What My Bicycle Heard

Traveling over 4,000 miles across the western United States and Canada, the author records conversations with his only companion: his bicycle. He travels west across Nebraska's sea of corn, to the Grand Tetons, through Yellowstone, and north to Glacier National Park. From there he continues to Banff, Canada and the Ice Field Parkway before turning southwest to Vancouver. Crossing by ferry to Vancouver Island and then to Washington's Olympic peninsula, he reaches the Pacific and turns back east to Seattle, the Cascades, and finally to Glacier where his trip ends. During the average 400 miles a week he rides, he records his talks on America, art, literature, his life, his bike, the people he meets, and the places he encounters. He wakes up in a heard of Elk, avoids forest fires in Kamloops, breaks down in Seattle, crashes after too many pints in Waterton Lakes, and nearly meets his end in a multi-car accident in rural Montana. From the sublime to the banal, this transcription of the recorded journal of a young cancer survivor's ten week cycling trip is raw and open. It's just what the bike heard.