My "bible" through that summer was Kerouac's On the Road. The photo above shows the battered copy of the Penguin edition that I'd picked up second hand from Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, in Paris. The trademark Shakespeare-head stamp was imprinted on the first inside page, and the back cover bore a price sticker from another bookstore, the exotic-sounding "Lib. de L'Oasis" in Fes, Morocco. The two marks together gave the book a world-worn, road-wise aura that I treasured. That volume still sits on my shelves today...

y first big bicycle tour began to take shape towards the end of high-school. It was originally intended to be an extended post-graduation bike trip through Europe with one other person. I bought some old National Geographic maps of France, Italy, and Spain, Exacto-cut each along their common borders and taped all three together into a large-scale whole. Found a large piece of brown cardboard (probably some packing box unfolded) to pin them to, hung it on the wall and began to dream.

Of course things didn't quite turn out as I'd expected. I went directly from high school into University, and then hooked into a good job after graduation. Two years into that job I started to get itchy feet again, and so in the early spring of 1980 I quit, and flew to England, and the journey began...