Dave Cornthwaite

It has been exactly one month since Priscilla and I began our relationship. One month since we pedalled out of Memphis with my friend Rod Wellington in the passenger seat. One month since that car hit us off the road. A lot happens in a month.

Following the crash the damage to Priscilla and my psyche meant a few days off the road in Vicksburg to regroup before the journey started once more in Crystal Springs and ever since then I’ve been plodding in a south easterly direction up and over the hills of Mississippi and Alabama then into a flatter, more topographically friendly Florida. 

The early stages of this expedition presented me with the most physically difficult challenge I’ve ever encountered, but it is the mental battle and the necessity for focus that will forever define this journey for me. To survive the crash on Day One without anything more than a sore shoulder was beyond fortunate, but boy did that encounter clarify what it would take to complete this traverse of the South.

Having not pedalled anything for over a year was obviously not the ideal preparation but after five or six days I became conditioned to powering 400lbs-worth of Bikecar, gear and human. Meanwhile not two seconds passed without an eye on the wing mirror, assessing the ever-approaching danger of cars, motorcycles, log trucks and other vehicles. Priscilla’s width means I rarely fit entirely within a roadside shoulder, the standard of driving in this country means my life is dependent on an ability to get out of the way when another driver isn’t paying attention. Sadly, this is often.

The lack of respect for non-motorised vehicles in this country is astonishing but not surprising. After all, I’ve been travelling through country that is home to the fattest, most unfit people in the world. The idea of riding anything but an enormous truck around the corner to the fast food eatery is laughed out of town down here by 90% of the population, and of course the lack of sidewalks or cycle paths means society gently encourages folk to sit upon a motor for even the shortest of journeys, which of course develops an inflation of the gut then a deflation of any understanding what those lithe, exercising people are doing down there on the road with their pedals. Because of this America has guzzled up three of my nine lives on this journey, and with that estimation I’m being generous.

Of over 200 motorcycles that have passed me in the last 810 miles only two riders have been wearing helmets. ‘We have a right not to,’ say the unprotected. At some point, the wind in the hair will cost some of them their functions, if not their lives. I have learned the bizarre failings in highway common sense by studying patterns on the road. I deplore what I have nicknamed ‘The Metallic Conga of Death,’ the impatient habit of cars speeding along on a long straight highway leaving no more than 10 metres between ones front bumper and the rear of the car in front. I’ll go for miles without seeing another car and then BANG, twenty careering trucks end-to-end will thrash by. It takes one of them to brake, adjust or defer from a consistent speed and there will be a multi-car pile-up, swerving cars bringing people in other lanes into danger. My God, it’s like everyone has a death wish.

But of course if people can’t understand the intricacies of their own mortality I shouldn’t expect them to care about mine, so I remain tied to a personal policy that I should act like I’m invisible, I mustn’t assume I’ve been seen by anyone and therefore if there’s the slightest chance that I could be struck I move off the road. It has been slow going but I’m still here, still breathing, still enjoying the challenge, still learning. My average day sees me moving for 7 hours and stopped for three and a half. That is how long I spend in intervals pulled over on the roadside grass, or dirt, or sand, waiting for gaps in traffic. But I’m patient, this is just part of the journey, part of travelling by Bikecar, part of the process.

I have 189.5 miles remaining to Miami, not that I’m counting. This expedition has been rich for me. New friends, hours of thinking-time, experiences I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of having had I opted for my original April and May plan - writing in a room in London. Despite the daily dangers I have grown, I have had fun. I have ridden past armadillos and eagles and snakes and alligators and wild hogs. I have woken to misty mornings and fought through the boiling midday sun. I have listened to people tell me I have a death-wish and replied that to the contrary I am living life with every drop of time I have. Sure, it can be dangerous out here but the decision not to finish my Bikecar career immediately after that accident a month ago was one of the best I ever made. 

The joys of finding the peace and quiet of a bicycle path or a quiet state road or even a remote dirt track through the woods are now an integral part of my day. I will not stop living my life just in case something bad might happen; dreams are best when experienced awake, don’t lock them away until you sleep.

