A TransAm Story : Colorado Breakdown
How a broken bike and a thousand small kindnesses changed the way I saw this country.
Liz and I rode our bicycles across the United States from Florence, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia. We followed the TransAm Trail.
The rear derailleur snapped with a sharp crack that echoed off the mountains.
My heart hammered. I felt the bike lurch beneath me. Metal tangled with spokes, the wheel seizing up completely. The bike stayed upright, but the back wheel bucked and started to screech its way along the Colorado highway. I somehow managed to unclip and leap clear before the bike crashed onto its side.
“Holy shit!” Liz pulled up beside me, dust swirling around her tires. “Are you okay?”
I sat up slowly, checking for blood. Nothing broken, but the bike was a twisted mess. We were somewhere outside Fair Play, Colorado, population: 700, according to the last road sign, with the nearest bike shop probably a hundred miles away.
“So much for day forty-three,” I muttered, staring at what remained of our cross-country dream. It didn’t look good.
We were out in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday afternoon, with no help in sight.
We turned my bike upside down, the universal sign of distress, and stuck out our thumbs. Liz added a little leg for luck.
About fifteen minutes later, not one, but THREE trucks stopped to help us.
Eighteen months earlier, it had all started with Liz’s laugh. “I’m serious,” she’d said, sprawled across our floor in Seattle with maps spread around her like fallen leaves. “It’s called the TransAm Bike Trail. Coast to coast. Oregon to Virginia. Just you, me, and whatever we can carry.”
I traced the red line on the bike maps with my finger, Florence to Yorktown, three thousand two hundred miles of possibility and madness.
“Life’s short,” I told her. My stomach was already knotting with doubt, I’d never biked more than fifty miles in a day. “Let’s do it.”
The training was hard. I started by riding to the bus stop, then taking the bus from progressively farther points until I was cycling fifty miles daily, twenty-five in the morning darkness, twenty-five under the evening stars. My legs screamed. My lungs burned. My ass hurt. But gradually, impossibly, I grew stronger. I biked in all kinds of weather, except hot.
By July, after completing the Seattle-to-Portland rally, two hundred miles over two days, I finally believed we might actually pull this off.
“Why Yorktown?” friends kept asking.
“That’s the terminus of the trail created for the bike centennial in 1976, celebrating 200 years of America,” Liz would say. “Over 2,000 people rode across the country that year.”
The first week nearly broke us. Eight flat tires in two days taught me to flip a bike and patch tubes with the desperate efficiency of a battlefield medic. My hands became permanently stained with grease and road grime.
But slowly, we found our rhythm. The rolling hills of Oregon gave way to Montana’s endless sky, and pronghorn antelope running beside us. In Kansas, thunderstorms soaked us to the bone, and we battled headwinds so fierce they seemed personal. But a senior center took our picture and fed us for free when we arrived in town.
“You’re doing what most people only dream about,” a woman in Ordway, Colorado told us, refilling our water bottles. “Don’t you forget that.”
In Wyoming, a pickup truck slowed down beside us and we were invited to camp in their backyard and they fed us a big home-cooked dinner that night in the house. In Montana, a truck driver bought us ice cream when we climbed a brutal hill.
“The country’s not what you see on TV,” Liz said one evening as we watched the sun set over farmland that stretched to infinity. She was right. From the saddle of a bicycle, America revealed itself as something far more complex and beautiful than any headline could capture. A nation of individuals, each with their own story, most of them eager to share it with two crazy cyclists.
But it was the breakdown in Colorado that nearly ended the trip.
That’s when we heard the rumble of Humvees and pickup trucks.
They were a bunch of guys about to go elk hunting who looked like they’d stepped out of a Carhartt catalog, weathered faces, calloused hands, new pickups with all the gizmos.
“Y’all broke down?” the first one asked.
When we explained our situation, their concern deepened. Within minutes, they’d loaded our bikes into truck beds and were racing toward the nearest town like we were family in distress. I was in the red truck, Liz was in the Hummer and the last one had the bikes.
They coordinated on radios, dropped us and a load of fish at Sarah’s house 5 miles down the road. Soon we were bouncing into Guffey, CO where there is a bicyclist’s hostel.
Sarah knows the owners, so she had called ahead and told them they would have customers.
“Guffey’s a nice place but the bar / restaurant just closed about 3 days ago,” Sarah said when we reached Guffey. “But Bill will help. He’s... well, he’s Bill.”
