Bike to the Beach
An Essay By Thomas Schmitz

Just after my 16th birthday, in the summer of 2000, my brother Joey and his friend Ben Dalley invited me to partake in a challenge. On a late July evening, probably after a few too many drinks, they asked me, “Hey Tommy, how do you feel about doing bike to the beach with us this year?” They had ridden their bikes to the beach the year before and from what I had heard, it was a complete disaster. I didn’t exactly know what “bike to the beach” was at that point in time, but I accepted their invitation, and subsequently have never been the same person.

The annual journey from Bethesda, MD to Bethany Beach, DE is a trek. 142.7 miles...753,456 feet...a three hour and 39 minute road trip down Delaware’s monotonous route 404, which most beach-goers dread. Ever since August 2000, however, for my Joey, Ben and me, it is a much-anticipated annual challenge. Perhaps this is because instead of going by automobile, we go by bicycle! It doesn’t matter that instead of taking three and a half hours, it takes us anywhere from ten to thirteen hours. The emphasis isn’t on getting there; it’s on going there.

We take back roads to the Bay Bridge, hitchhike over the bridge, and ride on the shoulder of the highway all the way onto Bethany Beach. However, this twenty-six-word sentence can hardly do justice to what has infamously come to be known as “bike to the beach.” The journey starts on a designated August evening, in order to avoid the afternoon heat. During the hours preceding dawn, the normally sticky August air is cool and moist. These optimal conditions suppress fatigue and allow us to bike at almost twenty miles per hour. However, once the sun rises, the ride shifts gears.

The ensuing hours are a marathon of sensory torture. The constant hiss of wheel bearings and spokes; the “scenery” of uninterrupted two-lane highway stretching straight towards the bleak sunrise, lined with waves of... corn and the occasional telephone pole; the overwhelming odor of evaporating highway tar and the sporadic wafts of cow manure wafts from the fields condensing in our lungs; the organic goodness of Powerbars – for breakfast, lunch, and every snack between; the subsequent twelve hours of the following gastro-intestinal cycle - hunger, cottonmouth, bladder pressure, hunger…; and finally the feeling (Oh, the feeling!): thirty miles into the trek, my legs begin to burn; forty miles in, they’re transcendently numb. Upon arrival, while walking is a struggle, running and sitting are completely out of the question for several days. Each year, I tell myself that I will never put my body through such torture again. However, in the back of my mind, I know that in 364 days, I will get back on a bike, do it all over again…and love it!

I never tell anyone of how I cried to myself while biking through Annapolis about 200 yards behind my brother and his friend, or how I almost turned around at that point because I didn’t think I could make it the remaining 80% of the trek. I am the only person who knows about that, and – as a matter of pride – I generally try to forget it. However, every time I face a challenge, an obstacle, or a difficult situation, I remind myself of the tears rolling down onto my handlebars at 4:30 am, and how when I thought I couldn’t go any further, I biked for another eight hours; another 100 miles.

In life, I may not be able to control the proverbial flat tires, weather, potholes, or the occasional field of cow manure throughout my remaining college career, but because of bike to the beach, I know that I can chart a direction for myself; set a destination; and – most importantly – when I don’t think I can go on any longer, when I don’t think its worth the extra investment of time or effort, I will think back to that bleak dawn in Annapolis, and realize that the journey in itself is a goal worth the struggle, and that the experience and knowledge gained from both the journey and the destination, can change a life, and help chart a new direction for future journeys.