The Conclusion and The Map - Greg's Questionable Judgement - CycleBlaze

The Conclusion and The Map

There is only one more thing to say about this bike tour.  It involves an event that happened two weeks ago and, instead of writing about it at that time, I've been saving the story with the idea of using it as my conclusion.  Since this page IS my conclusion, I guess now is the time to tell you about it.

The setting was a rest area at Mile 118 on Interstate 94, about ten miles from Salem, North Dakota.  I stopped there to fill my water bottles and take a break from the heat and the wind.  As I sat under a shade tree next to my bike, a woman with a young toddler came up to me and asked a few questions about where I came from, where I was going, and why.  After I told her my story, she told me that she and her husband were bicycle riders and they have been talking about riding across the country with their kids when the kids get old enough.  "For the rest of their lives," she added, "the kids will know that if they can accomplish something like that, they can accomplish ANYTHING."

I think that is exactly what I've learned while cycling across half of the country over the last six weeks.  With that in mind, later on today, I'm going to start planning a ride through the other half.  After all, I can do ANYTHING!

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Here's the map of my tour. Except for the first 350 miles and the last 350 miles, my route mostly followed the ACA's Northern Tier.
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Mike JamisonHey Greg, Mike Jamison here with more juicy cycle touring gossip. I'm going to make a formal introduction of myself to the Cycle Blaze community in a few days, but you'll appreciate this preview: Last night I received an email from Neil Gunton via the Crazy Guy site. It said: "Hi Mike, I see you have decided to post on cycleblaze, which I regard as an overtly hostile website. As such, I'm asking such people to download their journals from here, make sure you have everything you need, so that I can close out your account. I do not want people here who are ok with what cycleblaze is. Please let me know if you need time to download anything, or if you have them already." So I have been cast out from the warm embrace of Crazy Guy. A head scratcher. Perhaps it's all for the best. It was good of Neil to allow me to save my journals. they're safely downloaded and I'm really glad I can put them here on CB. Anyway, as they used to say in East Germany during the Cold War, "The walls have ears" (didn't they say that?) The point being the Crazy Guy Stasi are everywhere. Be careful what you say and where you say it :-)
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3 years ago
Gregory GarceauHi Mike,

Since you provided me with your big announcement in advance, let me be the first to formally welcome you to Cycleblaze. And thank you for the warning about "the walls having ears," but it comes too late. I got pretty much the same e-mail from Neil last night and, from what I've been reading on Leo's thread on the Cycleblaze forum, so have quite a few others.

I can't say I'm surprised by this. Things have been deteriorating rapidly over there since we last exchanged messages. Back then, I mistakenly had the sense my activities on Cycleblaze were safely flying under the radar. I also thought I was being a decent, respectful, contributing citizen on CGOAB. I guess not.

Anyway, I deleted my account within minutes of receiving the e-mail and when it was done a great sense of calmness came over my whole body.

Thanks for the message and I look forward to more exchanges with you on this fine website.
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3 years ago