Beginning a journey

by M. L. Buchman
(an excerpt from my latest book [it released yesterday], because sometimes you just want to tell a story)

Mid-Life Crisis on Wheels: a bicycle journey around the world

Kicking the Pedal High

March 27th, 1993, shortly after my thirty-fifth birthday, I kicked my right pedal high and tried not to look too closely at the small cluster of friends circled about me. Finally, I focused on their faces because I couldn’t bear to look at the house behind me—now empty of every single thing.

No furniture, no spices in the gourmet kitchen that I’d designed and built and from which I’d thrown so many “come all ye chefs” dinner parties, no car in the garage. The new owners were an hour away, so now even my dreams would need a new residence. Inadvertently I’d eased up on the brakes and rolled backward down the hill just far enough that my foot had swung past high-center and dropped down.

Again, I kicked my right pedal high and clicked my bike shoe into the cleat with a sharp snap. Hugs would be completed after breakfast at a nearby restaurant, but first I had to start the journey.

Eleven weeks from concept to action.

After seven years of work, I’d finished the house—f­­or someone else to inhabit. The electrical had passed inspection only three days earlier. The plumbing the day before that.

But now I was free.

Now was the time.

I lifted my weight, released the brakes on my heavily loaded touring bike. My friends’ applause rattled around that chilly morning like so many lost robins hunting worms in the hard ground who had arrived too early for the spring and didn’t know what else to do on that chilly March day. I had planned to start in the warmth of May, but the house had sold too quickly, the new owners wanted to move in too soon.

It was time to go.

I drove downward with all my weight.

The handlebars twisted left.
The front wheel twisted right…
As I lay upon my back in the middle of the street, I noted that the sharp blue sky looked very unusual from this position. I’d never lain in the middle of the street to observe it before.

“Wow, Matt! That was amazing. Can you do it again?”

“Is it too late to buy back your house?”

“And you’re going to ride around the world?”

They helped me swing the heavy bike upright. In the final weeks, I’d had no time to maintain my poor machine. Instead I’d dragged it to a bike shop for a tune-up and they’d missed tightening the handlebar bolt after they were done.

“I have the wrench here somewhere.” I emptied the front-left pannier in the middle of the street. T-shirts, guidebooks, a bag of rice, and one sandal.

“I saw it just last night.” I unearthed my right-front pannier and disgorged it onto the growing mound: spare tubes, a pair of pants, a set of nested cookpots with a tiny stove, and my rain gear.

There had been no time to pack for the trip while I was finishing the house and selling most of my worldly possessions. I’d simply thrown things I might need into one corner, from tents to toiletries, until I’d buried the actual bike.

The previous night these friends and more had come to drink champagne in the echoing cavern of a living room that was a single night from no longer being mine. I’d sorted through everything.

“Too many T-shirts in the pile. Anyone want one?” Nope. Garbage.

“Extra flashlight?” Paul allowed as he could fit a second one in his glove compartment.

“Room for one novel, who wants the other two?” A few friends departed at this point leaving tears on my shoulder. At least in the morning they’d still have each other. I fought my own tears back for their sake. I was the brave adventurer and if I let my fears show, I’d never be able to depart. (I was also half afraid that like the laughter of the prior August, if I started to cry in March, I might not stop until the August following.)

At the bottom of the right-rear bag I unearthed the hex-wrench beneath another layer of clothes, a spare fuel canister for my cookstove, a wide variety of other tools and parts, and the missing sandal. A quick twist, a hasty yet equally disorganized repack, and I was ready.

I kicked the pedal high once more and, amidst as much laughter as applause, I ground my way slowly up the steep hill in first gear while my friends walked easily alongside. 

* * *

Even twenty-five years later, I think about this moment often. So many times in becoming a writer, I've leapt in, kicking my pedal high...and landed on my ass. But I keep getting up and, overall, it keeps on working. 
Who knew I'd learn so much from making a total idiot of myself.
You can read more about this adventure in:

Click here to buy now:

https://www.mlbuchman.com/books/mid-life-crisis-on-wheels/

M.L. “Matt” Buchman started the first of over 60 novels, 100 short stories, and a fast-growing pile of audiobooks while flying from South Korea to ride his bicycle across the Australian Outback. Part of an around-the-world trip that ultimately launched his writing career in: contemporary romance, military romantic suspense, thrillers, and SF/F.

Recently named in “The 20 Best Romantic Suspense Novels: Modern Masterpieces” by ALA’s Booklist, they have also selected his works three times as "Top-10 Romance Novel of the Year." NPR and B&N listed other works as "Best 5 Romance of the Year."

As a 30-year project manager with a geophysics degree who has: designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, and solo-sailed a 50’ ketch, he is awed by what's possible. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.