While the storm loosed its fury upon us, Larry and I had a tough time hearing or seeing much of anything. I called it “The Ride to McBride,” and it talked a lot about what stupid idiots we were for not stopping and setting up camp when we first saw the storm coming toward us about the quart of frozen water in my shoes about the tears streaming down my already saturated face. It was a long rambling song, which I made up as I struggled to keep my legs moving. Out of pure desperation I started to sing. Pushing the pedals and holding onto the handlebars became incredibly painful work. Every time I coasted down an incline, blasts of arctic air whipped my body and threatened to freeze my legs into place. I knew there was nothing else we could do, so I waded back to the road and started pedaling again. “I haven’t got the strength for another twelve or thirteen miles or whatever it is we’ve got left to McBride.” This new edition features an original foreword by award-winning writer Tara Austen Weaver, as well as an insightful interview with Barbara’s widower, Larry.īelow please enjoy an excerpt from Miles from Nowhere.Ī bear encounter, from the chapter "Canada" 37 years after it was first published, we are thrilled to release a new edition of this classic cycling adventure. Tragically, author Barbara Savage was killed in a cycling accident just before the book came out. It has provided inspiration for legions of modern travel-adventurers and writers over the years. It deserves a read as a travel adventure.Originally published in 1983, Miles from Nowhere: A Round-the-World Bicycle Adventure tells the exciting and heartwarming tale of Barbara and Larry Savage’s 23,000-mile bicycle odyssey, which took them through 25 countries in two years. Savage imbues the tale with pathos, humor, and honesty. I know that for myself, Ive removed bike around the world off my Bucket List. But the stories of their sometimes hand-to-mouth existence as far as finding food and water, the tales of the absolute filth they had to endure, and the rather unappealing specter of being crushed by moving vehicles at nearly every turn certainly disabuses this endeavor of all romance. Savage and her husband do spend blissful weeks on pristine beaches. So as one reads of her harrowing misses by traffic on the roads of Egypt or Thailand or even the U.S., there is a sense of sadness that one day the worst would indeed happen.Īside from this poignancy, the book is a frank tale of both the joys and trials of living with only what one can carry on a bike.
This book about a bike journey around the world is made very poignant by the fact that Barbara Savage was killed in a bicycling accident as the book was going to press.
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