The Shorts--Two Wheels to Anywhere

The Dirtbag Diaries

Duct Tape Then Beer

Sports, Wilderness

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2015

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"We opened my aunt's basement door and walked into the dusty room. Among cardboard boxes and carpentry tools stood a bright red bicycle. The frame had a few patches of rust. The components looked clunky and the gears grated roughly when I spun the pedals. It had no seat post or saddle. It was unrideable, but it had character," writes Graeme Lee Rowlands. He had a few months before he would move from Oakland, CA to start college in Squamish, BC. And he had decided that he would make the 1000-mile trip on a bicycle that he would build himself. He didn't know anything about building a bike, nor had he ever ridden more than 40-miles in a day. But he was determined.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Shorts.
0:03.8	In your listening to the Dirtbag Diaries, a duct tape then beer production.
0:09.6	With additional support from New Belgium Brewing, Kuat Racks, and Patagonia.
0:14.5	There's a place I know, there's some people there that I know I'm evil by the just
0:22.1	okay.
0:23.8	I sat by myself in a hostel in Grenada, Nicaragua.
0:27.8	For four months I bust around Central America from one tourist hotspot to the next, and I
0:32.0	had grown disenchanted with the backpack and lifestyle.
0:35.3	My travels certainly included many genuine moments, but that was not at the forefront of my mind,
0:39.9	as I watched all the other tourists head out for another night of drinking in the ubiquitous
0:43.7	backpacker bars that serve cheap drinks for gringos with dollars in their pockets.
0:48.4	Sometimes it felt like an entire culture of people who simply wandered around in search
0:51.9	of the next best landmark to take their photo with, and the next best bar with even cheaper
0:55.8	beer.
0:57.1	I was over it.
0:58.6	So instead of going out, I browsed Google Maps.
1:01.6	I wanted to come up with something, an idea, a trip that would light a spark in me the way
1:05.6	backpacking first had.
1:07.8	I thought back to a pair of Americans I met in Cuba.
1:10.7	They had flown down on one way tickets, built a tandem bicycle out of spare parts, and
1:15.0	rode it across the country.
1:17.2	They had made the trip on a whim and spoke little Spanish.
	...

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