I was no longer dependent on Tree God for transportation. I didn’t have to take the bus anywhere. I could go wherever I wanted to – under my own power. I bought a map of San Diego and studied it endlessly, looking for ways to get wherever I needed to go. There were almost no bike lanes or bike paths, so I looked for quiet streets. I found a route from my flophouse to the Town and Country Hotel that I can still navigate in my head as effortlessly as if I’d last ridden it three days ago. I went to all the beaches. I knew how to get to all the bike stores, like Zumwalt’s in Hillcrest, which was the nearest bike store.
Being a science buff, I often rode this steel beast to the Point Loma tidepools, and thought nothing about the climb back up. I didn’t have a bike computer to tell me how many feet I’d climbed, or what the grade was – I just did what I had to do to get where I wanted to go.
I obtained a rusty headlight and bottle dynamo. I don’t have any idea where I got them. I remember the pinholes of rust showing through the chrome of the headlight, but mostly I remember that I could (sorta) see the road at night, which felt magical! Now I felt completely free in the big city.
My bike had a rack on it, and I carried everything I needed. I couldn’t afford panniers, but I stole a milk crate and tied it to the rack when I needed to carry things I couldn’t strap directly to the rack. The sense of being completely self-reliant was intoxicating.
Tree God and I decided to get an apartment together. We saved enough money for the first and last month’s rent plus a damage deposit, and I moved out of the Hotel Lamont flophouse.
By this time, my faithful Schwinn was nearing the end of its life.
One dark night, I hit a curb head on, and went over the handlebars. Naturally, I didn’t even own a helmet, but luckily, I was OK. However, the bike was not. The forks were bent so badly that the front tire was rubbing against the frame, and there was a dent in the rim. I removed the fork, and, placing the dropouts in one of the dumpster receptacles used to lift it, I used all my strength to bend them back until they were sort of straight. I used pliers to straighten the steel rim. It was still limping along, but it was time to look for a replacement.
I found a used Centurion that looked like a real bicycle. It had a lugged and brazed frame, and, instead of a one-piece steel crank, it had cottered cranks, and, to me, it looked and felt like a racing machine.
Tree and I lived on Texas Street, a few blocks north of Balboa Park, which had an asphalt velodrome that was open to the public. I had no idea what I was doing, but I started hanging out there and doing laps in the velodrome. Sometimes people would join me, and nobody ever made me feel like I didn’t belong there.
Ironically, living in an apartment was much cheaper than living in the Hotel Lamont, so I started saving money. I was planning to buy a car, but then something else happened that again changed the course of my life.
One day, I bought a bicycling magazine at 7/11. I came across an article about Lon Haldeman, who was training for Great American Bike Race (now the Race Across America), to be held in 1982. In addition to my amazement at his endurance and commitment, I remember my awe when I realized you could ride a bicycle across the ENTIRE COUNTRY.
The seed had been planted.
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