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From the free sample issue of KANSAS, published July 2004:

Some folks have expressed surprise at my plan for a long bicycle trip. The idea strikes some as insane. "By bicycle?" they say slowly, saying bicycle like they would say camel. "Not a motorcycle?" They pause. "Do you know where youčre going?" I have an answer ready. "I'm going down the Atlantic coast to Florida and turning right, (which gets a nervous laugh)" I say, "with a loose destination of New Mexico." Folks are dubious.

Some of the doubts are justified; some aren't. I am fat and 50, it's true, but that teeter-totter is balanced by my having gone on long bicycle trips before. I cycled from England to Greece (with Beverly Wentworth). I once shipped a new, unridden bike to Ireland, put it together in the Shannon airport, climbed on and sailed off. I was so out of shape. Day One I did 10 miles. The next morning my butt was on fire and Day Two I could manage only eight miles. But Day Three I made 12 miles and the day after that 20 miles and the day after thatŠ

It's like taking an immersion language course or going to boot camp. You're surrounded, by irregular verbs or hill after goddamn hill and slowly but surely you get the hang of it.

Folks also feel that cycling in the US is just plain asking for it, right between the eyes. I usually say I'm not going to be riding on urban gang turf, but in the countryside. "Why don't you ride in Canada?" they persist. Well, I just don't want to bike to Sault Saint Marie (home town of Spike Taylor) on the Trans Canada no less, and then be thinking, oh, goodie: Wawa is next.

The US is years ahead of Canada in terms of bike routes and trails. There are more Krispey Kreme outlets there. I am not going to Europe because a) been there, done that and b) I don't feel like appreciating famous cathedrals just now. I am going to the US because I want to. In the weeks since I decided to go no nagging whisper has suggested I am wrong. I am more than content with my path. Some have expressed sadness at my going, and that's appreciated, but I feel as if I have lost a number of my arms, or tentacles, in Halifax, lost them through accident or assault or self-mutilation. Rest and peace come too rarely for me. I feel reduced to a core, and that core wants to go, full knowing there will be difficult days. That's fine: days are difficult everywhere. I am hopeful of rest, renewal, and passion on the road. Not romantic passion necessarily, but any kind: the agony of a hard wet day, or the swoon of seeing something extraordinarily beautiful, or the glee of something new. Something that makes it obvious I'm alive, because sometimes it isn't as clear as it should be.

I came to Nova Scotia, to Hubbards, in May of 1986, with a bicycle, typewriter and crate of books. I intended to stay for the summer. The common roach motel syndrome set in; I could check in but not out. I moved to Halifax in 1993; it astonishes me that I've been here so long; the friends I have make it feel astonishing that I can leave. Yet if I am to stay longer (and do it cheerfully) I need a substantial break and I need to get far enough away to want to come back, because that doesn't easily happen at close quarters. And I need to see new places, so I can understand better the place left behind. I expect to come back but I'm in the luckiest of positions: I have no real time limit (although my apartment is sub-let for a year, starting August 1) and if I ride into something that gets a hold of me, I'll be able and willing to yield to it. I expect and welcome detour. I hope to stop knowing what time it is.

This issue of KANSAS (named not for the band or the movie but to simplify the cashing of subscribers' cheques) was made on a computer, using the program Quark 5 (which was installed by a cheerful Kyle Shaw). Plans for on-the-road production do not currently include the use of a laptop. It's possible a template will be used. It's possible that along the way someone will offer the use of a computer. But the best thing to imagine is that future issues will be produced freehand, that is, hand-written with some jiggly lines, uneven spacing, little doodles and sad attempts at cartoons of me in the rain. It has been fun designing this issue; the intention is that they all look as good, if not as justified and aligned, as this one. Many thanks in advance to those who subscribe. It takes a village to keep me poor and on the road.