nancy sv

Has there been a thread here about Road Angels - those people who go way above and beyond to help us out when we are touring? I've got a ton of stories about Road Angels, but this one is my favorite:


We were pedaling south in Baja through an especially remote and mountainous region and, as my legs pumped, I pondered our relatively short supply of water. It was approximately 70 miles to the nearest town; 70 miles of difficult terrain and high heat. 70 miles of needing an awful lot of water and, I feared, our meager water supplies were no match for the job.

Balo and Ole flagged us over and plied us with bottles of Gatorade, which we very happily accepted.

“We first saw you back in Ensenada,” Ole told us. “We could tell from your bikes that you were going a long way. So this morning, before we left town, we bought a case of Gatorade for you.”

Our mouths gaped open in astonishment.

“I know the Gatorade is too heavy to carry, so this is what we're going to do: every 15 or 20 kilometers we will build a rock cairn like this.” He built up a pile of rocks on the side of the road. “Then we'll go back in from there and hide four bottles of Gatorade under a bush or behind a rock.”

By now our jaws were hanging down around our belly buttons.

“OK?” he asked. “Every 15 or 20 kilometers you'll find a rock cairn. Near there will be four Gatorades.”

We nodded our heads, unable to speak.

Balo walked over to a cooler and brought out a Ziploc baggie with a big foil-wrapped something and a bunch of napkins inside. “The Gatorade we can hide on the road for you. But these tamales we can't. You will have to eat these soon.”

I picked my jaw up off the ground and gratefully accepted the bag of tamales.

A mile or so later we found a small patch of shade, sat down to eat our tamales, and I knew I had arrived. Nirvana... utopia... heaven... whatever you want to call it... I was there. That had to rate right up there as the all-time best lunch consumed on the side of the road!

Lambkin55

I was riding with my wonderful wife, in mountains of Idaho, some years ago. Due to poor planing on my part we had run out of water and no hope of finding any till we got over the pass. We were bonking badly. I was considering turning around and coasting down to the bottom of the valley were we would find water but lose a day of travel.

That's when our road angle came upon us in a older pick-up truck. He stopped and told us the road gets steeper as you go and you guys are still 7 miles from the top. Why don't you throw those bikes in the back and let me give you a ride to the top. Not only did he give us a ride but he had a ice chest with cold cokes and he was happy to share.

It turned out that this guy was the State's Attorney for this county in Idaho. He insisted on taking us all the way to the town in the next valley were talked with his "friend" that owned the resort hotel there and got us a room at half price! (That was better then camp ground we were planing on.)

That was years ago but I often think fondly of that guy even now.

nancy sv

Great story!! Don'cha love it when things like that happen?

Machka 

Great stories!

I've experienced a lot of road angels, although probably not that dramatically.

Let's see ...

-- there was the group of fishermen who fed us copious amounts of meat from their BBQ when they discovered all we had were beans.

-- and the family the next night who did the same thing when they discovered we had arrived minutes after the campground store (the only store in about 30 kms) and all we had was a can of beans.

-- and the (rather odd) guy who gave us shelter in which to eat our lunch during a downpour in Tasmania.

-- and the guy in my "weird nights" story who gave us a place for the night.

-- and the people working the desk for Virgin Blue who stopped the line of people and let us in first because we had bicycles.

-- and the guy in a little bicycle shop in England who adjusted my bicycle for me for free when he heard I was going to the PBP.

-- and the overworked bus driver in Queensland who gave me a story about charging me $50 for my bicycle, and then let my bicycle on for free.

-- and the national park worker who gave us a ride to the nearest campground (about 30 kms away) when night fell in the Rocky Mountains, and we'd misjudged the existance of a campground in a certain location.

-- and the national park worker who let us camp for the day use rate ... because we were on bicycles.

-- and the couple on the top of whatever mountain that was in Australia (overlooking Wollongong, I believe) who shared their coffee with us ... because we must be tired from climbing all that way.

-- and the French couple who pulled over, out of heavy traffic, to use their GPS to help us locate the campground.

Those are just some examples.

nancy sv

Great list Machka!! Just reading through there reminds me of all the wonderful people we met on our trip. It's fun to think back about all those people...

Take, for example, the couple in New Jersey who rescued us from the pouring rain. We took off like a herd of stampeding buffalo to reach the ferry after discovering the last ferry of the day left in 30 minutes from a pier five miles away. While stopped at a stop light, a black car pulled up alongside me, its window rolled down, and a face emerged. “Where are you headed?” the woman asked.

