My Ride To Annie's House
By Gene Aronowitz
My marriage had gone downhill, and separation was inevitable, but I was not comfortable with the idea of living alone. It had been years since I had my own place, and that was only for nine months. I knew I needed to spend time alone and get some experience with solitude. Two months earlier, I traveled solo for a few days in our van, as described in my memoir "Getting Away on the Cheap." That experience helped some, but I knew I needed more. I had recently been encouraged to get into cycling, which seemed like something I could do by myself and also get back in shape.
I had become good friends with a woman whose name was Annie. We were both public officials in different New York State counties and frequently saw each other at meetings and retreats. When we were together, Annie laughed continuously, and her laugh was infectious. I really enjoyed being with her.
Annie and her husband, Dave, lived in Trumansburg, New York, a village a few miles outside of Ithaca. She invited me to spend some time with them. I immediately accepted the invitation and resolved to bike there and back, a total of 474 miles by myself.
I hadn’t been on a bike for 22 years. I used a beat-up 3-speed Raleigh and was dismayed when I could not get up a slightly steep hill near my house. I walked up and then rode around for a while on level ground. The next day I got a little higher and, the following day, higher still and, by the fourth day, made it all the way up, feeling like Rocky Balboa, at the top of the steps. I read that if you can ride for an hour without stopping, you can ride forever, an hour at a time. I got up to an hour by my seventh day, and one week later, two weeks after having that seemingly impossible impulse, I started my journey.
I lived in Katonah, New York, at the time, not far from the 1,283-foot-high Bear Mountain I would need to cross over it to get to Trumansburg. I was not that nuts, so I got a ride to the other side of the mountain. Then, I had 205 more miles to go.
I was a sight, totally unequipped for the ride. I hadn’t bought panniers, those bags on the sides of the bike that might have carried a lot of my belongings. And it never occurred to me to buy a small, one-person tent and an inflatable pad to sleep on. I put the large tent, a padded sleeping bag, and way too many clothes on the rack on the back of the bike.
My first destination was Ellenville, about 50 miles away. Almost immediately, however, I encountered a hill, which turned out to be about four miles long. I had to walk all the way up and wondered if my shoes would hold up. I hadn’t counted on walking so much. That made me wonder if there were many more hills like this one and I wished I had bought a topographical map. Sweating profusely, I had to take my helmet off but soon worried about ending up with a massive sunburn. Tired and hungry, I checked my map, which showed a nearby campground. Walking in that direction, I soon discovered it too was at the top of a big hill. That was my first day.
On the second day, still heading toward Ellenville, I encountered another enormous hill when I reached the hamlet of Walker Valley. The road began to slope up to Shawangunk Ridge. Once again, I had to walk up, feeling stupid. Nevertheless, I kept going, and once I reached the Ridge, I savored the very easy downhill slope toward Ellenville, where I stopped to eat. After lunch, I managed to get to the Town of Liberty, home of Grossinger’s, the famous borsht-belt resort I had heard would soon close down. I had visited several times and wanted a final look around. The trip there, into the heart of the Catskill Mountains, was straight uphill but manageable. I could feel my legs getting stronger and more adjusted to pedaling. I finally began to make some progress. But the first day’s hills had set my schedule back significantly.
As I expected, the hardest thing to get used to was being alone, with only my thoughts to keep me company, except when buying something to eat or registering at the campsites. Sometimes, if other campers seemed welcoming, I would seek out conversation. I read the headlines on the newspapers displayed on the racks of delicatessens, but that cursory reading didn’t tell me much about what was happening in the world.
On the third day, I was riding down a deserted road when a pickup truck occupied by three big guys and a rifle visible in the back window passed me. About 100 yards down the road, they stopped abruptly, did a three-point turn, and headed back in my direction. My mind leaped to the squeal-like-a-pig-scene in the film “Deliverance.” I was scared. I had only my bicycle pump to protect me and felt my shoulders rising and my dread escalating. But instead of stopping, they sped by me quickly, resulting in incredible relief. I thought about that for a while. I had been frightened by what I imagined might happen. I thought that country guys in a pick-up truck with an exposed rifle had to mean trouble. This was a dramatic example of how judgmental I was. I realized how often I envisioned worst-case scenarios and how that may have contributed to a lifetime of fearful thoughts.
For most of the fourth day, I continued considering the implications of my imagined pick-up truck disaster. I thought mainly about the nature of judgment and how debilitating that had been for me and, in some cases, for those I judged. Life without condescension, I concluded, could make existence simple, enjoyable, and enriching. Settling down for the night, after a few more reflections, I thought I might have just had a couple of days like Robert Pirsig had, as described in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
I will never forget the approach to Ithaca on my fifth day. I reached the top of a hill near Ithaca College and saw Downtown Ithaca a couple of miles straight downhill. It was a dramatic and welcome view and, going down, the most pleasurable 15 minutes of the whole ride. I knew that once I reached the town, I would be only ninety minutes more to Trumansburg. I initially estimated that the trip to Annie’s house would take me about 24 hours of riding, but It took about 35, spread over five days.
Annie and Dave were waiting for me since I’d phoned ahead and we managed to spend a pleasant three days together. We all talked a lot, gawked at Taughannock Falls, the highest falls east of the Rocky Mountains, ate good food, and drank samples at wineries on the west side of Cayuga Lake. We visited the Corning Glass Museum and savored the glass-blowing demos. On my last day at Annie’s house, I went to a bicycle shop and bought panniers as a treat to myself for becoming a “serious” cyclist. And I upgraded my bike from three-speed gearing to fifteen.
The trip back was uneventful. With my new gears in place, being in better shape, and going downhill most of the way, I rode about one hundred miles on each of the first two days and a short distance on the third and final one. I could easily climb over all the hills, even Bear Mountain. I had lost fifteen pounds, but most importantly, I realized I enjoyed being alone.
When I landed, I began looking for another place to live in earnest.
A version of this memoir was initially published in Writing Memoir at Olana
