Famous last words.
That may have been what David Byrne thought he was uttering in the late 1970s after cycling around the world as a teenager.
"Only if the world needs to be recycled," was what a younger
Byrne said when asked if he would do it again - it being a two-and-a-half year bicycle odyssey of more than 40,000 kilometres.
Guess what?
It did.
Now a retired UPS driver, Byrne went even further this time, accompanied by Julie Retka, a teacher from St. Paul, where Byrne also lives. The pair rolled into Thompson on June 17, just in time for Nickel Days, looking like they might be part of the parade with their unusual-looking recumbent bicycles. They were entering the home stretch of a journey that's lasted more than two years, with July 28 as their estimate date of arrival back in St. Paul.
"It's been incredible," Retka said in a press release describing the pair's journey. "The world is not so big and it is filled with wonderful people."
"We've acquired a lifetime's worth of experiences in the past two years," said Byrne. "Every day is an adventure."
The cyclists pedalled into Thompson from the north, after taking the 37-hour train ride from Winnipeg to Gillam, where they disembarked at what is literally the end of the road, 275 kilometres south of Churchill. Prior to that, they had flown to Winnipeg from Berlin, where they ended the European segment of their journey. The entered Europe by ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar after a year cycling the length of Africa, from Cape Town in the south to Morocco in the north.
In the first year of the cycling trip, they followed the Pan-American Highway south to Ushuaia, at the tip of South America, the world's southernmost city, before heading back north, finishing the South American leg in Buenos Aires, Argentina before flying to South Africa.
Things have changed since the first time he travelled the world by bike, Byrne said in the press release.
"On my first trip I met only one other long-distance cyclist," said Byrne. "On this trip we've met, or heard about, hundreds of other cyclists doing similar intercontinental adventures."
Then there's the comfort factor.
"I'm enjoying it more the second time around, too," said Byrne. "The equipment has improved and my Cruzbike recumbent is much more comfortable to ride. Also, I'm not going solo this time. I found someone willing to follow me to the ends of the Earth."
On his first trip, which took him through Europe, Asia and North America, Byrne covered 42,368 kilometres in 29 months.
"Now we've cycled 47,474 kilometres in 27 months," he says.
That's equivalent to more than one full lap at the equator, as the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000 kilometres.
An avid cyclist back home, where he rode his bike to work every day, Byrne thinks more people riding bicycles would be a good thing.
"Bicycles are an Earth-friendly mode of transportation, whether you're going around town or around the world," says Byrne. "Cycling cures much of what ails us, from combatting our obesity epidemic to ending our addiction to oil."
He himself has personally seen the health benefits.
"When you get to be 50 you never know which body part will break down next," said Byrne. "Yet I feel like I'm getting younger every day. I've been competing with my younger self and have done better than that young whippersnapper."
