GETTING A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE
Retired engineer trades ‘having it all’ for simple life on his bike
Retired engineer trades ‘having it all’ for the simple joys of long-distance bike touring
Russ McCoy had it all; an engineering career, a huge house, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, boats — and a whole lot more.
McCoy’s job and home were in Albuquerque, but after turning 50, he wanted a change.
“I just wanted to simplify my life. Get out from under the weigh of all my ‘stuff’ ... and explore the world more!”
An experimental year of living frugally made him realize he could retire and follow that dream.
“I just started selling things and not really missing them,” McCoy said. “It was this process. It didn’t happen by jumping off a cliff, just incremental changes over time. The shocks were small. I sold every single thing. I had an estate sale when the house sold and by 10 a.m. everything else was gone except for some clothes, some bicycles, my car and some boxes for storage.”
But what next? The idea of bicycle touring was appealing. For many years, cycling had been way to relieve the stress of work.
“When I start pedalling, everything else goes away,” McCoy said. “No matter what’s happening, you’re just on that bicycle, just wheeling down the road.”
He read bike touring journals, eager to learn from other’s experiences, then plotted his own “bucket list tour.” That first trip, started in June 2014, took him from Albuquerque on a 4,500-mile loop to Canada and down the west coast and back, visiting several national parks.
“When I left, I had no idea what I was doing,” McCoy admitted. Despite his research, he realized he was carrying too much — his loaded Surly bicycle weighed 120 pounds — and he was trying to cover too many miles each day. He lost 15 pounds in the first three weeks, developed saddle sores and had to reduce his load by nearly 40 pounds.
The experience taught him how to
think about logistics; to think about where to get supplies, how much food and water to carry, how to manage bike maintenance, how to plan camping spots. He realized that surviving a long trip meant taking a break every few days and staying in a motel.
“Once you figure out that cycle, you can pretty much go however far you want,” McCoy said.
He also learned about the kindness of strangers. When he broke down in remote areas someone always stopped to help. McCoy recalled having a tire blowout in Wyoming and a nurse who had never picked up a hitchhiker, stopped her SUV, cleared kids’ toys off the seat and drove him to the nearest bike shop.
After a couple of weeks of eating and resting to recover from that first trip, “the blues” hit and he wanted to do it again. The next trip, in 2015, took him the length of Baja California.
Then he began to think about traveling to the southern tip of South America. He wanted to see Patagonia.
“But it was such a big trip. It was still overwhelming. I wanted something more intermediate,” McCoy said.
The “intermediate” tour was the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, a 2,768mile trip between Banff, in Alberta, Canada, and the New Mexico-Mexico border crossing at Antelope Wells. About 15 percent of the route is paved, the rest is on dirt, mostly forest roads.
McCoy started on July 25, 2016. On the 14th day, he met up with three riders he encountered in Banff and joined them for the rest of the journey. Mike from Boston was fundraising for the Pat Tillman Foundation, which provides scholarships for military veterans; and two Englishmen, Peter and Rick.
“None of us had ever done an off-road tour before,” McCoy said.
The challenge
They quickly fell into a routine. Mike and Peter were the navigators, Rick was the pace-setter. “I was just along for the ride,” McCoy said.
The 50 to 60 miles they covered each day entailed about 3,500 feet of climbing. The entire route involves 200,000 vertical feet of climbing, the equivalent of riding up the Sandia Crest road 60 times, McCoy said.
“After six hours of riding, I was ready for a break. We’d get to a campsite exhausted; eat, sleep and be ready to go again,” he said.
They survived mostly on food they could buy at gas stations they encountered in the remote areas and camped wherever they could. Every few days, they would hit a town and get a motel and eat a real meal.
“A good restaurant meal was totally necessary. I lost 10 pounds on the trip. We were burning 6,000 calories a day,” McCoy said.
In Canada, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado they could rely on finding streams or lakes to replenish their supplies. Water became a big problem once they hit arid New Mexico.
“There were a couple of times we were stretched pretty thin. We even had to flag someone down on the road to get water,” he said.
When they arrived at their destination they had a little celebration, shared a couple of beers and went on their way. Their journey took them 64 days. Racers who do the route in June each year complete it in fewer than 20 days.
When not traveling, he rents a room from a cousin who lives on the West Side. He’s already begun assembling equipment and training for his next adventure, the 800-mile Arizona Trail from the Arizona-Mexico border to Utah via the Grand Canyon. He plans to start in May.
After that, it’s going to be the big one. A 9,000-mile, seven-month trip to the southern tip of South America.
“I always figured that when I turned 40 I would be getting old and doing less,” said McCoy who is now 56. “I found the exact opposite. If you’re willing to put in the time the body responds. I haven’t found my limit yet.”