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| Maynard prepares to go coast to coast |
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| Dick Maynard tries out his brand new bike from the Board N Buckle bike shop. |
| Smith tames Morro Bay course |
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| Gere tees off with a spoon . Here he also used a mashie and niblick to reach the green |
Where Do The $ Go?
Maynard has been asked several times what cause he's riding for and where do people pledge? The truth is he isn't riding for Jesus, Free Tibet or the Symbionese Liberation Army. He doesn't want that much responsibility. He might get 10 miles into his journey and mid climb through the first hill decide he isn't cut out for a cross country ride. At that point he will have disappointed not only Cujo and the Dali Lama but will also have come up over 4,000 miles short in the eyes of the world wide Christian community.
In light of all that responsibility he has opted to just pedal for his own enjoyment. Smith, on the other hand, has chosen to try and raise funds for a special project of his own. The link to his site is found at the bottom of the PedalnPutt home page. However, if you do insist on sending dimes and dollars for Maynard's bike ride, rest secure in the knowledge your heartfelt contributions will be spent on greasy food and copius amounts of alcohol based beverages.
| Maynard trains for pedalnputt |
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| tasting the beer to order when your having more than one |
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What motivates any human to ride a bicycle from "sea to shining sea", Oregon to Connecticut, coast to coast? Countless words have been written detailing how the hours spent on a bicycle seat are akin to a voyage of self-discovery. Others have gone on at much too great a length espousing the thought a cross country bike tour is a journey that not only involves the physical effort necessary to ride coast to coast but the daily expenditure of energy must be accompanied by a rider's continual search for his or her inner soul. Others have opined in the multi syllabic words favored by the intellectual set that a trans-america bicycle tour is nothing more than a hyperbaric chamber of time allowing a rider the space necessary to contemplate a self directed search to a new horizon on the "road of life". Well, not on the Geezerpalooza tour it won't.
Smith and Maynard (that's us) are much too far along life's path to deal with the angst and self flagellation necessary to turn a bicycle ride into an intellectual exercise. We're just two old farts looking for a unique conversation starter at the weekend cocktail party.
With our lives well into the 7th decade and both of us having lived almost half of our years on this big ball in the same respective locations, (Gere Smith resides just down the street from the high school in San Luis Obispo, California while Dick Maynard drops in from time to time to his legal residence, a home on a bluff overlooking the Colorado River on the far western edge of the Centennial State), it's time to temporarily change the landscape of our lives.
For years the two of us have been sharing face time with friends and acquaintances at various groupings be they faculty gatherings, country club socials or neighborhood get togethers. And at those tete-a-tete's discussions continually revolve around the ad-infinitum of our children, grandchildren, Bush (GW and Dubya), Clinton (him and her), the infirmities of our peer group, day trading, Viagra and "What the hell is wrong with the Bronco's?" Out there, somewhere between the Pacific and the Atlantic, there has to be a fertile field of new subject matter just waiting to be harvested into a unique conversation.
For Smith and Maynard, well, we share a vision of the future that finds us at a social gathering, bottle of Fat Tire in hand, being queried, "How's your kids?". That single oft repeated question will this time herald the divine moment that prompted a bike ride of over 4,000 miles. "I don't know" will come the reply, "Haven't seen them in over 3 months." And before the questioner can quickly move on to another oft discussed subject such as, "Can you believe the Bronco's, they haven't been worth a good god damn since John hung it up!", we will proceed to detonate a conversational carpet bomb on the heretofore unsuspecting soul. "Haven't seen 'em because my brother-in-law and I were riding our bikes across the United States. And we pulled our golf clubs along behind the bikes so we could peddle and putt our days away." What words will follow that eye opener in the world of conversational repartee? At this moment we have nary a clue, but out there ahead of us is a ten week minimum to be utilized in peddling, putting and figuring out a followup to the conversations ahead. Right now we're stuck with, "Have you ever spent Saturday night in Kooskia, Idaho? Man it's something! The locals told us the Industrial Development Committee of the Kooskia Chamber of Commerce is mulling the possibility of funding digital gas pumps for the local Texaco station." This, admittedly, is not the greatest of rejoinders but also keep in mind we have a myriad of miles in our future, miles than can be utilized in contemplating the perfect conversational bon mot.
The ground rules for the Geezerpalooza Tour are still under discussion. Maynard espouses the heart felt position this bicycle tour will not be involved in dining on a daily menu of "nuts and berries" while sleeping the nights away under "God's munificence". Such blatant rejection of living "one with nature" troubles Smith. He is, by job description and emotional conviction an enviromentalist, an earth firster, dare we say it, a "tree hugger". Maynard is just the reverse. He's admittedly addicted to a bicycling life where roughing it includes showers, inner-spring mattresses and flush toilets. For him the ideal cycling day is one that includes a 75 mile ride, 18 holes of golf and a dip in the hot tub followed by an evening meal best described by epicureans as a "grease hit". Smith too looks forward to a daily bike sojourn and round of golf but equates Maynard's need for physical comfort and a daily repast of heart clogging consistency as the foundation of a far from mainstream right wing Republican philosophy. Maynard's response? "And the bad news is?"
This Trans-Am trip will be a "credit card tour". This phrase is usually heard coming from the curled lip of disdain possessed by a sallow eyed, slack jawed, emaciated, exhausted cyclist, who, after tens of thousands of miles in the saddle, considers himself to be higher up the bicycling food chain than the Maynard like bourgeois Comfort Inn breed of cyclist. Smith feels this rejection of all things comfortable has some merit. Maynard, however, possesses not one ounce of guilt over violating the unwritten rules of bicycle tour decorum, and will leave the Oregon coast with an extensive list of motels, b n b's, and golf courses, public and private, that will possibly be on the route ahead plus he also has the exact address of every restaurant named "Mom's" between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
So come join us as we wend our sore and sorry butts across the USA in a ride not dedicated to the greater good but to the greater giggle. Ride with us, via your computer, on the Geezerpalooza Tour.
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