Follow the journey on Facebook and Twitter, check out my past expeditions or brew up a coffee and enjoy the YouTube episodes documenting this expedition between Memphis and Miami.

Thanks for reading…

DC

As I plod along the roads of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida for 6 weeks it’s more than worth remembering that I’m only contributing a small amount of memories to the wonderful life of this Bikecar.

Priscilla was built by Paul Everitt, from Grimsby, UK. Originally it had four seats and a trailer and its first journey was through Europe. then Paul rode it (mainly solo) for 5 months across Canada, 7000km!

In January I met Paul and he kindly offered Priscilla to me, as it was rusting away in a shed somewhere in Eugene, Oregon. With a trip to Memphis to paddle a river already planned it seemed only fair that I should take up the offer, Paul and I shook hands and Google Maps told me that it was 1001 miles to Miami from Memphis.

And that was all it took. Well…almost.

Some big logistical support from Canadian Adventurer Rod Wellington and some magical southern hospitality from folks in Memphis and Vicksburg overcame some initial technical difficulties and a car crash before this journey got properly underway.

So, as I’ve just nudged over the 500 mile mark on this Memphis to Miami journey it’s important not to forget where Priscilla came from. Without Paul’s vision, expertise and generosity there’s a very good chance I’d currently be spending my days writing a book in a London coffee shop, so despite the fact that I’m now writing a blog in the Floridian town of Perry, which thanks to a local pulp mill smells upsettingly like cabbage, I’d like to thank Paul and direct you to his Going Solo website. In a couple of months he starts an epic journey down my beloved Mississippi River, on a raft!

> Visit Going Solo
> Follow my own Bikecar Adventures on Facebook
> …or Twitter, if you’re so inclined 

I’ve just taken a leap into the unknown, I’ve skipped a section, broken the line, played the Get Out of Jail Free card.

Having spent the best part of two days on busy highways, jinking on and off the grassy shoulder whenever a gap in traffic presented itself, snailing along, 20 metres grabbed on tarmac and then another crunch of dry vegetation as I swerved right to relative safety, my threshold for safety vs purity has met its match.

On a bicycle I’d have taken it on and made greater progress with less risk, but the Bikecar’s girth is asking for trouble in a part of the world where everyone moving somewhere else is forced onto the same road. Respect for cyclists is already minimal, respect for Bikecar riders doesn’t come into it. 

The 98 east of Pensacola that runs through Fort Walton was my only choice once the scenic road along Santa Rosa Island had run its course. I turned left onto a bridge with no shoulder, held up traffic for five minutes as I plundered uphill panting and pushing, and then the 98. Two feet of shoulder for 5’7” of Bikecar. 10 miles in 4 and a half hours, an eternity of blowing horns and single fingers and double fingers and the whizz whoosh whap of vehicles rushing by. 

And then, a pavement, a sidewalk! Just wide enough. Until the fire hydrant got in the way. And the telegraph pole. And the…

So I went back on the road. Hell.

Bridges are my nightmare. Bridges without shoulders with three lanes of end-to-end traffic are my white flag. The 98 beyond that stretches for miles with a reputation for accidents. My interest in gaining a similar reputation is zero. I phoned a friend. I made a call. I put my life jacket on and took Priscilla off the road for a stretch.

This morning, a new day later, I woke and briefly grappled with the idea of a journey with a gap in the dotted line. Then I spoke to my friend Sarah, who is waiting patiently for a weather window so she can go row the Pacific, and without prompting she said, ‘I’ve been talking with my friends here about making decisions, and when it isn’t fun you know what the right decision is.’

Yep, the challenge had lost its fun for a while there. I’m not here for records, I’m here for people, for a test, for a challenge. Not for near misses. Not for the end of the line.

There are similar decisions to come, I know this much. The Bikecar has its own beauty, Priscilla is my home right now but by God she’s a wide, heavy bitch. I will take her out into the open road with country on one side and Gulf on the other and barely any other metal tankers to share the route with and we will be right as rain once more. 

