i'm With You: Bike Guiding the Maine Coast

Bar Harbor, Maine

The afternoon Acadian sun makes its way through the towering pine trees above, highlighting parts of two grease-stained legs dangling from a low hanging hammock. It’s the first time in over a week that I’ve been still long enough to put words on paper and the first moment in 295 miles these two tired legs have found rest. It’s all on, sun-up to sun-down as a bike tour leader, especially with energetic teenagers. 

I’ve been leading bike trips for a company called Teen Treks, based out of Buffalo, New York, for nearly eight years now. Teen Treks is one of the only unsupported bicycle touring companies for teenagers in North America. Meaning, the kids carry their own gear, cook their own meals and fix their own bikes. There are no vans following us, and the leaders job is not to cater to the teens, it’s to support them as they hold the map and navigate through foreign cities, show them how to patch a tube on the side of the road and teach them how to buy groceries on a budget, then cook for a group.

Acadia National Park was the prize. The group met in Boston, where we packed our saddle bags with group camping and cooking equipment, and needled our way north towards New Hampshire and Maine Coast. With a much smaller group than I’m accustomed to, three teens and two leaders, the trip would take on the feel of family, a dysfunctional one of course, with a lot less rules, and a lot more dirt.

Surrrendered to this moment as if it’s all that exists, I can’t help but think about the small, isolated moments along the way, begging me to freeze frame time. The coast of New Hampshire was stunning scape for only the luckiest eyes to experience. An impromptu ferry ride to Peaks Island where the discovery of an outdoor library elicited the purest view of society. The recompense farm who’s land was open to campers to sleep near vegetable fields and stare at cows grazing. The tall tales of a daunting thunderstorm, and the caring Camden citizens offering foreign bike tourists rides left and right. The eclectic RV Park of Balsam Cove, who’s cardboard boat building contest provided the most ideal communal vibe.

And here we are, three days in Mount Desert Island, discovering the portion of Acadia we are blessed to step foot across. Cadillac Mountain, known as the first place to see the sunrise in the U.S for a large portion of the year, beckoned our presence early this morning. Dark skies pierced with millions of tiny diamonds, illuminated our path up the mountain. The darkness faded to soft blue and as we inched closer to the top, the blue changed to an opaque orange brimmed with intense pink. We capped the mountain, rested on a boulder and gave full attention to the orange ball peaking over the forested peninsula.

I lay here now in the afternoon sun, heavy eyes, staring through columns of trees and remembering the orange streak spreading across the ocean, giving warmth to morning boaters. Silence won, in an all-to energetic group, the sun’s beauty prevailed.

I could get lost in the beauty. The long-lived carriage roads pencilling through the island, the finger-like peninsulas creating beachy coves tucked within their mass. Acadia truly has been the physical prize, worth the miles to and from. But the road hasn’t been easy, and these moments of splendor, togetherness and awe only stand out because of the human struggle in-between. And I can’t help but wonder, are the scenic scapes and miles reached enough of a prize? And if they are, can every eye see it’s gift, or is it set aside for those looking to find a treasure?

I may never be a mom, that’s not a goal of mine. But to be a part of growing individual’s lives in a meaningful capacity weighs heavy on my conscious. These trips have been one of the best outlets I have had to be able to do this. I’ve been a teacher but the classroom wasn’t for me. I find kids to be most authentic outside the concrete walls of structure and authority. I want to see their true, wild nature. Even if it’s unruly, even if it means being a bad student, even if it means making mistakes at home.

On these bike trips, I get these kids for 2-3 weeks, for 300-1,000 miles, at their very best and at their very worst moments. I get their tired, dirty, untamed self, and the best part is- I don’t have to change any of that. I’m not their teacher, I’m not their parent, I am not their coach. I am a leader for a concentrated period of time. One day I will be dying my hair with koolaid with a couple girls, the next I may be saying forever farewells.

So the miles in-between, the roadside stops, the fireside conversations, they matter to me. And almost every time, I am troubled by a dynamic of the group. The challenge this trip- I have a girl who just flat out doesn’t like biking, and despises the concept of the trip. The long, hot days, hilly roads and necessary group participation are nothing shy of misery for her. She hates authority, if the group rides fast, she purposely rides slow, she’s been kicked off every sports team she’s been a part of because rules just aren’t her thing.

In other moments, she’s hilarious, she’s fun, she’s just out there. I have wracked my brain on how to support her during this short time, and in some small way, for that to make a difference.

So, I died my hair red with her. I’ve been riding in the back with her, listening to countless stories starting with, “Did you know..” and “One time...” And any time there is water, no matter how late and how cold it may be, I jump in with her. I support her wildness, and encourage the kind of wild that doesn’t put herself or anyone else in danger. But I speak into her wrong when it is ineffective to herself or others. Sometime she listens, sometimes she doesn’t.

Today, I think about the prize. These trips always stir this curiosity. If I showed this troublesome Trekker a map, to see how far we’ve come, she might say “oh” and walk away. If I take her to the top of a mountain where silence steals her voice, she might quickly shift to complaining shortly after. And maybe I can’t give her eyes to see the moments worth the arduous path, but maybe I can be by her side during them.

Like I said, I don’t need her to make better grades, score more points or be a better family member. And though as a leader, wanting to change the dynamic of your group is a temptation, it’s not my job.

My job is to jump in the coldest of seas and rivers with her, to wake her up in the middle of the night and invite her into a starry hike, to show her how to change a flat and watch her accidently smear grease on her face while wiping the sweat away. My job, is to listen to her stories, to laugh with her, to ask her more questions.

It’s easy to underestimate the power of walking with an individual. My doubts often diminish this benevolent act to a personal flaw of peter-pan syndrome. But I think about the larger impact, what would happen if individuals experienced less of someone trying to change them and more of someone walking with them, listening to them, living life with them?

Lately I’ve been recruiting friends for a cross-country bike trip, and I can’t tell you how excited I feel when I hear the words, “I’ll go with you.”

These thoughts take me to the rest of my country, and another rousing conversation on gun violence. To be honest, I am tired of the circuitous motion of these conversations, I am tired of dead ends. At the root of it all, somehow we have lost value in human life.

If I learned one thing from my short stint as a teacher, it is that kids are dynamic human beings, they are emotional, spiritual, physical, and mindful people. They aren’t a grade, they aren’t a college choice, they aren’t a career pathway. Our society looks for these things out of people and then defines their humanness. We don’t just look at people in their raw form, and value them for just being human.

We want to change people, to make them believe what we believe and see the world through our eyes. But why can’t we just walk with people, with no other agenda other than love and respect for their humanity within?

I’m not saying I am doing this perfectly by any means. I am just trying. And I have one individual in front of me that I sense needs someone to walk with them, even just for the next few days. Maybe there’s people around each of us that could really benefit from someone else saying, “I’m with you.”