My trips and my story would have been very different if I didn't hold in mind my true home. Wherever I was in the world, I knew my children were in good hands with my sister, Sue; the Black family next door; my tireless mother-in-law, Rosa; and my wife, Sonyaâthe grand prize winner for my warmest thanks. The pits are pretty nice, but I know where my heart belongs.
Bicycle Touring and Books
My touring bicycle, a hybrid, has drop handlebars and 700 x 47 road tires. It's a 21-speed with a 13-30 rear cluster, a 26-42-45 crankset, bar-end shifters, front and rear racks, panniers, handlebar bag, and a kickstand (in the desert there's not much to lean your bike against). I can carry up to two gallons in triple frame-mounted water bottles, various loose bottles, and a water bag.
A Japanese touring bicyclist I met near my home in Tucson in the 1980s had a “ready-for-anything” tool kit that included a foot-long crescent wrench and a hundred feet of rope. This seemed to me excessive, and apparently he had come to agreeâI still have the rope today.
This is noteworthy because it's best to bring less and prepare more for your trip. A good bike is fantastically reliable, so long as it's ready for the road with an overhaul, new cables, and new or at least not-old tires. If you feel up to the task, try taking your bike apart and putting it back together again at least a couple of months before your trip, so you'll understand how it all works. You don't want to pedal a mystery.
Even on long trips like those described in the book, I don't bring special tools for the bottom bracket, headset, or wheel bearings. I do bring extra spokes (including a “fiber-fix” spoke) and a spoke wrench, a screwdriver, a six-inch crescent wrench, several Allen (hex) wrenches, a spare tube (but not a tire), a tube repair kit, an air pump, some odd nuts and bolts in case
a rack loosens, a bit of baling wire, and duct tape. I also carry a pair of disposable latex gloves such as medical folk use, in case I have a greasy job to do. I'd rather drink the water I have than wash my hands with it.
Spontaneous omnivory is one of the pleasures of bike touring. For emergency food, I bring a few packs of ramen noodles (in a pinch, they're edible without cooking), and otherwise rely on whatever the locals are eating. You' ll be surprised how good fried gristle tastes after a day of pedaling.
If you're keen on hitting the road, here are my recommendations for a bike trip abroad. First get an atlas; get the best one you can afford, look at the maps, and dream about baguettes or tortillasâor, if you're going to Australia, white bread and Vegemite. You'll want a good atlas also to find out a few things about when it rains and which way the wind blows. If the information is lacking, you might as well pedal with the sun at your back (south in the southern hemisphere, north in the northern) so you have a pleasing, glare-free view. And drivers coming up behind you can see you better without the sun in their eyes.
You might follow my pretrip training regime: riding or at least sitting on the bike long enough so it doesn't hurt the butt, and a pedal to the drugstore to buy a big bottle of aspirin. Next, pack all the things you think you'll need, then repack and leave half of it behind. You can always buy something you later deem essential. Then fly away (a bike in a box is free on international flights), land, assemble your bike, and pedal away. Not too far at first. After a week you' ll be feeling better, or you' ll hate me.
Either way, you'll want something to read, like this book. Or perhaps one of the titles in the list below, all of which I've read, enjoyed, and now recommend. Original publication dates are given; check your library or bookstore for available editions.
AUSTRALIA
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People,
by Tim Flannery, 1995
Why slow and tasty animals tend to vanish after humans arrive on an island, even a very big island like Australia.
The Fatal Shore,
by Robert Hughes, 1987
Eighteenth-century British authorities, looking to offload their less desirable citizens in a natural prison, give Australia a tryâand never leave.
Cooper's Creek,
by Alan Moorehead, 1963
Pride, excess baggage, and drunken camels foil the 1860 Burke and Wills Expedition, the first attempt by non-Aborigines to cross the continent.
ASIA
Cairo,
edited by John and Kirsten Miller (in the Chronicles Abroad series), 1994
A collection of excepts from novels, essays, and letters whose authors range from Naguib Mahfouz to Michael Palin.
Baghdad without a Map,
by Tony Horwitz, 1991
A journalist is caught in the whirlpool of bottomless hospitality that is the Middle East.
Sinai: The Great and Terrible Wilderness,
by Burton Bernstein, 1979
Travels among the Bedouin during the EgyptâIsrael war(s) of the 1970s.
Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys,
by John Lewis Burckhardt, 1831
Burckhardt, a Swiss, reveals the tradition-bound habits of the Bedouin. In doing so, he discovers their disgust with the fundamentalist Wahaby, who “propagates his religion with the sword.”
EUROPE
Imperium,
by Ryzard Kapuscinski, 1994
A bitter recollection of the Soviet empire in the direct prose of this Polish journalist.
Proletarian Science? The Case of Lysenko,
by Dominique Lecourt, 1978
The terrible story of how Trofim Lysenko crippled Soviet biology.
