{"id":45257,"date":"2023-08-19T23:51:17","date_gmt":"2023-08-20T03:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=45257"},"modified":"2023-08-19T23:51:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T03:51:17","slug":"rutland-man-cycles-experiences-the-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2023\/08\/19\/rutland-man-cycles-experiences-the-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Rutland man cycles, experiences the USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ken Cleveland<\/em>
Landmark Correspondent<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

RUTLAND \u2014 Setting out on his bicycle from Rutland in May 2022, Michael Lussier took 323 days to make it back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riding the country, he saw things at a slower pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my last couple of years at work, I tossed around the idea of how cool it would be to ride across the country,\u201d Lussier, 57, said. \u201cI always wanted to see California. As time went on, it started morphing into what it would be like to ride the perimeter of the country. I mean, if I\u2019m thinking about this, why not go whole hog?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen and heard of hundreds of people who\u2019ve done coast to coast, but how many doing the perimeter? Not many, I would assume; so I decided that\u2019s what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lussier had time after retiring. That gave him a chance for a bike ride very different from those he took growing up in the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had joined the National Guard at 17, and ended up also working for the Department of Defense for 32 years. When he came back from a deployment to Iraq in 2009, he worked at Devens, retiring in 2022 at the age of 56 as deputy superintendent of the Combined Support Maintenance Shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI tell everyone I\u2019m not a cyclist. I\u2019m just a guy that had a lot of time on his hands and went for a long ride. And it\u2019s true, I\u2019m not a cyclist, or a cyclist you think of in the context of a 10,000-plus-mile tour. I didn\u2019t spend hours in the gym or days listening to the Rocky theme riding through the pouring rain trying to hit the 100-mile mark,\u201d Lussier said. \u201cI just went for a ride when I felt like it, maybe 20 miles or so, a couple times a week, and after a shower, planned a ride that would forever change my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bike trip took many roads, traveling along with cars and trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing highways isn\u2019t just for cars,\u201d Lussier said. \u201cIn Montana, I rode the interstate and got some crazy stares. On a road that\u2019s marked 80 mph, it\u2019s shocking to see a bicycle doing maybe 15.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bicycle gave him a different perspective from that of a car trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTraveling by bicycle \u2026 was by far the most immersive experience ever. The world at 12-15 mph is a different place, and time slows down with your speed. You hear things that drive you crazy. The sound of the guardrails on the side of the road expanding as the sun heats them is a long groan, with a ping and a crack here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe smells are intoxicating. I rode by lemon tree groves in California, and I thought I was near a Pledge factory. The fields of lavender in North Dakota made all the pain so worthwhile; it was like breathing a feeling of total peace and contentment. And the sights \u2026 . A quick story. In Montana the ranches go for miles, and the farmers put pesticides down to keep the grasshoppers from destroying their crops. Because of this the grasshoppers sit alongside the road, getting the sun, in a swath about 3 to 4 feet wide. As I passed them, they launched themselves out of the way, starting about a foot from my front wheel out to about 3 feet. They looked like rows of Chinese firecrackers going off in front of me, for mile after mile,\u201d Lussier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTraveling by bike is an all-out assault on the senses, and it\u2019s so overwhelming, it seems impossible for the brain to process, hour after hour, day after day. Remember your last weeklong vacation? Multiply that by 50 and try to process it. \u2026 To this day, I\u2019m still enjoying it, and I swear I can still smell every mile I think about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going back to the question of ‘Why?’, Lussier said he wanted to do something different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to do something that would be different, something only a lunatic would do. Not to brag or gloat, but just because. It would be something that tested me. When I told people what I wanted to do and how long to do it, they would say, \u2018You\u2019re nuts.\u2019 That\u2019s when I knew I had to do it. And come on, now when I\u2019m with a group of people and some start out with, \u2018I went surfing in Maui\u2019 or \u2018We went hiking in Yosemite,\u2019 it\u2019s always nice to pull out of my pocket, \u2018I spent 323 days living on a bike and rode the perimeter of the U.S. by bicycle.\u2019 That wins first prize most of the time,\u201d Lussier said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took a lot of work just planning the trip. Nonetheless, \u201cPlanning and preparing were my favorite parts.\u201d He said he gathered maps that included places for cyclists to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI downloaded them into my Garmin head unit on my handlebars, and just went. For 3,000 miles I was good to go, direction-wise that is. The Garmin head unit is a computer that tracked all my data and had GPS, so I just turned it on and it told me where to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had gotten the best equipment during two years of preparing for the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy life depended on it, and I was in no way skimping on my gear,\u201d Lussier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew it was going to be brutal on my body, but the mind was the part that would be taking the biggest brunt of it. I was going to be alone, rambling around the country for a year by myself. Preparing for loneliness is impossible, so I crossed those bridges when needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lussier said it would take hours to talk about what he saw on the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery day was like living in another world,\u201d Lussier said. \u201cThe views along the Pacific Coast Highway were amazing, beautiful, at times indescribable. Crossing the Golden Gate bridge brought such joy. The redwoods were just majestic, the desert was an experience like no other, the colors changing with the orbit of the sun and the coyotes howling all night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe hundreds and hundreds of miles of corn in the Midwest, draining the sanity out of me in 95-degree heat, the field of dreams in Iowa, the inviting east coast of Texas, with the smell of petroleum while living on the beach for eight days, the Rockies and the Cascades, mountain ranges that tried to beat me into submission \u2026 the sky in Montana, the most incredible night sky I have ever seen brought tears to my eyes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From poverty to opulence, to wild animals, mechanical issues and people who helped and the traffic, he saw the country as he traveled through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lussier doesn\u2019t have to describe it all; he collected his journal and 1,000 photos into a 720-page book titled Keep the Lonely Places Lonely<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He kept in touch with people back home as he traveled. He said his family\u2019s support kept him going, including that of his ex-wife and son and daughter, and now a granddaughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are amazed at what I accomplished, but I hope they take away from it that the only thing holding them back is themselves. They love the stories I tell now, and my daughter\u2019s eyes are glazing over with dreams of adventure,\u201d Lussier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has advice from his experience: \u201cExplore. Don\u2019t just find a new place \u2014 find you. Don\u2019t be afraid, have faith in you and your capabilities. Doing something like this changes you \u2026 in ways you\u2019d never expect. You\u2019ll never be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lussier\u2019s book got its title \u201cfrom an abandoned building I had passed in Lobo, Texas. I was on a long desert road in the middle of nowhere and came across this mess of a structure, all beat up and forgotten, where someone had painted \u2018Keep the Lonely Places Lonely\u2019 in block letters on the front. It seemed so fitting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After almost a year and thousands of miles, Lussier came back with a perspective on people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe live in such a divisive age now, we\u2019re all bogged down and numb by events socially and politically, that it\u2019s nice to escape it all and just pedal. Go somewhere, anywhere. Use the power of you to get there, and you\u2019ll find we live in a paradise that has so much to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe guy helping you with a flat or mechanical issue may not be on the same wavelength as you, but for just a few minutes, you can come together and see eye-to-eye and appreciate the person next to you \u2026 . Those are the things we need to pay forward. Unplug for a bit; all the crazy will be waiting for you when you get back, promise,\u201d Lussier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ken ClevelandLandmark Correspondent RUTLAND \u2014 Setting out on his bicycle from Rutland in May 2022, Michael Lussier took 323 days to make it back home. Riding the country, he saw things at a slower pace. \u201cIn my last couple of years at work, I tossed around the idea of how cool it would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}