“We’re trying to make the ferry! And it leaves in 30 minutes!” I replied as I took off through the red light.

Pedaling like mad through the torrential downpour, I crested the top of the second hill and readied myself for the final push to the ferry. The same black car pulled up beside me. “You aren’t going to make it,” she announced. “The ferry leaves in two minutes. There is no way.”

My face fell and my shoulders sagged. I looked around at my dismal surroundings. Rain fell from the sky… puddles filled the road… we were soaked to the core, along with all our gear. This was about as bad as it gets. “Do you know where a hotel is?” I asked.

“The nearest hotel is about ten miles away. And it costs around $250 per night.”

Life just doesn’t get any lower than that. We were stuck out in the pouring rain with our precious children in the middle of a massive urban sprawl. No place to pitch our tent… no hotels… nothing but rain and more rain. What kind of parent was I to subject my darling boys to conditions like this?

“Would you like to stay with us tonight?” she asked. “We live just a couple miles from here.”

Once again, America’s Road Angels had reached out and added magic to our journey.

spinnaker

A number of people in Italy that took us there instead of telling us how to get there.

And our best one yet an official police escort out of town. (I like to tell people that we were forced to leave )

nancy sv

And there was the date farmer who came up and asked us, "Do you like dates?" and ended up giving us about 30 pounds of them and dragging us to his house for the night!!

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p..._id=44433&v=av

Machka 

Oh yeah ... the guy in the tiny market out in the middle of nowhere in Queensland, on a blistering hot day, who gave me ice cream ... two bars!!

And the Backroads Bicycle Tour people, heading the other direction, who had too much food for their group, and told us to take what we wanted.

SanDiegoCyclist

We were sitting on the steps of a convenience store in our spandex near Wanganui, New Zealand eating ice cream cones. We had been touring for a couple of weeks, but it seemed like everyday we were getting a downpour. A family of five (Mom, Dad, and three kids) drove up. They all went inside the store. On the way in the Dad asked us the typical questions: Where are you bicycling to? How far have you come?, etc. Of course, as soon as we opend our mouths they knew we were Americans. The Dad continued into the store. After a few minutes, the family came back out of the store. The Dad stopped to talk to us again and out of nowhere he says: Would you like to stay at our house tonight? We only live a few miles from here. Well...hopsitality like that doesn't come around everyday, so we said yes. When we arrive around dinner time, they already had the steaks on the barbeque, because they figured that's what American's would want. The story actually goes on and on, but here is the best part. We had planned to leave the next morning, but before we got out of bed (in a newly finished bedroom in their attic), the Dad comes upstairs with coffee and scones and says: Would you like to stay another day. We would like to show you the family farm (which his brother managed) and also have a family get together so you can meet the aunts and uncles....Yup, angels all the way.

nancy sv

One morning we woke up to find our tent floating in a massive puddle of water one morning. A new pond had sprung up at some point in the night, and decided its home would be the exact spot of ground where our tent sat. The four of us climbed out into the muck and sat around staring at the puddle, and wondered just what we were doing out there in the middle of the pond in the first place. After all, we had chosen this. We could have been sitting at home safely protected from deluges and unexpected ponds.

I suppose we could have turned it all around and exclaimed, “The tent’s floating! Yee Haw!” After all, the only other option was even worse. If the tent didn’t float, it would have meant all the water passed inside. And that would have been even more depressing than a floating tent. So we didn’t complain too much. After all, we were all warm and dry. But that still didn’t change the fact that it was one of those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days. It was raining. A lot. And our tent was sitting in a massive puddle of water. The boys and I packed up and walked into town to hang out at the library and update our online journal.

A few hours later a man walked up to me. “Hi Nancy! I’m taking you home!”

I looked at him like he was off his rocker.

“I just talked with John. He sent me here to get you and the boys.”

I looked at him as though he had just declared himself to be a flying purple cow. "What did you say?" I asked.

“I just read on your journal that you guys were stuck up in the campground, and I thought, ‘I know where they are!’ So I drove up there and waded through the muck until I managed to find John cozied up in your tent in the middle of a puddle. For some bizarre reason, he wants to stay with the tent, but he sent me here to find you and the boys. So – will you come stay with my wife and me tonight?”

RickL

Two, on the same trip from Victoria, BC to Crescent City, CA on a tandem, two years ago.

