The Allure of the Road

At age 22, after graduating from college, Robert Fulton, Jr. surprised himself by announcing at a dinner party that he was setting out on a motorcycle trip around the world. He'd only ridden a bike once before, on a short, ill-fated trip that ended in a crash. But in 1932, he set out on the first ever circumnavigation of the globe by moto, on a specially modified bike.



In One Man Caravan, his lively account of the ensuing 18-month odyssey, he quotes his friend Eric Lang as saying:

All of us have hopes of being a poet, artist, discoverer, philosopher, scientist; of possessing the attributes of all these simultaneously. Few are permitted to achieve any one of them in daily life. But in travel we attain them all. Then we have our day of glory, when all our dreams come true, when we can be anything we like, as long as we like, and, when we're tired of it, pull up stakes and move on. Travel -- the solitude of the mountains, the emptiness of the desert, the delicacy of a minaret; eternal change, limitless contrast, unending variety.

I've recently been re-watching Long Way Round, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's series documenting their motorcycle trip from London to New York via Europe, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Alaska, Canada and the continental US. It's somehow reassuring to know that the joys of motorcycle travel have changed little in the seventy years that separate these two trips -- at least in some parts of the world. (I eagerly await a screening of Long Way Down, recounting their next trip: from the northern tip of Scotland to the southern tip of Africa. It's airing on the BBC right now, and should be available in the US soon...)

Speaking of a long way down, yesterday I had a chance to walk across the newest addition Minneapolis' bicycle trail system: the Midtown Greenway's cable-stayed bridge over Hiawatha Avenue and the light rail line, soon to be christened the Martin Olav Sabo bridge.



Stunning design, and a great addition to the Greenway, and to Minneapolis' pro-biking infrastructure. My old Schwinn ten-speed (the lone survivor of my recent garage theft) is in the shop getting ready for winter commuting. I can't wait to point its new tires over this span.