Another lesson learned. I am here to live, and one cannot be a chicken if they wish to avoid playing chicken!

The journey continues tomorrow…

> Follow my tweets on this adventure through @DaveCorn
> Regular updates, pics and videos through www.facebook.com/expedition1000

PS. I’ve already had one crash. that was more than enough. Here’s the aftermath…
 

British Adventurer and Author Dave Cornthwaite is currently pedalling a 4-wheeled bicycle, or Bikecar, across America between Memphis and Miami in aid of CoppaFeel’s work towards breast cancer awareness.

Dave is pedalling solo but beside him is an empty seat, to which belongs a second set of pedals. Dave has skateboarded across Australia and Stand Up Paddleboarded the entire length of the Mississippi River, but considers pedalling a Bikecar solo his biggest challenge to date.

Which is why he’s asking you to help. Whether you’d like to join him for an hour or a day, or know someone en route who might want to be a part of such an adventure, please drop Dave a line through his website.

This is the 6th journey of Dave’s Expedition1000 project, an ambitious undertaking to complete 25 separate journeys of 1000 miles or more, each using a different form of non-motorised transport. He hopes to raise £1 million for charity along the way.

Dave’s Bikecar expedition will take him across Mississippi via Hattiesburg, into Alabama via Mobile, across the Florida panhandle past Pensacola and Panama City, before he rounds the bend and makes his way down to Miami.

To be a part of the journey and save the poor guy some leg ache drop him an email at dave@davecornthwaite.co.uk

Or if you can’t join Dave but would still like to donate, you can do so via www.justgiving.com/expedition1000coppafeel

Well, that started with a bang. 

Barely 19 miles into what I hope will still become my 6th journey over 1000 miles, my biggest fear of riding a Bikecar through America was realised. I make no secret of loving water journeys more than those on land, but there was something tempting about the long open road, endless skies and another pedal-based challenge between two cities starting with the same letter. What I don’t like about riding on the highways is sharing the highways with other people that I don’t know and can’t trust. One loss of concentration, one badly timed text or phone call, one mistake and someone else can end up dead. Thankfully, the result, miraculously, was far kinder today.

We’d suffered one breakdown two and a half miles out of town, small fry compared to the generous work put into the Bikecar by the mechanics from Outdoors Inc and Tom Roehm of Big River Engineering, who spent the morning choosing a driver’s chair for me out of a selection of mainly Walmart-based lawn seats. This is definitely one of those journeys that I would have no chance in hell of even starting were it not for the time and skills of others.

My first day’s riding partner, Rod Wellington, who has completed a number of expeditions without emissions, has been instrumental in setting up this project. Arranging the shipping of the Bikecar while I was out on the Pacific was just one of his offerings, although it was definitely the most stressful!

And Dale Sanders, at 76 years old he’s fit as a fiddle as proven by our recent paddle down the Wolf Rear near Memphis. There was Dale, smiling from ear to ear, driving us all over town only to find himself as the only member of our Day One support team, guarding us from the heavy Memphis traffic in his battered old van.

But now it’s more than battered. Rod and I had lapsed into one of those endurance-led silences, both of us pumping away at the pedals focussed on eating into the miles ahead, grinding our teeth as we made up for the delay forced by a breakdown of the truck upon which Priscilla the Bikecar was eventually delivered late Sunday evening.

Then out of the background monotony of vehicles rushing past us a terrible, chilling screech of brakes. Sounds like someone screaming. A sickening crunch of metal accompanied a whoosh of approaching sound behind, it was only ever going to mean one thing. Dale had been hit, it was our turn next.

The Bikecar is a sturdy beast, thick beams of aluminium form the chassis, but the velocity at which events behind us were unfolding meant that we were at the mercy of fate. All at once, milliseconds after the motor vehicles behind us had collided, something hit us. I was at the wheel, tensed up from the moment the commotion had begun, there was nothing we could do except let events run their course. We were struck from behind, immediately altering our direction 45 degrees from due south on Highway 61 to south west down a grass verge and then into a field of corn. We ground to a stop thirty metres from the road.

