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This is a brief portion of Steve Katona’s The Crucible Tour; Excerps. Click here for a PDF document the first 16 pages. (40K). The Crucible Tour; Excerpts What follows are a series of entries from my journal as I biked from Portland, Oregon to near the Missouri Illinois border in the Fall of 2004. I covered 2776 miles in just over 80 days on a modified, unsuspended mountain bike pulling a one wheeled trailer, a B.O.B. Yak. The B.O.B. stands for beast of burden and is both the name of the company that makes the trailers and a good indication of what the trailer does. Of course, the real beast of burden is the bicycle rider who supplies the engine, his legs, to move the burden: the rider; the bike; the trailer; and the load on the trailer. The journal consists of 82 pages and lots of pictures which can be found at srtraveler.crazyguyonabike.com in its entirety. These are just a few pages I chose that may entertain you for a few minutes and give you an idea of the experience I had on this event of a lifetime. I shit you not. To begin: Sisters to Ochoco Pass Saturday August 14, 2004, 76 miles (122 km) - Total so far: 368 miles (592 km) It rained last evening, in Sisters, about 5 and I put my rain fly on the tent. Then, silly me, I walked to a nearby covered bridge to enjoy the rain, watching it fall, watching the pattern it made on the stream running under the bridge, the music of rainfall. When it slowed to a drizzle, I went back to the tent to find I hadn't quite put the fly on right so I had about a quart of water in the tent with all my things that I had thrown into the tent to get them out of the rain. It could have been a lot worse. My sleeping bag and pillow were dry. Click here for a PDF document the first 16 pages. (40K). This is a brief portion of Steve Katona’s first chapter, Before, for the novel No Guarantees. Click here for a PDF document of Chapter 1 in its entirety (29K). Before “I hate it when you do this,” Mike said. “Do what?” Linda answered, staring out of the side window of the car. “You’re pouting or something. The temperature in here is about forty and I don’t have a clue.” They drove for a few blocks in silence, the kids in the back seat quiet for the first time all afternoon. “Sometimes I’m really sorry I didn’t go back to school after I had Ricky.” Traffic was heavy on Menaul Boulevard and Mike had to speed to keep up with the flow. Drivers were running late yellow lights and changing lanes without using their turn signals. Guts driving, Albuquerque style. “Don’t bring that up again unless you want to do something about it,” Mike said. “You know I‘ve told you over and over that if you want to go back to school we can work something out. I can spend more time baby sitting the kids and doing cooking and laundry. Whatever it takes.” “You say that but then it seems there’s always something happening. I mean who’s going to take care of the kids if you’re working out of town and I have classes? Or you want to go to an Aikido tournament during the week.”
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