, as long as you are not close to someone’s home and as long as you are not in a town or city. This would encourage people to travel who don’t have money for hotels. Camping is fun and gets you outside. Europe has so called “right to wander” laws. We need those kinds of laws here as well!
Fourth, those giant pickups are terrifying. They should be required to pay a steep annual registration fee so only people who actually need one for work or other utilitarian purposes would get one. “Rolling Coal in Diesel Trucks to Rebel and Provoke” is the title of an article in the New York Times by Hiroko Tabuchi. He examines the cultural phenomenon of young men in huge diesel trucks who like to “roll coal” by coming alongside a cyclist or Prius or any other vehicle that annoys them and suddenly accelerating so as to emit a huge cloud of black smoke. This has happened to me hundreds of times!
Monster pickups cost $60,000. That’s a serious amount of money. There is a wonderful song by a Texas musician by the name of Butch Hancock called “You Coulda Walked Around The World.” This song is about the awesome things you could do with that money if you didn’t spend it on a car or truck. Would it be OK if we played that song at the end of this interview?
Host: Of course! I would love to hear that song! How do you feel about separate bike paths?
Author: They are great for kids, families, older people. Great for local people to enjoy. They are not so great for the serious cyclist. You can’t go fast for fear of a collision with a child who is not paying attention. Also, I am always worried about navigational issues. Is this bike path going to take me back to the highway? For the serious cyclist it is better to to be integrated with the highway system.
Host: What was one of your worst days on a bicycle?
Author: Riding from Terlingua, Texas to Alpine, Texas near Big Bend National Park. It was mostly uphill, a tremendous headwind, temperatures in the thirties, and ice was accumulating on everything, including my face. Eventually, I got a lift from a Border Patrol employee. We had a great conversation about immigration.
Host: What was one of your best days on a bicycle?
Author: A clear, sunny day riding the Avenue of The Giants along Highway 101 in California. The giant redwood trees were magnificent, the air was pine scented, and sunbeams pierced the canopy. I was listening to Bach on my earbuds. I felt like I was in a cathedral.
Host: What do you recommend for bicycle safety?
Author: The three, cardinal safety rules for cyclists are to wear a helmet, to never ride at dusk or at night, and to take time to plan a bicycle friendly route.
Humans are generally tough, but our brains are fragile. When you fall on a bicycle things happen fast. It is easy to lose control just riding down a sidewalk. You can absorb some road rash from time to time, but you need to protect your head. Be sure to wear a bright orange or bright safety yellow helmet. Your head is the highest point on your bike. If you are wearing a super visible helmet, it doesn’t matter so much what color your clothes are.
Another critical safety factor is to not ride at dusk or at night. Safety studies indicate that 70% of all bicycle fatalities occur between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Finally, take time to plan a bicycle friendly route. In my home town of Austin, Texas you can buy an Austin Bicycle Map at Bicycle Sport Shop which will show you safe routes all over town. Planning your route is absolutely crucial. The primary purpose of my book “Chasing Spring” is to encourage people to tour America by giving them easy to follow turn-by-turn directions for a safe and scenic route!
Host: Your book goes into great detail on some strange topics. Like how to take a bath in your tent. How to scrub the groin area. Things like that. Other cycling books usually omit these rather intimate topics. How do you account for this?
Author: Lack of attention to detail! Austin has a slogan, “Keep Austin weird!” I always tell my children I’m doing my best to help keep it weird! I’ve been on the road touring continuously for ten years. I know what’s important. Personal hygiene is absolutely crucial.
As a young Naval officer in the 1970‘s, I was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Agana, Guam. During my time there, a Japanese soldier from World War II came out of the jungle where he had been hiding for decades and turned himself in. His story was an international sensation. His companions had all perished in the jungle. When asked what the secret was to his own survival, he answered that he had worked hard to maintain himself, particularly with regard to personal hygiene.
Host: Does all that riding make your butt hurt?
Author: Everyone asks me that. The answer is no. My hands and feet are a much bigger issue for me. You have to really take care of your hands. Proper riding form includes keeping your wrists straight to encourage blood flow to the hands.
