http://www.vnews.com/home/9514280-95/pedaling-cross-country-to-find-inner-peace
Pedaling Cross Country to Find Inner Peace Ed Bradley, who recently wrote a book about bicycling across the country as a way to battle depression, poses for a portrait in his daughter's home in Post Mills, Vt. on November 21, 2013. "I wrote the book to process this and get it all out of me," he said. "It was very healing." (Valley News - Elijah Nouvelage) By Jared Pendak Valley News Staff Writer Tuesday, November 26, 2013 (Published in print: Tuesday, November 26, 2013) “Depression is the inability to construct a future.” -Rollo May White River Junction — Following his divorce three years ago, Ed Bradley felt alone, betrayed and sad. One mile at at time, he did something about it. As a therapeutic means of coping with depression, Bradley retired at age 53, settled all debts with his ex-wife and set out to explore the U.S. on a bicycle. Covering 5,600 miles and 21 states, he pedaled down the eastern seaboard and then east-to-west across the south, finishing the seven-month journey in San Diego. The Post Mills resident’s adventures are described in a newly released self-published paperback, Cycling Through Depression, available online and at select stores. “I was miserable and down on myself all the time,” said Bradley, who lived in Springfield, Vt., and was a respiratory therapist at Springfield Hospital at the time. “Nothing made sense to me anymore. There was a lot of self loathing, self hatred. It affected me physically, too. “I had migraines and my joints ached all the time. Medication and counseling weren’t really helping. I decided that a long, peaceful trip under my own power would be something I could do to treat my own depression.” Bradley had always been fascinated with U.S. Highway 1, the 2,377-mile strip of mostly two-lane road extending from the Canadian border at Fort Kent, Maine, all the way to Key West, Fla. He drove his beat-up van to Fort Kent, sold it for salvage and planned to stay in the small town’s only motel the night before departing. But even this plan of enlightenment and exploration had its rough patches. The unexpected adventures began right away. After sleeping in the motel lobby’s couch — it was sold out because of a family reunion — Bradley was greeted with rainy conditions and road construction on Day 1 of his journey. To make matters worse, Bradley installed a component incorrectly while hitching up his trailer full of supplies, and before he was even five miles into the voyage Bradley found himself on the side of the road, trying to fix his cargo setup in the rain. “I am not a Mr. Fix-it, by any stretch,” said Bradley in an interview last week. “My three-dollar reading glasses kept fogging up and falling off, and the rain was coming down hard. I realized that no one was coming to save me, and that’s how it would be throughout the ride. “I started having back spasms and looked down and saw that I’d been standing in poison ivy.” Things did get smoother for Bradley as he headed south, taking 17 days to cover the 525 miles of U.S. 1 in Maine alone. Averaging around 30 miles per day, he got in much better shape both physically and mentally. “I didn’t really have time to be depressed,” said Bradley, a father of two. “I missed my kids and my house, and I still missed my wife, but all of the fresh air and exercise just really did wonders. Within about 10 days my migraines went away, my joints stopped hurting and I felt better than I had in decades.” Bradley began to notice kindness everywhere as he continued along. He found drivers surprisingly courteous while riding through Boston and New York, then met many strangers interested in his travels while navigating through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. One friend said he’d be considered homeless by U.S. Census Bureau standards, but Bradley didn’t care. “To be honest, I wore it as a badge of pride,” Bradley said. In Maryland by mid-summer, Bradley learned quickly why heat-index listings were all the rage on the Weather Channel. “It’s every bit as significant as the windchill factor in the Northeast,” Bradley said. In the book, he writes, “Instead of being very hot, it was organ-destroying hot. At one point I’m pretty sure my spleen melted. The ninety-degree temperatures in Maine now seemed like a distant Arctic dream.” Route 1 brought Bradley through West Baltimore, a poor neighborhood Bradley had heard was dangerous. He found a bustling street economy there, with residents selling items off fold-out tables on the side of the road. Buying a snow cone at one stop, Bradley ordered two bottles of waters for the road. The 18-year old merchant ended up donating them to his cause. “She was genuinely interested in what I was doing ... She said I couldn’t buy anything else at the store,” Bradley writes. “She opened a well-worn change purse, pulled out a dollar worth of change and dropped it in the till. I still think of her, an 18-year old angel raised in poverty who taught me a life lesson in generosity.” Bradley deviated from Route 1 in Virginia and North Carolina to pedal along the Outer Banks, a 200-mile stretch of narrow barrier islands. The heat and humidity remained oppressive, and he took a bad tumble just before entering South Carolina. Riding with a bruised hip and a bruised ego — his crash occurred in front of a number of eyewitnesses — Bradley felt dehydrated and on the verge of another collapse when he arrived in Myrtle Beach. “It wasn’t quite heat stroke, but it was close,” Bradley recalled. “I wasn’t going to the bathroom at all, just sweating out everything I took in and it still wasn’t enough.” Resting more than usual to compensate for the heat through Georgia and Florida, Bradley finally made it to Key West on Day 77. But he was’t greeted with the welcoming he’d pictured at Route 1’s 0.0 mile marker — getting ignored by the first party he asked to take a picture of him. Still, the arrival was beyond satisfying. “I knew it was something I’d remember for the rest of my life,” he said. Soon, though, Bradley craved more. He decided to continue on to San Diego. He was nearly sidetracked after falling off a ferry in Fort Myers and nearly drowning while being seriously cut by his bike and trailer that fell in with him. But eventually Bradley returned to Key West to continue biking where he’d left off. Pedaling along the Gulf Coast in Texas he saw tumble weeds and families camped out on the other side of the fence marking the U.S.-Mexico border. “It made me appreciate what we have in the U.S.,” he said. “These people just wanted to get over the fence.” Bradley spent Christmas Day biking 68 miles and crossing into the Mountain time zone, having covered nearly 4,800 miles when he reached El Paso on Dec. 26. On Dec. 30 in New Mexico, Bradley crawled out of his tent to a windy and cool morning. Biking out of the town of Hatch, a stranger in a pickup truck warned him of a blizzard fast arriving and offered to put him up for the night. “I told him, ‘I’m from Vermont. You have no idea what a blizzard is. I’ll be OK,’ ” he said. “I pressed on.” It was a mistake. The heavy snow forced closure of the roads and forced Bradley to find cheap lodging to get out of the weather. It was the last major ordeal of the trip. Finally, he arrived in San Diego on Feb. 2, 227 days after his first pedal stroke in Maine. Today Bradley still experiences some depression, but the road ahead is much clearer. He’s given a number of inspirational speeches depicting the journey, including one in his hometown of Alfred, N.Y., where several stores are carrying his book. Cycling Through Depression has received favorable reader reviews online. Bradley, now 56, plans to continue adventure cycling and is saving up for a trip across the northern U.S. □ Bradley welcomes feedback about his book or outreach from fellow cyclists. Cycling Through Depression has a Facebook page, and he can be reached at ebradley@cyclingthroughdepression.com or 802-299-8836.
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