Bicycling Across America, Meeting Kind Folks

COURT HOUSE – Are genes of wanderlust passed to grandson from grandmother? It seems so for Ralph Johnson, 21, who, on May 16 left Cape May County on his Jamis Durango mountain bike destined for the Golden State in no particular rush. He reached San Francisco, Calif. Aug. 5, and then jetted home from that odyssey Aug. 13.
In a few days, he will be off for a semester in Mussoorie in the Dehradun District of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Johnson noted while the time in the subcontinent won’t benefit his academic record, he believes there is value in “experiencing different cultures and learning about a country I have never been to. I thought it was worth sacrificing.”
Those who knew his late grandmother Thelma Cryder would likely smile. The Court House resident, who worked with her husband, the late Dr. Millard Cryder, to make the local hospital a reality, passed away at 104 in November 2009. She loved travel. Her life’s itinerary included capitals of Europe and, late in life, sailing the Amazon River. She loved planning her next trip. That same lure to see new places has been passed to Johnson.
The 2010 Middle Township High School graduate is a University of Pittsburgh student. Shortly before his 21st birthday, the idea of a cross-country bicycle trip was hatched. He did what any modern potential traveler does: research on the Internet. In particular, he sought information about bicycles. One thing he quickly learned, his beloved Jamis was definitely not the ideal bike for a trans-America ride.
“It has a heavier 29-pound frame,” Johnson said.
But Johnson was undaunted, as he was familiar with his humble gray bike that he affectionately referred to as “Her.” Confessed Johnson, “I had her (the bicycle) since this past summer. I broke everyone else’s bikes.” That included his sister’s bike. Then he ran another old bike into a tree and bent its frame. “All the bikes were shot as a result of me,” he smiled. Perhaps those crashes prepared him for the long ride across lush hills and valleys, farmlands growing corn and wheat, and arid, nearly deserted towns in the West.
The ride was not for selfish reasons, Johnson said, “I did it for two charities, Conservation Fund and Action Against Hunger. I wanted to make a positive impact.” He would tell people of those charities, and left it to them to donate as they wished.
Sitting in college in Pittsburgh, ironically where his grandmother once lived, the “urban dwellings” conspired in his mind to make it “not a nice landscape.” So in December 2012 he came up with an idea. “I found a trail that starts in Virginia and goes to California.” That route is the Trans-American Trail. Johnson made his first destination Yorktown, Va., the trail’s eastern terminus.
Starting from Stone Harbor May 16, Johnson bid his family farewell and, solo, headed south to the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, which carried him to Delaware. From there it was through Maryland and to the Old Dominion state.
An avowed minimalist, Johnson packed only a sleeping bag, tent, two shirts, three pair of shorts, four pair of socks, and, of course, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Among his gear, a Kindle tablet, and an iPhone that became his blogging tool and constant link to home. One night he didn’t call home. “They thought I was murdered or something,” he said as only a young man can of parental concern.
Johnson kept no track of miles traveled per day, since he was not making the trip against the calendar. On his bike there was no odometer to chronicle distance traveled. “It was not a challenge to see how far I could go. It was more about seeing the places, meeting the people and getting the feel of the culture and regions,” he said.
“I ran into a lot of people who were doing that (biking to beat the clock). I feel they missed the entire premise of the journey. I had a different outlook. I did not stick around to talk to them long,” he added.
“I did not wear a helmet,” he confessed. “I was the only person on the trail who did not wear a helmet.”
He carried some spare inner tubes and a tire repair kit as well as a small pump.
Along the way he read his Kindle and some paperbacks, which he exchanged with fellow bikers. “It was interesting,” he said. Among the reading material was “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are” by Alan Watts and “Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream” by Deepak Chopra and Sanjiv Chopra.
Some nights he stayed in Bible Belt churches, which are listed on the Internet as places for bicyclists.
“Everyone there was kind. They really enjoy cyclists,” he said, adding “That’s why they call it the Bible Belt.” He never encountered mean people. Some extended the welcome mat, invited him in, cooked a meal for him and showed him around their towns.
“I’ve been asked what the worst experience I had is. I did not meet one dangerous person. I met a lot of people and everyone was absolutely amazing. That was the most profound effect, how incredible human beings are, how kind and open they are,” he offered. “The kindness of people never ceased to amaze me.”
He stayed in campgrounds, but quit them as he wended his way West, since there was plenty of open space that offered privacy with tremendous views that took away his breath.
From hometown Court House, with an elevation of 14 feet above sea level, Johnson biked through the Appalachians’ roughly 4,000 feet elevations to Monarch Pass, Colorado at 12,000 feet.
The Appalachians he found “up and down,” whereas heading into the Rockies “you would climb a majority of the day, and fly down it in 15 minutes. It was a different experience. They are beautiful.”
He spent Fourth of July in Pueblo, Colo. Amazed at that state’s eastern flat terrain that changed in the western part. “About 100 miles out of town, you started to see the mountains in the mist,” he recalled, as if revisiting the scene.
The Rockies’ excited him, since “I was bored with the flatland of Kansas and eastern Colorado,” he said.
He found Kansas “extremely farm oriented and cattle driven.” In eastern Colorado he noted is the worst drought since the Great Depression. “There is just not enough water,” he said.
Price of goods rose, from bargain snacks in Kentucky, where the economy is lagging, to California, where everything is “outrageously expensive.” Other than high prices in California, he simply recalled, the Golden State “was amazing.”
Another Court House man, Dave Hand, is in San Francisco doing a summer internship. “It fell into place. [Hand] said, ‘Come on out and stay with me!’ He was kind enough to open his door to me,” said Johnson.
No trip to the City by the Bay would be complete without crossing Golden Gate Bridge, which Johnson did on “Her” in about 15 minutes. He was amazed at the number of people who walk across the span.
The weather there also stunned Johnson. “After 6 or 7 o’clock the bridge was fogged in, and it was freezing at night, and I didn’t have long pants.” So close was Hand’s apartment to AT&T Park that the sound of bats hitting the balls could be heard.
Home but a few short weeks, the wheels of wanderlust are again spinning in Johnson’s mind. He longs to be pedaling again. Perhaps driven by that supernatural force that propelled his grandmother to distant lands, Johnson ponders a bike trek across Europe. Will he retrace Thelma’s steps from decades ago? There’s still Africa, Australia and, at last, the Amazon.
Those who want to retrace Johnson’s trip can visit: BikingtheCountry.blogspot.com.