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    The Road Headed West: A Cycling Adventure Through North America
    Unavailable
    The Road Headed West: A Cycling Adventure Through North America
    Unavailable
    The Road Headed West: A Cycling Adventure Through North America
    Ebook385 pages7 hours

    The Road Headed West: A Cycling Adventure Through North America

    By Leon McCarron

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    ‘It seemed a terrible shame to meet my end in Iowa; I couldn’t imagine anywhere more disappointing to die. If I were a betting man I’d have reckoned on the most dangerous thing in this state being sheer boredom. The scenery hadn’t changed for weeks and I was slowly dissolving into stimulation-deprived madness. My current predicament, then – attempting to escape through cornfields from a gun-toting alcohol-soaked rancher – was not something I expected.’

    Just months after graduating from university, Leon received disastrous news: he had been offered a job. Terrified at the prospect of a life spent behind a desk, without challenge or adventure, he took off to cross America on an overloaded bicycle packed with everything but common sense. Over five months and 6,000 miles, Leon cycled from New York to Seattle and then on to the Mexican border, facing tornados, swollen river crossings and one hungry black bear along the way. But he also met kind strangers who offered their food, wisdom, hospitality and even the occasional local history lesson, and learned what happens when you take a chance and follow the scent of adventure.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSummersdale Publishers Ltd
    Release dateJul 7, 2014
    ISBN9781783722129
    Unavailable
    The Road Headed West: A Cycling Adventure Through North America
    Author

    Leon McCarron

    Leon McCarron is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and explorer from Northern Ireland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia's Explorer of the Year, and is known for long-distance expeditions and immersive multimedia storytelling. In the past decade he has travelled over 50,000km by human power, and is currently based in Iraq.

    Read more from Leon Mc Carron

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    Reviews for The Road Headed West

    4/5

    14 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Definitely made me want to get on my bike every day! Also made me think seriously about (much smaller!) cycle touring goals.
    • 3/5
      For some people, the offer of a job with a regular salary is just what they are looking for. For Leon McCarron though the thought of being stuck behind a desk with no chance of adventure or seeing the world, filled him with dread. As he was in New York, he came up with the idea of cycling from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, not for any reason, just for the hell of doing it. Loading up his bike and trailer with much, much more than he needed, he embarks on his 6000 mile journey. A week or so later he was still cycling in New York state, as he hadn’t realised just how vast it was.

      Slowly but surely he was building his fitness up but getting around 80 miles a day under his belt. He meets other cyclists as he wends his way across the States, sharing the journey and beginning what were to become lasting friendships. A brief detour into Canada to see Niagara Fall was soured when he returned into America and was detained by a very officious immigration official. They did allow him back after a chastisement about documentation. As he drops into the Midwest he passes mile after mile of cornfields on the almost dead straight roads, the highlight of the day being the zigzags when they correct the roads for the curvature of the earth. All across America so far, he had been given a warm welcome and helped by strangers in all manner of ways. This was to change when he accepted hospitality from a guy in a bar and headed back to his ranch. His mate was there and wasn’t best pleased to see Leon, and after one heart stopping moment he has to escape really quickly. Of all the places to die in the world, he didn’t want it to be Iowa!

      Hoping to eek out his journey on a budget of $5 a day, he is fuelled by peanut butter and an absence of common sense. It is an easy and relative unchallenging read, with a certain charm to it. What is does show is that you do not need loads of planning or training to achieve a goal, sometimes you just need to climb on the bike and pedal. This one is a worthy addition to the fold of cycling adventure books.
    • 5/5
      The Road Headed WestAuthor: Leon McCarronPublisher: Herman Graf Book / Skyhorse Publishing / Summersdale PublishingPublished In: New York City, NYDate: 2014Pgs: 349REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:A 6000 mile cycling odyssey from New York City to Seattle and points south.Genre:AdventureAutobiography and memoirBikingBiographyCyclingExerciseNon-fictionScience and natureSocietyTravel guidesTravel writingWhy this book:The description reminds me of The Incredible Voyage by Tristan Jones, one of my favorite books of all time. It’s not just the description. The story reminds me very much of Jones’ adventure.______________________________________________________________________________Favorite Character:Lola, the bicycle with the trailer trundling along.Least Favorite Character: The crazy redneck gun nut that tried to kill him in an Iowa tornado.Character I Most Identified With:Leon comes across in this book. You could sit down and have a beer or a jar of peanut butter with him and it’d be alright.The Feel:This is a great adventure.Favorite Scene:After a whiskey fueled night before, he drags himself down to the ground floor, going back and forth to get his bike and trailer down, then, checking his room and the apartment that isn’t his home anymore to make sure he’s gotten everything, makes his way downstairs a final time, steps outside, realizes that he has locked his bike and trailer inside the lobby, and left his keys upstairs for his roommate’s new roommate. My small doubts about the story, all but, disappeared at this point. The encounter with the gun toting, drunk Iowan and the tornado giving him a lesson in the dangers of the road after the long flat monotony of the Iowa backroads. Pacing:Well paced, short chapters.Plot Holes/Out of Character:The lack of planning, considering the scope of his epic journey, is daunting. The bad things happen potential is huge.Hmm Moments:The incidents where McCarron crossed out of the US into Canada and back make me question the wisdom of the author. Attempting to cross the international border in a post-911 world considering America’s security profile and the state of his paperwork just wasn’t smart. He busts TSA border guard Rankin’s balls in the text, but if I were Rankin, I wouldn’t have let him across the border either. After he talked to a supervisor, McCarron did manage to recross the border into the US and continue his journey.The gap that Leon perceives between him and Susie, his temporary riding mate, when they visited Jack Larsen, former General Motors employee. Larsen waxes nostalgic about working for GM. And Leon notices that while he is enjoying the reverie as an insight into the American character, Susie seems to be bored by it. The implication seeming to be that she sees it as standard bourgeois nostalgia.The ferry ride across Lake Michigan from Muskegon, Michigan to Milwaukee, Wisconsin makes a wonderful break between Parts 1 and 2. Feels very natural.Why isn’t there a screenplay?There could probably be a heckuva movie made of this.______________________________________________________________________________Last Page Sound:Well done. The denouement telling about his onward journeys after the Mexico border south of San Diego. His marriage to Clare. Good stuff.Author Assessment:If there was a book of his continued adventure, I’d read it. But it sounds like instead of this being a bicycle trip around the world, that his journeys have been more a disjointed swag around the world in search of further adventures.Editorial Assessment:Well edited.Knee Jerk Reaction:instant classicDisposition of Book:Irving Public LibrarySouth CampusDewey Decimal System: 917.3MCCWould recommend to:friends, family, kids, colleagues, everyone, genre fans, no one______________________________________________________________________________