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Not an easy rider
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On August 1 Montgomery had just finished a long climb in the Ural Mountains when he saw a sign marking the end of Asia and the beginning of Europe. |
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This summer David Montgomery (GRS’05) rode his bicycle more than
7,800 miles, from Vladivostok, Russia, across 13 time zones to Scheveningen,
a coastal city in the Netherlands. Montgomery, a Ph.D. candidate in religion
and international relations, was one of 20 cyclists who completed all
of Polio Ride 2003, a megacycling tour to raise money for Rotary International’s
polio eradication program. “Physically, it was the hardest thing
I’ve ever done,” says Montgomery, a marathoner who had previously
traversed the continental United States on his bike. “It wasn’t
so much that we were cycling very far each day — and near the end,
we could do 100 miles without breaking a sweat — it was that we
were doing it every day. The duration was what made it really difficult.
Sometimes
it was hard to see that we were making progress.”
Russian roads
are hazardous, to say the least. The route included long unpaved sections
that are steep, rocky, and generally unforgiving. “After
a day on the unpaved roads,” he says, “you couldn’t
really hold onto anything because your arms would take so much of a beating
trying to hold onto the bike. And regardless of how much technology has
been put into designing it, there is still no such thing as a comfortable
bicycle seat.”
When the group set out from Vladivostok, Montgomery
set his odometer to zero and looked forward to seeing how far he’d
gone 90 days later. But various pieces of his bicycle began shearing
off on the rough
roads, and the casualties included his odometer and water bottle holders.
The bikers fared slightly better than their bikes: there were no major
injuries, except for some open wounds, sore knees, and an annoying flu
that spread among the group. When Montgomery got sick, he rode on.
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End of the road: After cycling more than 7,800 miles across all of Russia and Europe, David Montgomery (GRS’05) (right) celebrates the monumental achievement with his comrades in the North Sea. |
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But
the ride was about more than perseverance and physical accomplishment.
Along the way, many locals invited the cyclists into their homes for
rest and refreshment. Montgomery took advantage of every opportunity
to talk with the Russians, Latvians, Poles, Germans, and Dutch who eyed
the troop of cyclists curiously. “You tend to meet a lot of people
because you stick out,” he says. “You look so different and
interesting that they want to somehow include you in the conversation.” All
of the chatting boosted Montgomery’s Russian slang considerably.
After
three months of grueling conditions and extreme isolation, the riders
were surprised to be met in Scheveningen by a marching band and
a parade, which escorted them to the edge of the North Sea, where some
dipped their front tires into the water while others submerged their
entire bikes as well as themselves. “That was a very odd feeling
— to be escorted to the finishing point,” Montgomery says. “It
made me very uncomfortable. People were very generous and excited for
us, but a number of us felt like, ‘Hey, all we did was ride our
bikes a long way.’ People said we were heroes, but if anything,
we’re not very smart, because a train goes the same way.”
Montgomery’s detailed travel journal, with dozens of photos from
the trip, is available at www.wbur.org/special/dispatches/russiabikeride.
26
September 2003
Boston University
Office of University Relations