Once Upon A Time in Patagonia
How I Fell Into Long-Distance Cycling
A few years ago, at loose ends in my life, a friend inveigled me to join him on a week-long cycling trip in Patagonia. My misgivings about doing this turned into certainty on the first morning. Within an hour I had become badly lost. Then it got worse. After being rescued, our small group boarded a ferry to cross a lake.
Disembarking, I stood on the pier looking for a road. Nothing. I asked our guide what was going on. He pointed to what seemed to me a goat track up a steep, forested mountain. No, I said. Yes, he said. With much huffing and hiking the bike I made my way to the top determined that as soon as possible I would get out and get home.
We paused for lunch. There was a village at the bottom of the mountain. I figure once down I could sort out a way to head back to civilization. I clambered onto my bike with that clear goal in mind. Then something bizarre happened.
As I let the bike find its line down the now broader gravel trail it picked up speed. As it did so I was overcome with the most extraordinary sense of lightness and freedom. It was as if my soul, imprisoned like a bird in a cage, had been released into the open air and sky. I was Saul on the road to Damascus pierced by revelation.
Among our small group of ten riders was C who some twenty years before had ridden the inaugural Tour d’Afrique, cycling from Cairo to Cape Town. I was bewitched by his stories of that expedition. He was thirty-five when he joined that tour. I was in my sixties. Definitely far too old for such an undertaking.
Six months later I was in Cairo.
I have done all my cycling expeditions with TDA Global Cycling. It is a remarkable company, the only one to organize rugged cross-continent cycling expeditions. They are masters of logistics and providing just the right amount of support. In all the journeys I’ve done with them, going through regions that others might deem suspect, I never felt unsafe. In fact, that sense of safety allowed me to be more open to my surroundings and the people I met.
You can find out more about them here:
TDA Global Cycling
Blogs and Articles
I posted about my Africa trip on a WordPress blog.
For the North America epic I created a Substack newsletter. I posted about North America and then my Silk Road adventure. I kept notes about South America but I had found the effort of regular postings on North America took up all of my rest days. I decided that I would just live the trip without any other agenda.
https://continentalcyclist.substack.com/
I also wrote feature articles for Canadian Cycling Magazine. You can find them here: