Cross-state bike trek yields a story ridden

SANDPOINT – Ten days and 449 miles ago, I loaded my bike with bags and gear at the Anacortes Ferry Terminal, steeling myself to ride across the state to Sandpoint.

My mind was clogged with misgivings, fears that my legs weren’t up for the journey. Or worse, that my backbone – the figurative one – wasn’t.

That’s when two women rode by me, their bikes packed tall and wide.

“We’re going to Maine,” they yelled. This was no boast, just an excited statement of fact, and it had the effect of making my statewide trip seem not so hard after all.

Today, on my last day of riding, I woke with no worries. The wind was at my back, Lake Pend Oreille beckoned and there was a chance I’d meet again some of the bike travelers I’d met along the way. I told them all to lunch at Joel’s, a burrito shop in Sandpoint. That’s where I’d find them.

Aside from the distance, the hills, the headwinds and the heat, there was always one constant on my trip across Washington on U.S. Bicycle Route 10 that kept me moving – my eyes searching the horizon.

The people.

On my first day, those two Maine-bound women kicked me off my scared perch, and though I never saw them again, their exuberance stayed with me. Every person on a bike I saw was with me, even if they were with others. My people.

There was Pete, who is riding across the country to raise money to fight multiple sclerosis. He was pulled over just east of Sedro-Wooley, examining his bike, when I rolled up and asked if everything was OK. It was, and after telling each other our endpoints and reasons for riding, he was off, easily creating distance between us.

Then there were the young couple from Bellingham who were riding to Winthrop for a wedding. In Newhalem, where we spoke, the two were already very sunburned but still very determined. It was 3 p.m. and we were 40 miles from Washington Pass. But that’s where they were headed.

“If we get tired, we’ll just set up camp on the side of the road,” the young woman told me. And they were off.

A strong, sinewy woman in her 40s pulled up next as I sat in the shade of the Skagit General Store in Newhalem. She was camping there for the night because it was the end of cell service.

“I like my Internet,” she said.

Her plan for the next day: Up and over Washington Pass, then to home.

“I’m from Colorado,” she said. “These hills aren’t that impressive.”

That was a boast, but she made good on it the next day outpacing me and hollering that we should grab a beer in Winthrop.

As I continued my prolonged shade break in Newhalem, four college kids pedaled in, the first of many times I would talk with Emma, Raisa, Sam and Kali. Again, our loaded bikes acted as beacons for kindred spirits, and we exchanged our stories.

That first meeting, we spoke about our bikes as magnets. They said they believed the loaded bikes inspired pity, something along the lines of, “You poor people, torturing yourselves like that. Please, let me take care of you.”

I suppose there is something to that theory, but I think the bike magnet is made of covetous curiosity.

Nearly every town I came to, someone would approach me and tell me of their dreams for a great journey, whether by bike, motorcycle or car. My panniers, it seemed, stoked their wanderlust.

I saw those four college kids again the next day, as we leapfrogged up Rainy and Washington passes. And again in Wauconda, where we commiserated over the closed cafe. And again in Republic, where we ate dinner together.

We hoped to meet in Sandpoint. I told them I’d hand off my uneaten food, sure bait for these hardscrabble college kids. But they rested in Republic and never caught up with me.

That same night in Republic, I talked with two bike travelers from California, Josh and Vu. Josh grew up in the town I was born in and has family in Shingletown, California, where I went to elementary school. We both have moustaches, so yeah we had a lot in common. They rested in Republic as well, and I never saw them again, either.

Yesterday in Newport, however, I saw the five students I had summited Wauconda Pass with. They all attend the University Connecticut School of Medicine, and they’re riding to raise money for leukemia research for Lea’s Foundation. I pulled into town and spied their mess of bikes locked together outside a Mexican restaurant.

Excited, I went in. There they were, Alex, Erin, David, Thomas and Carolyn, who had shaved her head since the last I saw her. Erin was the last one standing – on her pedals – with hair. We joked how it wouldn’t be long before her ponytail was gone to dangle off her bike like an actual tail.

It was a reunion of sorts, and we all said how great it was to see each other one last time. They knew I was ending in Idaho, so figured I was done and gone.

They caught me up on everyone, how Carolyn had watched the “Game of Thrones” season finale with Josh and Vu the night before at their shared campsite in Colville. How my four college friends were still behind us, likely in Colville. Stories of the road.

They asked me about the herd of 10 teenagers on a supported tour raising awareness about veterans with PTSD and traumatic brain injury. We had all silently mingled with the zippy teenagers at one point over the previous days. For me, I joined their pack at a scary portion west of Wauconda, where the road is steep, the shoulder extinct and the trucks loud and loaded. Safety in numbers, and I was thankful.

I told the medical students I had heard the teenagers were staying at the Beaver Lodge in the Colville National Forest. The five cheered. They were ahead, though I’m not sure the teenagers know they’re racing.

As we said our goodbyes and they prepared to zoom off to Safeway, I told them we should eat lunch in Sandpoint together. They said they’d try. They were trying to make it to Libby, Montana, so time was tight.

Today, I ate a burrito at Joel’s, my bike packed into the company van and with none of my riding companions in sight. It was a bit sad, but their journey continues. And I’ll remember all of them whenever I see a pannier on a loaded bike. When I do, I know I’ll go up and talk to its rider.

He – or she – surely has a story to share.