Road Angel
Consider this: if I had stuck to my planned route and stayed in Buckhorn, I would've skipped Booneville, and wouldn't have seen the plate-borne encouragement tacked to the pavilion wall.
And, if I had not stopped just where I did this morning on the way out of Irvine, Bernie wouldn't have stopped to ask if I was OK. He said as much: if I had been in motion, pedaling up the hill when he passed me, he would have waved, and that would have been that.
Instead, he stopped, and I told him I was probably not OK...at that point, it was either my cassette or the rear hub that was dying, I wasn't sure which. He called his son-in-law (an avid cyclist) on his cell, who told him that the closest bike shop was in Lexington, about 45 minutes away by car. Bernie said he'd give me a ride to Lexington, if I needed it, which I did. I pedaled up the hill and met him at his mother-in-law's house. Then, he went back to his own house up the road, and returned in his pickup truck. I disconnected the trailer, and we loaded the trike into the truck.
Bill, the wrench at the shop, hadn't seen the SRAM DualDrive hub before, but after a look at the cassette and the decent amount of chain wrap I had, he quickly determined that it was the hub that was at fault. Bernie had gone off to get himself some breakfast - which is what he had been on his way to do when he came across me on the side of the road - and when he came back, I told him what the situation was: 1) the shop couldn't fix the hub; 2) calls and e-mail were in to my dealer and the manufacturer 3) most probably, nothing was going to happen until 5 or 6 PM at the earliest, when the Australians got in to work and checked their e-mail.
So...Bernie offered to drive me back to Irvine, load the trailer into the truck along with the trike, and drop me off at the Econo Lodge in Berea which had been my destination when I started pedaling this morning. And we even went back to the bike shop when, in my flustered state, I forgot to buy a supply the various energy foodstuffs that they had there, plus a replacement tail light.
Bernie is a former Marine and a retired State and Federal game warden, given to month-long canoe trips and day-long wanderings through the mountains near the log home where he lives with his wife, Cathy. While we drove hither and yon, he told me about his childhood in the mountains of Kentucky: no electricity, no indoor plumbing, but surrounded by the wilds and the woods, into which he would hike for days or weeks at a time. Not "backpacking," mind you: he would have a tarp, a knife, a compass, and that was all. He wouldn't follow trails, but would cut across the countryside, living off the land.
As we drove along the roads I would've ridden on today, we spoke of strip mining in Hazard, and about how the mining and timber companies have raped the land here and impoverished the people. Passing one of the numerous small churches that dot these mountain roads, the conversation turned to whether I'd be welcome in such a church (I would), his non-denominational belief in the Creator, and the necessity of not living in tomorrow or in yesterday. In Berea, he bought me lunch, and while we ate he remarked that it was his sensitivity to the wandering impulse which made him stop and check on me, there by the side of the road.
Now I'm waiting to hear back from Johannes, or Greenspeed, to see what they're going to do to help me out. At the moment, I'm not even off schedule. I will be, of course, but I was planning on taking a rest day here in Berea tomorrow. Now, I'll just be staying here for several days until I can get the trike repaired. Bernie offered to come and ferry me back to the bike shop, should I need it.
But it doesn't end there. The Lexington bikeshop is called Pedal The Planet, and they are a shop dedicated to supporting the touring cyclist. Not only did they offer a place to stay in Lexington if I needed it, they also offered to ferry me and my trike back to the shop if necessary, and to support me with parts or whatever else I might need throughout the rest of my journey. Mark, the shop owner, has done the TransAm and toured in more than 50 countries.
One way or the other, the rear wheel on this trike will be fixed, and I will move on. For now, I rest in a surfeit of grace. Part of the reason I embarked on this journey was to find out what America was like. I'm starting to see some of it. It's wonderful that this happened in Kentucky, which enjoys a less-than-favorable reputation as the home of hillbillies, the KKK, and bitter poverty. You can find all of those here. But they are accompanied by generous souls, angels of the road, who watch out for wayward travelers such as myself.
My heart is full.
