Newport to Knoxville

Oct 3, 2008 I am not Lance Armstrong. I am not in a hurry. I ride a moderately heavy hybrid bicycle with old fashioned turned up handlebars and a nice, large, thick-padded seat. Multiple gears are acceptable, twenty-four of them to be exact, but they are for steep grades, not speed. If time were a factor, I’d get on I-40 in a fast car. But on a pretty Tennessee fall day, I elected to make the trip from Newport to Knoxville along the old highway at bicycle speed.

Last Friday I completed the second leg of a journey that will ultimately take me to Memphis and the Mississippi River. It is a long-time dream, a hurdle over the mid-life crisis. In May I turned fifty-five—officially a senior citizen. This project has the potential of delaying my departure into old age for at least a few more months. I am riding my Diamondback Crestview the length of Tennessee via U.S. 70. As a fulltime pastor in LaFollette, I’ll have to complete this adventure in stages as I have opportunity. But I am on my way, having pedaled from the North Carolina state line through Newport and Dandridge and into Knoxville in the past two weeks.
Tennessee holds many delights for the tourist or native traveling through the state. But there is so much more to experience in the open air at bicycle speed than by auto at interstate speed. For instance. . .

Somewhere outside Dandridge, the second-oldest city in Tennessee, I topped a rise and found myself face to face with a huge brown bull. Not liking the way he was eyeing me, I skirted around him on the opposite side of the road. He was entering the traffic lane as I pedaled past him; he may be quarter-pounders by now. (Ever encounter a real live bull on I-40?)

In need of fuel (I average 150 mpgg, miles per gallon of Gatorade), I stopped at a convenience store near Kodak. The sixty-something lady behind the counter started to tell me the price, immediately stopped herself, and asked the “Are you alright?” greeting I rarely hear anymore but came to love in my childhood days in Knoxville.

Pedaling across the Holston River on Asheville Highway took me back to my early teen years. My pal Eddy Shoemaker and I often rode our bikes to that bridge. An unfortunate man had once jumped to his death there. Eddy and I were convinced, however, that a successful jump could be made without bodily harm. We planned to try it (with proper equipment and precautions, of course), but that summer Eddy’s family moved to Atlanta. We had to put our plan in the inactive file (where it remains to this day).

I passed by my elementary alma mater, Chilhowee School, which looked as imposing and stern as ever, then made it as far as Chilhowee Park before a flat tire stopped me. By then, aching muscles from forty-three miles of steep grades demanded I call it a day. My wife, always somewhere in the general vicinity, appeared in no time to pick up me and my bike.

Thank God for interstate highways that get us places we need to go quickly. But thank Him also for the old byways that allow us to experience a slice of Tennessee, especially at bicycle speed. Lance Armstrong should try it.