Re: Worst Touring Bike?

    Not my tour but my son who was sixteen at the time. He and a friend the 
same age decided to ride from Amarillo to Dalhart, Texas (80 miles away) 
where the other boy had an aunt and uncle who owned a motel. They both had 
ten speed bikes of some sort (I wasn't into bicycles at that time) and they 
took only a change of clothes and some money. They were far more 
self-sufficient than most kids their age.
    "Call us when you get there," was about the only instructions when they 
headed out one morning. Later that day they called saying they were at Boys 
Ranch, about half way and were going to spend the night there. It's a ranch 
for troubled youth something like Father Flanagan's. They had talked the 
ranch into feeding them and giving them a place to sleep. Next afternoon 
they called to say they had arrived in Dalhart.
    We didn't hear from them for five days and just figured they were having 
a good time so weren't concerned. Then about seven in the morning the phone 
rang and it was a collect call from my son, "Dad, can you come get us, we're 
in jail in Walsenburg, Colorado and they won't let us go unless you come 
after us."
    "Let me talk to the officer." I told him.
    The officer explained that they had been found sleeping in a church and 
thought they were probably runaways so were holding them. I asked if he 
would feed them and I'd be there in about five hours.
    On the way home they explained how they came to be there. Seems that the 
uncle had put them to work mowing grass and digging weeds which wasn't all 
that much fun so they decided to head home the second day. They rode out of 
town headed south into about a 25 mph wind and after a couple miles of that, 
they turned around.
    Riding with a tailwind like that was so much fun that my son suggested 
that they keep going north and ultimately end up at the Black Forest 
Gliderport near Colorado Springs where he and I went to fly and he knew 
everyone.
    A thunderstorm came up and they took shelter in the old hotel in the 
ghost town of Mt. Dora, New Mexico. They were able to leave the next morning 
and Steve thought he knew a short cut around the end of Johnson Mesa so they 
wouldn't have to go over Raton Pass. As it turned out they got lost and 
ended up in Raton anyway. They rode out to the airport where Steve talked 
the guy into giving them a place to spend the night. Fortunately, Steve was 
around airports all the time and knew what to ask for.
    They made it to Walsenburg the next day and while riding through town, 
they spotted a bunch of boy scouts and their parents going into a church 
carrying dishes of food. That solved their food problems for the night and 
after the scout meeting broke up, they went to sleep on the padded pews in 
the church.
    When the janitor found them sleeping the next morning, he called the 
police which is where I came to rescue them. That was my son's last bicycle 
tour but far from his last encounters where I had to come to his rescue.

http://www.jimforeman.com/Stories/outland.htm

Jim

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 1:11 PM, william shaneyfelt
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> My first multi-day tour the summer of 1963 as a 17 year old. I rode from 
> Mojave, CA, over the mountains to Ventura to play on the beach for a few 
> days.