Writers and alt-weeklies, it goes without saying, have a bit of a co-dependency arrangement. One cannot exist without the other. (May it always be so.) And best believe that in 30 years of telling Halifax’s stories, The Coast has had its share of writers. That includes writers who have gone on to produce books, films, plays, nationally-syndicated cartoons and albums. You name it; a Coast writer has done it. That doesn’t mean it gets old—to the contrary, it’s a special moment when one of The Coast’s own gets recognition for their work. And in the case of Martin Bauman’s newly-released memoir, Hell of a Ride (out now through Pottersfield Press), we’re over the moon.
A spiritual successor to the bicycle-bound escapades of Kate Harris's Lands of Lost Borders, Bauman’s Hell of a Ride tells the story of a 7,000-kilometre solo bicycle trek across Canada. It was a ride that came in the wake of his father’s sudden depression, his cousin’s suicide and the stirring-up of his own buried childhood memories. Completed in 2016, Martin raised more than $10,000 for mental health initiatives from the ride. He had billed it as a mission to encourage people—men, especially—to talk about depression. It was ironic, he concedes in the book, that he was so reluctant to talk about his own.
Read the book’s opener below.
***
My clothes were soaked. Lips chapped. Throat raw. An afternoon’s worth of snot and phlegm had congealed in my beard and moustache, and my eyes, bloodshot, stung with sweat. A gob of spit harpooned to my jacket—a souvenir from a half hour before, when I had tried and rather spectacularly failed to clear my throat. I was cold. Fingers numb. Ears reddened.
Rain pounded the interminable stretch of Trans-Canada Highway that runs through the country’s heartland, a ribbon of asphalt surrounded by fields in all directions. Prairie winds howled across the plains and pummelled the stalks of wheat. Thunderclouds loomed above, their flashes punctuated by low rumbles, and then gunshots as they lit up the late June sky. I was somewhere between Medicine Hat, Alberta, and Maple Creek, Saskatchewan—which is to say, nowhere. Fucked. The world’s dumbest sonofabitch. East of Walsh—pop. 58, hardly a beacon of civilization itself—a person could die on that road without a soul to save them for fifty kilometres in any direction. A fine place for dumping a body; the buzzards would pick you apart before morning. In my case, all that remained would be a bicycle and a handful of bags bungee-corded to the frame. A fitting tribute to an ill-fated adventure.
It was the bicycle that would be my undoing. I could hear its squeals with every push, its strained and weather-beaten gears relaying the futility of my fantasies. Stupidstupidstupid, it seemed to say through the clicks and whines. I had been told I was foolish for cycling alone across the world’s second-largest country, one that spans the width of a continent. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Friends, neighbours, old classmates, the remarks were always the same: It’s too far, too dangerous, too lonely. Here I was, living proof: A broken man, dirty and dishevelled, alone on the side of the road.
My legs bellowed in protest. They had churned without respite for the past six hours. My quads and hamstrings had flooded with what felt like lethal amounts of lactic acid, if such a thing could kill. I knew the broad strokes of what was happening to my body. I had once read the phenomenon described as a “natural defense mechanism,” a way to stave off permanent damage when the muscles are pushed too far. I disagreed. It felt more like my body was tired of having its ass kicked and had staged a mutiny.
It was supposed to be a shorter day’s ride, a mere five-hour trip across the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. Even less, if the wind was behind me. I had already logged far longer days in my journey across the country, a half-baked plan of pedalling more than 7,000 kilometres in three months. Instead, it appeared my arrival in Maple Creek wouldn’t come for another two hours, edging toward nightfall—a risky proposition on a bicycle when the sightlines were already piss-poor. If my taillight failed, I could end up as a hood ornament on a big rig making the evening run from Salmon Arm to Swift Current.
I thought back to the morning: A hurried hotel breakfast, another ride into the sun’s glare, eastbound for another day. Medicine Hat’s suburban sprawl of box stores and budget hotels had surrendered to a landscape as flat and true as a carpenter’s level. Flat as three-day roadkill, as a worn and punctured tire. After twelve days of hellish climbs through the Canadian Rockies and coastal mountains of British Columbia, I figured I was ready for the endless horizon, the open expanse. It seemed wild and beautiful and vast. Now, in the middle of nowhere, vision blurred by grit and sweat and rain, that same vastness threatened to swallow me whole.
I had billed the ride as a means to raise funds for mental health services in Canada. It was a nod to my late cousin, a love letter to my father, a whispered promise to myself. When the ride began, I had said the right platitudes about getting help when in crisis. Empty words coming from me; I was no better than most at asking for help. Friends and family had offered company when I first pitched the plan of riding across the country—a measure of safety and security on the road. I rebuffed the offers as they came, swatted them away like hungry flies. This was to be a solo adventure, a measure of might and mettle. Now, as I looked at my surroundings, nothing taller than a fencepost for miles, I feared metal might be the death of me: I was a two-wheeled superconductor, plodding along at twelve kilometres an hour. A lightning-rod with spokes. Target practice for thunderstorms.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled. It had become a favourite word for times like these on the road. The syllables disappeared in the wind. Thunder boomed. The rain came louder. Another thought came, as stark and clear as the last: I’m so alone.
It was a thought I’d had before. A feeling I knew all too well.
***
There are at least a hundred ways I could answer the question of why: Why ride across the country? Why do it alone? A friend once joked it was easier than talking about my own depression. There’s truth in that, though it falls short of the whole. The greater picture is more nebulous, complicated. Much like depression itself.
I did it because it seemed like an adventure worth having. (A romanticized thought, in hindsight. Evidently, the thought of prairie storms hadn’t entered my early reveries.) I did it to raise funds to support community mental health resources. I had seen the way they had helped my family and wanted to give back. I did it to connect with a father I loved, but didn’t always know to speak to. I had watched him live with depression but scarcely heard a word spoken about it. I wanted to know what he felt, what he’d learned, what he could share. I wanted to know how close the bonds that tied us were.
I did it because I was twenty-three and restless, in need of a direction. And if you have been twenty-three and restless, you will know that just about any direction will do. My friend was wrong on one count: I needed to talk about depression. I had seen what suicide did to a family, felt the void left in its wake. There is a risk to rootlessness, to running without a compass. When you are looking for escape, it all depends on how you find it.
Martin Bauman’s Hell of a Ride is available in bookstores across Canada. Find a local bookseller here.