Professional bike seats are narrow and firm. They are designed for your sit bones. The rest of your butt is not involved. When you test that nice, wide, comfortable seat at the bike store, it feels great. Then you ride twenty miles and you are really hurting because the wide seat causes chaffing.
Professional riders ride 20,000 miles a year. They know what they are doing. Performance and efficiency come first, but comfort is still huge. The classic Brooks Professional saddle costs about $200. This is money well spent.
Of course, you will still hurt at first. It takes about two weeks of hard riding to fully acclimate that small area under each sit bone. After that, riding is essentially pain free.
Host: Your answers are remarkably detailed. My knee hurts when I ride. Do you have any suggestions?
Author: If the front of your knee hurts, raise your seat. The correct height for your seat is to adjust the seat so the HEEL of your bike shoe just barely loses contact with the pedal at the lowest point of the pedal stroke. If the back of your knee hurts, you might need to lower your seat.
Your seat also adjusts forward and aft. Have someone help you with this adjustment. It is correct when your foot is at the point of maximum power (knee bent 90 degrees) and the center of the knee (center of rotation) is directly over the center of the pedal spindle (center of rotation). A plumb bob would be perpendicular between these two points. Bicycle fitting is a crucial issue. This topic is covered in great detail in Chapter 4 of my book.
Your knee will heal. Complete the Egoscue exercises daily for proper body alignment (refer to Chapter 5) and ride a lot to strengthen the joint. Ask any orthopedic surgeon and they will tell you that cycling is the very best exercise for the knee. My knees used to hurt also. Now they never hurt.
There is a self portrait by Michelangelo, the great renaissance artist, that shows his hands. They are completely deformed by arthritis. Medical experts say that the only way he could have accomplished his great works with hands like that is that the constant use of his hands helped to keep them functional. The secret is to keep moving!
Host: Your bicycle route runs adjacent to our border with Mexico in the Big Bend area of Texas. You write about passing through the border control checkpoints on your bicycle. What are your thoughts regarding America’s immigration policy?
Author: That part of my trip has been very thought provoking. I think the reverence with which we speak about America as a “melting pot” is misguided. Early in our history, America needed people to immigrate and help settle the continent. Perhaps Canada and Australia still need settlers. The United States does not need settlers. A policy that made sense in 1900 makes no sense whatsoever today. We often approach this topic emotionally rather than logically. Let’s stop for a moment and really think about this important issue. The population of the United States has increased from 150 million to 300 million in my lifetime. Do we really want it to increase from 300 million to 600 million? What will our beautiful country be like then? There is a sort of nostalgic glow over the pioneer days. If America is such a great melting pot, how about the Native Americans? How well has that group integrated? Perhaps not so well.
Another crucial issue, that I rarely hear mentioned, is the harm done to other countries when the United States accepts their citizens to come to America. Those other countries need those doctors, lawyers, engineers, and hard workers much, much more than we do! If the wealthier countries siphon off all the talent, we could end up in a situation where we are surrounded by failed states! For this reason, I don’t believe we should provide citizenship to any non-citizens. In the case of asylum seekers, we should only provide a temporary refuge with the goal being to help people return to their country as soon as possible so they can work to fix whatever is wrong there. I truly believe that a country’s people are its most valuable resource. We should, of course, always welcome visitors with open arms. Visas and employer requested work permits should be freely available, provided reciprocal arrangements are offered to our citizens who want to visit and work in other countries.
I believe we need to have a program, something similar to the Marshall Plan, to help other countries make the most of their human capital. This is a goal which is just as laudable as the melting pot scenario, but which is much more in accord with the actual needs of today’s world. Imagine America’s standing in the world if we helped educate the best and brightest from other countries and then helped finance their return to their own countries where their skills are desperately needed. We need to support other nations by promoting education, health, infrastructure, and good management practices.
