Day 1

I received two texts from my friend Joel today.

This is the first one:
And, this is the second: "Made it!".

Joel is on his way to Michigan and is presently in Rhinebeck, NY on his 61cm Bianchi Volpe. He's a tall guy. I still haven't figured out why he's riding there, which is great because it allows me to speculate wildly. The official reason I got on Saturday at the Spigot was "to visit family", which I don't think is an adequate explanation. Our meeting at the Spigot was ostensibly an "interview", but it was far too alcoholic, so I can't remember that much about what we talked about. It was also Dan's last Hartford visit before he moves to SF.

I first met Joel four or five years ago when he arrived in Hartford with his then girlfriend Anna. She was going to graduate school for the 'cello and he was doing Americorps. I met him through mutual friends. Anna had a car and Joel rode an old Miele road bike around town. I didn't know that Miele made bikes, I thought they made fancy appliances.

Anna and Joel broke up awhile ago and she took her car to Boston with her. Since then, Joel has been living in West Hartford with Alicia, Jacob and Will. He's a free lance art handler, doing work for Real Art Ways, the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Cartin Collection. If you've seen art hanging in the last few years, he may have done it. He's really good at it. He's been doing the Catalog thing with our friend Joe. He gets to those places on his Miele.

For a guy with no car and who gets around the Hartford area by bike, he's very low-key about. He's not one of those vicious bike commuting proselytizers. In fact, I never could quite tell if he liked to ride the things. Up until the weekend before last, we'd never even gone on a bike ride together.

Around two months ago, Joel told me that he'd been drinking one night and decided to ride his bike to Michigan. I say weird shit like that a lot, so I figured it wouldn't come up again. Although, we did spend considerable time that evening talking about websites like crazy guy on a bike.

The subject didn't die, though, he started asking me about my Long Haul Trucker (I'm a poser touring guy) and potential touring bikes. Joel had a hard time finding bikes, because he's really tall. Eventually, he found a big Volpe on eBay at a pretty good price. And lo, he bought it, though not off eBay. He went to down the Newington Bike and bought it through them. He also got some panniers and other stuff. Strangely, Joel and I wear the same size bike shorts (medium), but he's a foot taller than me. Since they look like half shorts on him, he hides them under regular shorts.

The 80 miles out to Rhinebeck puts him at 10% completion of his trip. I'm totally jealous and very impressed. Much of the trip will be on the Erie Canal route. When I was younger, I rode on some of it with my parents (so, not very much) and then he'll go into Canada on his way to Grand Rapids, MI (that website doesn't really make me want to visit Grand Rapids).

I got another text from him during the process of writing this: "Meeting my friend in Red Hook. It's cute. Must find beer."

Expect more updates as more texts arrive.