The Unknown Civil War in Soviet Russia,
by Oliver Radley, 1976
An account by an English law professor of the Bolshevik crackdown on the peasant revolt in Tambov province.
The Russian Revolution,
by Alan Moorehead, 1958
The Bolsheviks triumphâbarelyâafter Lenin's return from exile. Moorehead's a good storyteller, and remarkably fair for a man writing during the height of anticommunism.
Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia,
by Anthony Jenkinson, 1877
Very early travels (1557â72) by Elizabeth I's ambassador to the court of Ivan the Terrible; by turns breathless and amusing. Jenkinson reports: “They have many sorts of meats and drinks when they banquet, and delight in the eating of gross meats and stinking fish.”
SOUTH AMERICA
Attending Marvels: A Patagonia Journal,
by George G. Simpson, 1934
During a 1930 paleontology expedition, Simpson's truck is constantly getting stuck; his cook wants to murder a crew member who foolishly complains of too much garlic; and the camp pet, a rhea, drinks kerosene and croaksâyet Simpson seems to enjoy both fossils and Patagonia.
The Voyage of the Beagle,
by Charles Darwin, 1839
The twenty-two-year-old biologist joins Captain Fitz Roy for a five-year trip around the world that will change all of science. A quarter of the book is devoted to Patagonia.
AFRICA
Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa,
by Charles Nicholl, 1997
A nice bit of research and personal travelogue that attempts to explain the young poet's self-exile, and succeeds. “At dawn Djibouti is like a half-lit shower room. The steam condenses on you as you walk down the stairs. . . . You would do better, as usual, to follow the local example and dedicate the afternoon to khat.”
The Danakil Diary,
by Wilfred Thesiger, 1996
Summarizing his 1930 expedition into what is now Djibouti, Mr. Thesiger writes that the Afar “were a cheerful, happy people despite the incessant killing.”
Hell-Hole of Creation,
by L. M. Nesbitt, 1934
The lurid account of a 1928 expedition into “that black and savage country.”
First Footsteps in East Africa,
by Richard Burton, 1856
The polyglot Burton delivers on any subject, from how to kill an elephant with only a knife (cut the Achilles tendon) to the sexual habits of the residents of Harar: “Both sexes are celebrated for laxity of morals.”
NORTH AMERICA
Killing the Hidden Waters,
by Charles Bowden, 1977
Bowden takes the long view, back to when the Spaniards came to the desert of the Tohono O'Odam Indians, and “the cow looted the vegetation, the horse shattered ancient tribal boundaries.” When the pump arrives in the desert, something is lost as well as gained.
The Desert Year,
by Joseph Wood Krutch, 1952
Krutch serves up biology and philosophy in a way that captures the spirit of the Sonoran Desert without resorting to spiritualism. “What I am after is less to meet God face to face than to take in a beetle, a frog, or a mountain when I meet one.” Amen.
The Land of Little Rain,
by Mary Austin, 1903
In the desert she adored, the Mohave, Austin bravely wanders alone and in the company of herders, miners, and Indians. “For all the tolls a desert takes of a man it gives compensations, deep breaths, deep sleeps, and the communion of the stars.”
The Desert,
by John Van Dyke, 1901
An art professor from New Jersey, Van Dyke wanted a good look at the air and light of the desert Southwest. After three years of wandering about on a pony, with a fox terrier for company, he wrote, “The desert has gone a-begging for a word of praise these many years. It never had a sacred poet; it has in me only a lover.”
About the Author
After graduating from Catalina High School in Tucson, Arizona, Jim Malusa worked as fry-vat lid opener at Kentucky Fried Chicken, a steel bender at A&J Sheet Metal, and a deconstructionist at Cro-Magnon Demolition. He later attended the University of Arizona, which eventually granted him a degree in biology.
As a botanist, Malusa has published in academic journals such as
Systematic Botany.
He is proudest of his five-year effort to map the vegetation of Arizona's Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge. As an author, he has ranged far and wide for
Natural History
magazine and The Discovery Channel, whose assignments included Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the Atacama Desert in Chile, carnivorous flies in Panama, and Three Gorges Dam in China.
Malusa still lives in Tucson with his wife, Sonya, and their two childrenâneither of whom has yet shown an unusual fondness for caves, pits, or other depressions. Find out more about Malusa's anti-expeditionsâand view picturesâat
www.IntoThickAir.com
.
The Sierra Club, founded in 1892 by author and conservationist John Muir, is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. With more than a million members and supportersâand some sixty chapters across the countryâwe are working hard to protect our local communities, ensure an enduring legacy for America's wild places, and find smart energy solutions to stop global warming. To learn how you can participate in the Sierra Club's programs to explore, enjoy, and protect the planet, please address inquiries to Sierra Club, 85 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94105, or visit our website at
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Text copyright © 2008 by Jim Malusa
Illustrated maps copyright © 2008 by Neil Gower
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Malusa, Jim
Into thick air : biking to the bellybutton of six continents / Jim Malusa.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN : 978-1-578-05184-7
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