I would be in favor of spending about 10% of our gross national product for purposes of investing in other nations. This money could come from reforming our insane, so called “health” spending. I firmly believe that our health system can be reformed. Recently, I read a New York Times article by Carolyn McClanahan, a financial planner and medical doctor, that suggests a nice, clear method for doing so. The title of the article is “What Spain Gets Right on Health Care.” This article is BY FAR the best thing I have read on reforming our health system!
Host: One chapter of your book is titled “My Lady of the Island.” You describe this chapter as the tender tale of a man who tempts fate when he meets a mysterious woman. I liked the things you had to say in this chapter about intimacy in personal relationships. Do you have any other insights regarding relationships that you could share?
Author: I was trying to write a romantic comedy and now you are turning me into a relationship guru! I am only qualified for this new role by way of relationship mistakes! If those count, then I do indeed have superb credentials!
The first thing that comes to mind is that we need to be very careful about the basic roles that men and women often play in relationships. Shakespeare said that all the world is a stage and all of us are merely players on that stage. Men want to provide for their family. Women want to love and nurture their family, especially their children. These basic roles need to be in balance. If a woman loves her partner but is not being provided for emotionally and financially, this will cause her to feel pain. If a man is playing the role of provider but does not feel appreciated and loved in return, he will also feel pain. Avoid relationships which are based on trying to help a weaker or more dependent person.
Be sure to read the New York Times article “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” by Mandy Len Catron. This article has a series of questions for partners to work through to discover things like how each person defines intimacy. Most of us would never think to ask these questions. To read this article, simply search for the title of the article using Google. I also recommend the YouTube video “How to Fall in Love with Anyone” by Mandy Len Catron.
Another great New York Times article on the topic of relationships is “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” by Alain de Botton. You don’t want to miss this wryly humorous yet revealing take on relationships. To read this article, simply search for the title of the article using Google. I also recommend the YouTube video “Why You Will Marry The Wrong Person” by Alain de Botton.
Finally, listening to music can help us process and understand our relation-ships. In my opinion, the three greatest relationship albums are “Blood on the Tracks” by Bob Dylan, “Blue” by Joni Mitchell, and “Alice” by Tom Waits. I would have given Dylan the Nobel Prize based solely on his album “Blood on the Tracks!” Whenever I feel hurt or confused, I turn to music!
Perhaps you are in a truly dark place following a bad relationship. Perhaps you have tried to understand and label the source of your pain. Was is narcissistic abuse or borderline personality disorder? Does it really matter?All you really know is that it was bad! Very, very, bad! In other words, you are in dire need of healing! If this is your situation, stronger medicine is required. You need the very best soul music. There are only two albums that rise to this exalted standard. Even the titles of these albums are instructive and will help you begin the healing process. You need to listen to Aretha Franklin’s, “I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You” and James Carr’s, “You Got My Mind Messed Up.”
Host: If Hollywood decides to make a movie about your bicycle adventures, something similar to the movie “Wild” with Reece Witherspoon which was based on the book of the same title by Cheryl Strayed, for example, what actor would you want to play you? Also, what actress would you want to play “My Lady of the Island,” the love interest in your book?
Author: That is a tough question! I guess they should call my movie “Wilder!” Sean Penn is too funny looking. Richard Gere and George Clooney are way too handsome. Jack Nicholson has great eyebrows like mine, but he doesn’t look like he could bicycle around the block. I want Mark Ruffalo to play me. I like the way that dude talks. He always seems thoughtful. He doesn’t have all the answers, but he’s definitely trying hard.
My Lady of the Island? That’s easy, Scarlet Johanson! Have you seen the movie “Ghost World?” Every old guy in America loves that movie! She was so sweet to the old record collecting dude in that movie!
Host: Is that your bicycle leaning against the window? It almost seems to glow. Isn’t it a little flashy for a 72 year old?
Author: That is a classic Italian road bike from the eighties! Look at that lug work. Notice the fully sloping Italian crown. The Columbus tubing. Did you notice the single chromed chain stay? That is the bicycle equivalent of Vin Diesel wearing a silver earring in one ear! You are never too old for bicycle bling! By the way, the bicycle motor comes with a lifetime guarantee! You can’t say that about cars!