Christopher has discovered another book he felt worth reviewing for Seattle Socks.  It is an amazing idea to take on the bike ride that Vic and Ray set out for.  1909, I imagine socks were made of natural fiber, but probably not created as well as we have here on our web site.  For the camping portion of their trip, they would have found enormous comfort with the Extreme Socks.

Two Wheels North

By Evelyn McDaniel Gibb

Oregon State University Press - 2000

Touring by bike has become a popular way to see the west coast and has peaked my interest for a few years. I saw the book Two Wheels North sitting on a library book shelf and picked it up. My guess was that it was a memoir of a trip riding to Alaska or somewhere cold, sadly it wasn’t, it recorded a cycling from Santa Rosa, CA to Seattle, a route I have driven non-stop along I-5. But the interest factor for this trip is that it was in 1909.

Evelyn McDaniel Gibb tells the story of her father, Vic, and his friend Ray, fresh out of high school who decided to cycle from Santa Rosa to Seattle to see the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The boys loaded their bikes with gear for camping, cooking, hunting and fishing before heading out on roads that were rarely maintained for automobiles. They took stage coach routes most of the way and when necessary pushed their bikes along the rails. They were committed to cycling as much as they could as they were to be given a reward in Seattle upon their arrival for doing so. With no funds to get them all the way to their destination they worked odd jobs on farms and mills paying to buy food, mend bikes and pay for ferry crossings.

They sustained injuries, sickness, hunger, theft, law enforcement, being trapped in tunnels with a train and their fair share of animal encounters. Along the way they were forced to walk their bikes over 200 miles. I have been tempted to cycle US-101 to California, but the luxuries I plan to use along the way would have been unimaginable in 1909, a day and age when Tacoma’s Stadium High School was said to be the finest school west of Chicago.

Gibb’s recount of her father’s story is well told and stems mostly from her interviews with him and retells the story he and Ray wrote via letters to their local paper in Santa Rosa. In fear of alarming their families, their letters did not include their dangerous encounters along the way. It’s an inspiring tale that is very humbling for anyone who has driven the same route or has ever embarked on a long bicycle journey on a well tuned bicycle with lightweight gear on a paved shoulder.