The Touring Series: The Tour Gets A Name

A Guitar Ted Productions Series

 Welcome to "The Touring Series". This series is a re-posting of a story I told here on this blog in 2008. The story is about what I named the "Beg, Borrow, and Bastard Tour". This was a fully loaded, self-supported bicycle tour from just Northeast of Waterloo, Iowa starting in a little village named Dewar and the goal was to get to Sault Ste. Marie, Canada in one week's time. The plan called for us to be picked up there and taken home by car.

When I returned home from this tour I wrote a rough draft manuscript of about half of the trip. It is 27 pages of hand written stuff, front and back, and this is what I will be posting to begin with. You'll be able to identify the 1994 manuscript material by my using italics to post it here. After the manuscript information ends, the rest of the story will be picked up from memories written down in 2008. That will appear as regular text here. As mentioned last week, cameras, smart phones, and the like did not exist for us in 1994, so images will be few. There are some though, and I will sprinkle those in when they are relevant.

In this entry we get the backstory on the naming of the Tour and the beginning of the ride from the morning of the day we left. 
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There is still the explanation of the name of this tour. A little of this can be guessed at, on my part, it is obvious. However; Troy and Steve had some panhandling to do as well. Troy, whose brother's bike he was originally going to use, had to abandon that plan a week before the tour. The bags on the rear struck his heels and there was no way to make it work. So, Troy had to beg and borrow a friends deceased father's bike. Then Steve, he borrowed money for the food for all of us on his girl friend's credit card. (Admittedly, that was a beg and borrow for all of us.) Troy and I also had to borrow sleeping mats and tents.

Another look at those 26 X 1.5" Avocet Kross tires I used. This image is a current one.

 All of this lead to a name for our little trip that hadn't even begun yet. Since my co-worker and the customer that were going along were around for all of this, we jokingly called it the "Beg Borrow and Bastard Tour". I had my bike cobbled together and it worked fairly well. I had my gear lined up. It was decided that we would leave right after RAGBRAI on the first week of August.

In a hurried frenzy to ready our bikes, Troy and I spent two nights late at the shop working on them. I had a check at the point where the stem for my drop bars wouldn't work on the bike's original fork. This required a fork change. After three forks we found that the headset needed to be changed as well. Then we discovered after two hours and three headsets that I needed a BMX specific headset! Then it was the tires. I couldn't get any tires to fit on my new wheels! I made my thumbs into burning blister pods trying to force tires too small onto my rims. Not even the efforts of a very drunk and funny Steve could avail me. I was led to cursing and I called out, "This bastard bike!" Well, "bastard" became a pet word of the tour and the title of our tour had been fulfilled.

Troy and I finished our bikes in the nick of time. Saturday came and went, and then I packed my bags and made ready to depart from Dewar Tap at 5:30am Sunday morning. I was a little nervous, very excited, and anxious to go.

On Sunday, August 7th, 1994, I awoke to my alarm clock at 4:30am, walked out into the kitchen and.....AARRRRGH! Glass in my heel! After a little first aid treatment, I got my wife up and we picked up Troy at 5:05am. The sun was just coming up. It was cool, but it looked like it could be a great day. Steve and Brenda, (his girlfriend) were waiting at the Dewar Tap when we got there at about 5:35am.

After fooling around nervously for about 15 to 20 minutes we said our goodbyes. We left northward from Dewar on a county blacktop on our trip. I waved goodbye to my wife and turned away. Goodbyes suck, so I didn't look back.

I really didn't know what to expect. The longest single bike ride I'd ever done was maybe when I rode about 30 miles on the Raccoon River Trail. I don't know what these guys decided to do for mileage when the day started. Although; the plan was to go to my family's reunion in Lime Springs, Iowa some 75 miles away. Maybe it was the motivation of having my relatives see us on our way. Maybe it was the tail wind we had all the way up there. I don't know, but I felt sure I could do it. 
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Troy's borrowed bike was a dark green Schwinn Voyager with 27" wheels and these ultra-plush Michelin touring tires. Ironically, Steve's bike was also a Schwinn, but it was a red Cross Cut model which originally had flat bars. Steve had converted it to drop bars. Of course, Cross Cuts were 700c based bikes. My, new-to-me 1984-ish Mongoose, all chrome, by the way,  had 26" wheels. Three different wheel sizes......hmm....not very good planning there! By the way, the bike Troy meant to take did have 26" wheels, An American brand mountain bike. A classic vintage bike nowadays! But as mentioned, the stays were too short and he couldn't get the panniers back far enough to clear his heels while pedaling. 

Next Week:The First Hundy- Part 1