海角大神

Early in Life is a Wheel, Bruce Weber鈥檚 chronicle of a cross-country bike ride from Astoria, Ore., to New York City, Weber struggles with the unforgiving summer heat of eastern Washington State. Resting in the shade of a rare tree, waiting out a spell of dizziness, he wonders how he鈥檚 going to make it the rest of the 3,000 miles to the George Washington Bridge if he can鈥檛 make it to the end of his third day.

鈥淏ut I also thought, You can鈥檛 stay here by the side of the road, deep-breathing with your head between your legs,鈥� he writes. 鈥淣ow, or in five minutes or ten minutes or an hour, you鈥檙e going to have to get back on the bike and pedal the final miles into town.鈥�

Weber is a practiced long-distance cyclist, though maybe not a fanatical one. He completed a ride across America before, when he was 17 years younger (he turns 58 on this ride), and toured the highlands of Vietnam by bike in 1995, soon after the United States reopened diplomatic ties with the country.

But he still concedes the charge from thick-toothed gear heads that he鈥檚 鈥渁 mere tourist in Bikeland鈥�; he gladly hands over his bicycle to paid professionals for tuneups and spends only a brief footnote on the specs of his custom-built rig. From past experience he knows this moment of despair in Washington鈥檚 dusty heat can be answered with 鈥渢he basic philosophy of long-distance cycling.... Moving forward is the cure for all ills. Keep pedaling.鈥�

Weber intends the metaphor for life and death, for 鈥渢he inevitable direction that all lives take and that it behooves us to get as far as we can before we can鈥檛 go any farther.鈥�

He also acknowledges that he may be more inclined to think this way because he makes his living writing obituaries for The New York Times. Perhaps because of his decades of experience as a journalist, his practice in 鈥渞endering, as entertainingly and informatively as possible in a handful of hours before deadline,鈥� an obituary from the raw facts of a recently ended life, Weber is able to balance his experience of the cycled road with modest postulates about its meaning, to cut through the tedium of a million pedal strokes with a sharp eye for the urgent moment.

One revelation of Weber鈥檚 travelogue is that he鈥檚 not the only one taking such a trip. There was his own prior journey along much the same route, but also, this time around, he crosses paths with Australians heading east to west on a postgraduate walkabout, Europeans tracing mountain trails across the Rockies, and Americans happy to join a stranger for a day鈥檚 ride through a quarter of their state. This isn鈥檛 a pioneering bike ride, nor is it one pushed to attention-grabbing extremes.

But it is, to borrow Weber鈥檚 titular analogy, a tour of the current cycles of care and worry in one man鈥檚 life, told with humility, humor, and probity. 鈥淭raveling by bicycle is, actually, my personal antidote to a good deal of life鈥檚 irreconcilable vexatiousness,鈥� Weber says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an hour or so at the end of each day, when I swing my leg out of the saddle in front of a motel ... and begin envisioning pleasant things 鈥� a shower, clean clothes ... a ball game on TV, an uninterrupted, rejuvenating sleep 鈥� during which I feel indisputably worthy as a human being.鈥�

Weber documented the ride at the heart of this book in a blog and on Twitter for the Times. Quotes from supportive commenters (and from one particularly dogged detractor) accompany his descriptions of the landscape.

He navigates by smart phone. He breaks from the open road to fly to a wedding and a funeral. The abundant connections Weber enjoys are a far cry from the harrowing, thrilling isolation he found on his earlier, younger rides.

These connections bleed into the book itself, as some of the quoted blog responses serve to review the travelogue as it鈥檚 happening. This sort of recursion might quickly turn into a story that resembles a stationary bike, always moving but never getting anywhere.

But Weber is able to juggle such thoughts about thoughts with a distance earned by equanimity. 鈥淲hat is distance,鈥� he asks, 鈥渂ut experience?鈥� It is a pleasure to share the length of these with him.

Andrew Cleary regularly reviews books for Rain Taxi.