My first assumption was that Dale’s van had been shunted right up into the back of us but the scene behind us at the roadside told a different story. Road reached the female driver first. She said her face was sore [from the airbag] but apart from that she was suffering from nothing but shock. The car horn was stuck on full volume, blaring out across scattered debris from the front of her vehicle spread 60 metres back up the road. 

She had been going fast and didn’t see Dale’s trailer and hazard lights until it was too late. She swerved left, dodging the trailer but failing to correct her manoeuvre, which meant she lost control and sent the car into a spin. Her front right struck Dale’s driver’s door and front left wheel, a collision which encouraged her rotation. We were next. Now facing the complete opposite direction to all other vehicles southbound on Highway 61, she struck our back left wheel, the main impact that sent us off the road. An eye witness corroborated the responsible dent in her rear passenger door on the driver’s side. Before we went down the verge her car, velocity finally diminishing, bumped the side of my new chair, freshly extracted from someone’s office at Big River Engineering.

Nobody was badly hurt. Two days on from the incident my left shoulder has a dull ache of bother, but to escape from such an incident without any serious injury is unbelievably fortunate. Both motor vehicles will be lucky to get back on the road, but miraculously the Bikecar just needed a change of wheel. 

Last year I gave a talk at Memphis’ Mud Island River Park and Jamie Zelazny was in the audience. Just three minutes after our accident he turned up on his motorcycle, having witnessed the immediate aftermath of the crash from the other side of the highway. Jamie, who also has experience on Martin Strel’s long distance swims down the Amazon, Mississippi and Yangtze rivers, just happened to have the tools to perform minor surgery on the Bikecar.

An immediate decision wasn’t necessary, but it wasn’t long before I made it. There are two ways to go after an incident like this. One: walk away. Two: realise that these things happen and decide whether you’re going to stop living in case something goes wrong, or whether you’re going to live despite the potential for failure. I took the second option.

We drove to the nearest town, Tunica, where there was also access to less busy roads. A quick meal, I bade farewell to Dale and Rod then made camp on a patch of grass beside a church. The next morning I rose early, keen to banish the memory of the day before. Slowly, in grand correlation with my speed that day, I realised that I wasn’t ready to be back on the road. The front left wheel of the Bikecar had a very slight buckle. By 7am the Mississippi delta was providing a mighty show of its famed southerly winds. Every vehicle that loomed in my wing mirror had me running scared. Three times in ten minutes I pulled violently off the road when a car approached without sign of overtaking, I was a ball of nerves.

The wind picked up and all of my energy was moving me no faster than 2 miles per hour. It didn’t help that my seat fell off, with me on it. The impact from the car yesterday may have had something to do with this. I just wanted sleep, a day of smooth passage, the wanton ability of knowing that every driver behind was watching the road and not texting or absent-mindedly grabbing for something under their seat. It takes one mistake and it’s over. I wasn’t ready to deal with that truth.

By 5pm I’d travelled 15.2 miles, it wouldn’t do. The smoothest the Bikecar was running was backwards when I climbed off - the wind just sailed it north. I was done, beat, exhausted, defeated.

I’ve had low moments on journeys before, but this took the biscuit. I have a lifelong ambition to become the first man capable of doing two things at once, which is why I set up engagements along the way during my expeditions. I had three days until the next one, but at 1.5 miles per hour I wasn’t going to cover the 150 miles to Vicksburg, Mississippi. The bikecar needed work. I needed work. I needed rest. I decided to ignore the thoughts of an impure journey and go with gut instinct, which was to sort out my state of mind. 

So I found myself a few hours later in the cab of a truck, Bikecar nestled onto yet another trailer, heading south to Vicksburg. I have good friends there, they’ll take care of me until Sunday or Monday and it will be from Vicksburg that I restart this journey, hopefully revitalised, clearer of mind and prepared again to take on the dreaded American roads.

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