Wills and Caroline Gardner
Last I heard, they had made it to central Oregon — and his
pedals weren’t falling off anymore. That’s a good thing, especially
when your goal is to ride your bike across America.
To judge from their whirlwind beginning, Caroline and Wills Gardner
— siblings from Memphis determined to ride their bikes this
summer from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine — were relying
primarily on youthful enthusiasm and a couple of St. Christopher medals
given to them by a Central Gardens neighbor.
St. Christopher is the patron saint of safe travel, but in the first
15 minutes of their ride — 15 minutes! — what they needed
was their first aid kit and tools to repair Wills’ bike. That’s because
A) it’s unclear if they had ever ridden their bikes fully loaded with
gear and B) they didn’t take their bikes for a test ride after they
were assembled.
Let’s back up. Why are these two twentysomethings — he a 2009
UT-Knoxville grad and she a refugee from a Dallas hedge fund —
riding their bikes for 72 days and 4,200 miles this summer? Simple,
really. “We were going to volunteer in Nepal,” Caroline told me, “but
then we realized we’d be there for the rainy season.”
I took them to Astoria, on the Oregon coast, to pick up the bikes,
which had been shipped from Memphis. Along the way, I asked them some
questions.
How long have you been training for this? Caroline: “A few
weeks.”
How long has it been since you rode your bike 40 miles in a day?
Wills: “I never have!”
A few more questions determined that they didn’t know how to use
their camp stove, had yet to spend a night in their tent, and their
food stash consisted of ramen noodles, peanut butter, honey, bread, and
Pop Tarts.
I stopped asking questions and started praying to St.
Christopher.
They started out on June 3rd, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic
August 10th, and immediately both crashed. I think Wills went down
first, but both needed patching up. Then Wills’ pedal came off in a
construction area, which is where that test ride back at the shop might
have helped.
That night in camp, they discovered that their alcohol stove, made
from an old Budweiser can, “proved quite dangerous.” Caroline set it
and a can of denatured alcohol on fire, but they eventually feasted on
“burned beans, cold corn, and half-cooked ramen.” (Mom and Dad Gardner,
back in Memphis, have probably quit reading by now.)
The next day, they were confronted with that quintessential Oregon
hazard, the logging truck — in a tunnel, no less. Both sprawled
out again, and a couple miles later, Wills’ pedal was gone for good. So
there they were, unable to ride, “questioning just what in the hell
[they] were doing.”
But that is when St. Christopher intervened, in the form of “a crew
of Texans,” one of whom was a biking enthusiast. They were given a ride
to a bike shop and treated to a new crankshaft for Wills. They just
beat the rain into camp that night. They had peanut butter and honey
sandwiches with Pop Tarts at Cape Lookout State Park on the Pacific
Ocean.
The trip was on, and special travel magic — every day a story
— was flowing.
The next night they camped by the Salmon River, and on Day 4, they
were given homemade jerky by a man with a shotgun (he was hunting
gophers). Then they stopped at a winery for a tasting. In Corvallis,
Oregon, they met an original member of the 1976 trans-America bike ride
and were fed pasta with meat sauce by a group of 15 Germans in
camp.
Like I said, the last message they left said they were in central
Oregon. This means that the Cascade Mountains are behind them and that
some more friends in my Portland betting pool have been eliminated. (I
lost when they pulled out of Eugene.)
With continued good luck, on the day this issue of the Flyer
hits the street, they will be in or near Grangeville, Idaho, looking
forward to arriving soon at Montana’s Lolo Hot Springs. After Montana,
it’s on across Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, New York, and New England. We shall see.
As I waved to them outside the bike shop in Astoria, I think I spoke
for all of Memphis when I said, “Good luck.” Wills said, “We’ll need
it!”
It or St. Christopher.
