Inspired by ForesterBob’s recounting of his time spent in Tierra del Fuego some 25 years ago, I was going to write up a similar photo-journal diary of the adventures my wife and I had down in the Lakes District of southern Chile last year. But while I’m still working on that, I thought I might start out with a far more consequential solo bike trip I embarked on over 30 years ago that helped set me on the road to becoming the Iron Tortoise: It’s not how fast you go that counts, but how far you really get, for life’s not just for the swift or strong, but for those who never quit (IT’s motto).
“Faster than a public bus, more persistent than a carpooler, able to leap long traffic lines in a single light. Look!, out in the street — it’s a dog, it’s a lawn chair; no, it’s the Iron Tortoise! Yes, strange cyclist from another consciousness with powers of perseverance far beyond those of ordinary bikers; and who, disguised as a mild-mannered seismic analyst astride his trusty steed, fights a never-ending battle for road space, justice, and a less motorized way of life.”
As both an avid bike commuter and anti-nuclear activist, I had originally conceived this ride as a week-long, 480-mile symbolic encirclement of the Nevada Test Site (NTS — where nuclear nightmares came to be born) by a group of like-minded peace-cyclists, to coincide with the April 1989 action against nuclear testing organized by the American Peace Test (APT). For several years prior to this, I had been gradually moving away from reliance on automobiles in favor of the bicycle for personal transportation, and spurred on by scientific reports linking fossil fuel CO2 emissions to the long-term threat posed by global warming, I finally took the ultimate step of selling off the last of my cars in 1988 to try and prove that I really could live without actually owning one — even in as car-centric a place as Southern California where I then lived.
Unfortunately, despite my rather feeble efforts to enlist any fellow-travelers for this expedition (the Title Image was my attempt at a recruitment flyer), I soon found that few anti-nuclear activists seemed up for any really serious cycling, and even fewer recreational cyclists were all that into making a political statement of this type. So while I had already done a fair amount of long-distance bike touring, and even had a number of solo century rides to my credit, the prospect of trying to do such a daunting ride through the desolate Nevada desert entirely on my own added a whole new psychological perspective to the already enormous logistical problems I would have to overcome — chief among them carrying enough fluids to avoid dehydration in traversing the often 50-100+ mile distances between water sources on this route.
Weather-wise, I was hoping that early April in southern Nevada would be fairly pleasant for cycling, with just the wind and possible thundershowers to worry about; but as it turned out a little rain would have been more than welcome, since this April was shaping up to be the hottest yet seen in the Southwest since records started being kept in the 19th Century. Nonetheless, I and my fully loaded 15-speed mountain bike caught a ride out to Nevada with a carload of other activists late on Friday, April 7, though we didn’t arrive at the APT Peace Camp opposite the main entrance to NTS (about 65 miles NW of Las Vegas) until about 2:30 am.
Day 1 (Saturday, April 8) : Beatty or Bust!
NTS Entrance
With only 3 hours of fitful sleep before awakening to the first of a series of intensely bright desert sunrises, I wasn’t too terribly interested in getting off to an early start, so I made the rounds greeting other activists I had met at previous protests. The main action scheduled that day was a crossing-the-line demonstration in solidarity with the Western Shoshone and their ancestral claim to the land occupied by the US Energy Dept, and desecrated since 1951 by over 800 nuclear explosions, including an average of 15-18 underground blasts per year during most of the 1980’s.
Since getting arrested wasn’t on my agenda at this point, having done that twice before at similar gatherings, I limited myself to providing a bit of moral support until I ran out of excuses for delaying my departure any further. So with the temperature nearing 90F and a slight tail wind from the east to spur me on, I finally bid farewell to Peace Camp and set off down the road toward Beatty a little before 11 am. To say I was starting out under less than ideal conditions would have been a gross understatement. In addition to an acute lack of sleep and the heat of a late morning start, I had not had much time in the preceding weeks to do any serious conditioning. Physically, I wasn’t even up to par, much less performing at anything close to my peak; and mentally I was still asking myself just why I was out here at all in this utterly uncompromising wasteland.
Lathrop Wells
Fortunately, I I had planned a fairly easy 60 mile ride for the first day, dropping 900 feet into the Armagosa Valley and then climbing 900 feet back up to Beatty. I also encountered the only other cyclist I was to see on this entire trip a few miles out from Peace Camp. He was riding from Sacramento to Las Vegas on the first part of a solo tour that would eventually take him to Florida and beyond, demonstrating that at least I was not the only one crazy enough to be out there on their own.
It took less than 2 hours to cover the 24 miles down to Lathrop Wells, and with the only water and shade prior to Beatty, I was more than ready for a nice long siesta to wait out the mid-day sun. While waiting for that sun’s intensity to lessen a little, I discovered the fishnet panels on the jersey I was wearing not only let in plenty of fresh air (good), but also plenty of UV rays (bad); and since I hadn’t thought to apply any sunscreen to those sections of my torso they covered, I could now add a significant case of sunburn to my growing list of physical complaints. By 5 pm the only real change in intensity, aside from the color of my skin, was with the wind — it had now swung around to the direction I was heading into, and was now blowing stronger than ever. It took 3 long plodding hours to cover the next 29 miles up to Beatty, with no relief at all from the relentless sun until it finally dropped behind the hills in the west.
Approaching Beatty
After a somewhat less than adequate salad bar dinner at one of the local eateries, I found a pay phone to call in the first of my daily progress reports to the APT office in Las Vegas. I had hoped these reports might provide an added margin of safety (this still being the era before cell phones, let alone smart phones), but soon discovered that I would reach a different person each time — someone to whom I would inevitably have to explain the details of my ride all over again. By this time I had also found that the markets I was counting on for reprovisioning had all closed for the night, and since I wasn’t looking forward to doing the last 6 miles in the dark to my original goal of Bailey’s Hot Spring I rode back down to camp by a stream bank I had passed on the way in. With only the mournful sounds of the odd coyote in the distance for company, I pondered my somewhat painful progress to this point, and what the days ahead might hold.
Stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon...