Well, Route66 by Friday is done and dusted by over a week now.
http://www.bikefriday.com/route66 - Read about it.

PHOTO GALLERY: At home with the Haldemans
MOVIE CLIP: (Download free Quicktime 7 player for Mac | Windows): Riding with the Haldemans (1.8 Mb)

I've spent most of the ensuing time propped up in bed on the second floor of Lon and Susan Haldeman's expansive country homestead in Sharon, Wisconsin, glued to my laptop. The task? Condensing 300 minutes of the movie clips I took on the trip a mere 45 minutes.

It's fascinating reliving those 29 days on my 12" screen, choosing what was interesting and what was plain silly or gross and should therefore be included. There's a sample 3-minute work in progress clip at http://www.bikefriday.com/route66
for those who are patient enough to cajole their computer to see it.

The Haldemans are a hardcore biking family.


L to R: Lon, Susan, Debbie Henning, Rebecca Haldeman. MORE PICS!

There's Lon, celebrated ultramarathon cycling champ, head of PACTOUR fast bicycle expeditions (lollygaggers please remain behind the white line) and more: he has a huge collection of green and yellow John Deere trucks, and his massive, 4-level house is beautifully finished with decorative yet restrained woodwork done by his own hand. Just a pretty pair of quads he ain't!

There's Susan, Lon's wife and RAAM champ in her own right, co-schemer on the PACTOUR business, who loves to garden - as their expansive, park-like grounds suggest.

There's Rebecca, their 19 year old leggy daughter who helped build her own single speed from a 25 year old frame Lon rode 454 miles in 22 hours on. She seems to have embraced the notion that resistance is useless - a name and legs like Haldeman means you just gotta get in the saddle.

Then there's Bisti the PACTOUR dog, who was rescued as a pup from the side of the road on a PACTOUR trip and is now a permanent fixture under the trailer, under the van rear seat, or whenever a packet of Beef Jerky is in evidence. She's named after a chunk of New Mexico wilderness where she happened to be loitering with intent. I know this because I googled it here

There's also a presumptuous cat that insists on crawling up me like I'm a tree while I am working.

They let me have the run of the kitchen, like so many wonderful Bike Friday families I have stayed with. My hosts always wonder if I am bored or whatever, but how can I be? My own family is all divorced and dispersed downunder, thousands of miles away. I enjoy simply being a part of my host's lives, washing the dishes, emptying the tumble dryer, cooking food to share if they aren't oppposed to tofu, being unadventurous because I can. Now, come to think of it, some people would probably think that plonking myself on a busy American family is dang adventurous and would rather be caught scaling Tibet with a paperclip. I wonder how many of those OUTSIDE Mag luminaries have stayed with readers of the magazine for weeks on end....

The three two-legged Haldemans go out for regular breakfast rides, fanning out from their house in eight different possible directions and ending in a diner in a neighboring town. In the evenings they often pop out after dinner for a bit of a loop, to wit: 'use it or lose it'.

I try to tag along as far as possible. Lon and Susan alternate between their clunkers, tandems, other bikes including Lon's Bike Friday. I have proof that Lon is actually capable of riding as slow as me - on his clunker. Rebecca often leads the group at an impressive pace, somewhere between 15 and 22 mph. She looks like she came out the the womb grafted to a bike.

We rode to a place called Lake Geneva where I am told, all the yuppies go. It did indeed look like a cross between Switzerland and Florida with a boat-choked marina and resorty, chalet-esque buildings. It is the direction you go if you want to train on some hills, because most of this area is flat.

It's not hard to learn your way around after observing placement and orientation of the bulbous water tanks in each town. They look like giant, upturned spring onions except for the fact that someone thinks they should be painted powder blue to mismatch the sky. On Route66 someone went all out with a long ladder and a fat Sharpie and made a cheery water tank statement. Perhaps the Christo couple will do something with them, although that might be too obvious for that famous pair of environmental artists. I learned from their talk in Texas that everyone thinks they just wrap things and they haven't done that for years.

Yesterday I suggested we do a little time trial each day and see how we improve. Dang it if Lon took me up on it.

"Ride for three miles. Lynette first, a minute later Rebecca, then a minute later me," said Lon, The idea being that I would get to see both of them fly past me. I didn't, thanks to a mechanical that set them back a bit. I rode so hard I was coughing afterwards for half an hour. But I felt great.

The town of Sharon itself is so tiny, you almost expect to see Barbie strolling down the street. It has grocer where everyone shops to keep them in business, one bank, one PO, one pub, one cafe, and most importantly, one ice cream store. I wondered how a store selling ice cream can somehow survive in such a small place. I found out - it is a regular destination of the Haldemans. The train is the biggest thing in the town.

I am trying to cook some meals using the limited ingredients available at the local store. It's run by Indians but it's all packaged white bread stuff. I asked about split peas and black mustard seed to make channa dahl and the owner brought some in for me from her own pantry, for $2. I made enough dahl to make myself sick. My cooking is probably a bit mushy and left of center for the family. In fact, I shall reveal here that the Lon the Machine seems to survive on whatever comes out of white bread America can. Canned ravioli, peanut butter, spaghetti ... I suggested he write a recipe book called the Instant UberAthlete, the antithesis to all these wholemealier-than-thou cookbooks, as in: " Buy can of x. Open can. Heat and eat. Ride 150 miles." . I mean, how can you mince with tofu when you see the kind of physical condition he is in. He has so much muscle that he is burning away a Safeway full of calories just yawning. I've never seen him yawn either.

This weekend is a Chicago bike event called BikeDrive. The Chicago Folding Bike Society invited me to go and in fact, arrive Friday to attend Critical Mass.

I asked Lon what he knew about Chicago Critical Mass, expecting a condensed history and philsophical treatise on the subject, as he did at every turn on Route66.

"When get arrested, you're supposed to go limp" (slumps his upper body) "to make it hard to move you," he said. And that was all.

Lon will be running a special, more relaxed 'Arizona Historic Hotel Tour' in February 2007. A different quirky hotel each night, 53 miles a day for riding. "I think the Bike Friday folks will really like it," he says. He of course, knows how BF folks prefer to smell the enchiladas rather than the smokng rubber - after all, he also has a Bike Friday ...

+++

I just got word that my mother in Australia just had an emergency operation regarding a ruptured bowel. It made me instantly realize that I must spend more time with her. She's 68 and loves good techno and is on her own. Read about her (bottom of page)..
Feel free to send her a get well email if you feel moved to do so - she would never ask for one. irenechiang at pacific dot net do au.



Here is what my sister sent me:

Hey Adventurette

Update: I got it a bit wrong - when they opened her up there was a mass of knotted intestine and another part, near the small/large intestine junction, had ruptured. Mum tells me they had to clean up the area because of risk of infection. Four surgeons working together. Apparently they have not removed, but have tried to 'rearrange' her intestines so they fit better (it's a bit like a rubik's cube, once you mess it up it never gets back together again) and also repaired the rupture. I will see her again tomorrow and give her your love. Leanne and John Bassett are in town and they will visit her tomorrow too. Her direct line is +61 2 8382 4411 at the hospital. She would love to hear from you I am sure. She will be in until Sunday, definitely.

The open hours are 10 - 1pm and 3 - 8pm. I don't know where you are so you can use the time and date converter meeting planner which will give you appropriate zones.
http://www.timeanddate.com/

Sorry when I said it was "nothing serious" in that I hadn't had a chance to talk with the doctors about the details and also I didn't want you to worry - we are lucky that we have free health care (to a certain point) here. I didn't mean to minimise it or sound insensitive, but I didn't want you thinking she was going to die or anything. I almost cried (well, I did later in a self indulgent way) because she looked so out of it and surgery is so invasive. Anyway, I pulled myself together and took her one of our favourite soft toys to talk to. I bought her a bear for her birthday - one she'd chosen already and really wanted, he is about 50cm high and is bright yellow with black spots. She likes spotty bear (although I think my puppy is better...).

Lonely travelers, go phone your mother. And your father.