They pulled up to a weathered garage with a hand-painted sign: “Guffey Garage - Bikes, Antiques, and Arguments.” The front yard was a graveyard of antiques, some rusted beyond recognition, others gleaming with fresh paint. Wind chimes made from old bike chains clinked in the breeze.
“Bill!” Sarah hollered. “Got some cyclists need help!”
The man who emerged from the garage had a gray beard that reached his chest and strong arms corded with muscles. He wore a mechanic’s apron over a tie-dyed shirt, the combination somehow making perfect sense.
His sharp blue eyes took us in, despite the beer bottle dangling from his left hand. “Let’s get you settled and fed.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“We have some cabins out the back and I can make you up some sandwiches. I can look at your bike in the morning.”
We settled into an adorable little cabin and we even got a very civilized shower. Perfection.
The next morning we explored the town of Guffey. The museum featured a certificate from the first TransAmerica Bike Tour in 1976. Also, a rocket from an IBEW reunion, topped with a skeleton. Eclectic is the order of the day.
Bill investigated the bike situation. He walked around my mangled bike, running his fingers along the twisted derailleur. “Did quite a number on this.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Won’t know until I look. But I’ve seen worse ride out of here.” He carried the bike toward his workshop with practiced ease.
Bill’s workshop was a converted barn that was part bike shop, part museum. Vintage signs covered one wall. Ancient bikes hung from the rafters like metallic fruit. A work stand occupied the center like an altar. The air smelled of WD-40 and decades of grease.
“Population of three in this town,” he said, selecting tools with practiced deliberation. “Well, was three.”
He began working on the derailleur, his hands steady now, as if the mechanical puzzle had focused him completely.
“Now I’m almost on my own, had to kick out the bartender for sleeping with my wife. Bikes are easier than people.”
For the next two hours, he worked with the focused intensity of a surgeon. Liz sat on a milk crate, asking questions about the vintage bikes, drawing him out. I watched his hands, scarred, steady, certain, coaxing metal back into alignment.
“See this piece?” Bill held up two fragments that had clearly been one part. “Custom derailleur hanger. Giant makes these specific to the frame. Can’t jury-rig it, can’t make one.” He set the pieces down gently, like they were precious. “I can clean it up, but you’ll need a dealer for the real repair. Canon City tomorrow, then probably Colorado Springs.”
“Thank you for doing what you can,” Liz said.
Bill looked up at her, then at me, his expression shifting to something deeper. “Ya know. You get a view of this country most people don’t.”
His words stick with me today.
Bill refused our money but accepted our thanks. He drove us to Canon City in his ancient pickup, the bikes rattling in the bed. The bike shop confirmed what Bill had said, we would need to go to a Giant dealership in Colorado Springs.
“You can rent a car right here,” Bill said, pointing to Buddy Ray’s Towing Service. “Get something big. You’ll make Colorado Springs by noon.”
We shook hands, his grip firm and warm.
“Thank you,” I said, knowing it wasn’t enough.
The drive to Colorado Springs felt strange, covering in an hour what would have taken us all day on bikes. We found a shop that could order the part; it would arrive the following day. We spent the afternoon at Garden of the Gods, where ancient red sandstone formations stood like sentinels, permanent and patient. These spectacular monuments reminded us that some things endure while we waited for our modern mechanical fix.
After a night in a forgettable hotel, we picked up the repaired bike.
The young, efficient mechanic barely looked up from his paperwork. “Where you headed?”
“Yorktown, Virginia,” Liz said. He looked up at her.
He nodded, and a smile flickered across his face. “Good luck.”
We returned the rental car in Pueblo and got back on our bikes. The new derailleur clicked through the gears perfectly, but I found myself thinking about Bill’s words. His intervention had been exactly what we needed, just like every act of kindness we’d encountered on this journey.
Somewhere along the way from coast to coast, something in me shifted.
I’d come for an adventure. But what I found was a country that was full of kindness and ambition.
This country was founded on the idea we can improve.
I realized I didn’t just admire that.
Somewhere out there, between strangers and storms and open sky, I stopped feeling like a visitor. I knew I wanted to be an American.
I wanted to be part of it.
It’s refreshing to hear stories of how people will help strangers in a tough spot.
Michael, I really loved this post so much. So much negativity on the news etc. but you got to see the true heart of Americans. What a blessing to experience human kindness. We really are truly one human family. Thank you for sharing this Michael. P.S. Your wife sounds AMAZING!!!