The first was the state campsite host in Washington, also a tandem rider since he had a tandem roof rack on his tow vehicle, who drove us 30 miles from the campsite to Olympia and back to get repairs for a problem that would have crippled us. I offered to pay for his gas and he refused.

The second was a couple in a giant sized motor home in a commercial campsite in Oregon that brought us icecream shortly after we arrived and a hot breakfast (eggs, sausage, toast and coffee) the next morning.

nancy sv

That reminds me.... years and years ago I rode from New Jersy to New Orleans one summer. Since I was a female traveling alone, I frequently stopped and asked if I could pitch my tent in people's yards - I felt safer being near a house than out in the boonies by myself. Anyway, one night I stopped at a house and the man kind of begrudgingly allowed me to camp there. I kind of felt uneasy all evening - like he was watching me or something. In the morning I packed up to get out of there as quickly as possible. He was out working in his garden when I pulled out of hte driveway and waved goodbye.

About five miles down the road, a car pulled up ahead of me and stopped. When I went out to go around it, an arm suddenly thrust out the open window with one of those styrofoam containers in its hand.

"Here," the man from the house said, "You've got a long way to go till you get to the next town."

The car pulled away and I found myself standing there on the side of the road holding a pancake breakfast from Jack in the Box.


Another evening I stopped at a house to ask if I could camp there and they guy said, "No - I just don't feel comfortable about it." So I kept going.

About a mile or so later, the guy pulls up next to me in his car.

"I started thinking about it... If you were my daughter I would want people to take care of her. So - would you please turn around and come back?"

They ended up putting me up in their spare room that night.

raybo

I spent last Christmas in New Jersey with the in-laws. One day, everyone went to NYC but I decided to take a ride on the path that runs along the Delaware River, 10 miles out and back. I borrowed my brother-in-law's hybrid. Just as I turned around at the endpoint, the misthreaded pedal broke off. I had no tools and couldn't get the pedal back on by hand. My only choice was to pedal with one foot and when the pedal-less part of the crank came up to push down on the crank arm with my foot.

It took me so long to pedal this way that it was getting dark and I still had 2 miles to go. I stopped at the "town" there and went into the nicest restaurant I could find and asked them to call me a cab. They told me that there are no cabs in that part of New Jersey because there is no real demand for them. I didn't know what to do. Then, the owner of the place walked up and said that he'd heard about my predicament and that he would drive me the remaining miles in his truck. It is hard to describe the gratitude those 2 miles in a beat-up pickup earned!

Ray

nancy sv

The best two miles ever, eh Ray??

staehpj1

Yep those stories bring back happy memories. We were so impressed with the kindness with which we were treated on our TransAmerica this Summer. We had not toured before, but had heard of road angels, but even having heard that they existed we were always surprised just how nice folks could be.

Of course the folks who put us up for the night and fed us wonderful meals are obvious examples, but the little things were a big deal too. The ice cold bottle of water offered when 40 miles from the next place we would see ice, the half watermelon offered on a hundred degree day while we were resting in the shade, the truck driver who went out of his way to tell us where the good swimming holes were over the next 60 miles, again on a hundred degree day; these are the real highlights of a long tour.

Creamcrackered

Good topic - it's one of the best things about cycle touring. Takes your breath away and restores your faith in humanity.

In the middle of the desert in Argentina a howling headwind picks up and we can't even stay on the bikes let alone pedal. It's a bit worrying because don't have much water and the next town is 100km away. So we decide to try hitching. We settle down for a very long wait - there's not much traffic and after all who is going to pick up two fully loaded cyclists? In less than ten minutes, a guy called Carlos pulls over in his mini bus and we're on our way.

After a long day's pedalling, we arrive in Nis, Serbia on 1st of May forgeting it's the biggest holiday of the year. After wandering around for ages we discover everywhere is closed including the few hotels we can find. A chap called Peda spots us and asks us what's up. We explain and he gets on his cell phone. He calls all the hotels he knows until he finds one that's open. Then he leads us the 3 miles to it on his moped.

spinnaker

On my last trip to Italy, we were headed down a very easy bike path from Somma Lombardo to Pavia. It was our first day. At about 20 miles my friend started to bonk. We were down to 8 MPH To say the least I was pissed and very concerned that the trip was going to be ruined. After all if my friend could not hack a bike path how could he take the hills of Tuscany.


My friend stopped and suggested I strike out on my own and meet oir Couchsurfing host in Pavia. I reluctantly agreed and took off at a brisk 20 MPH.

Along the way I had to stop to change batteries in my GPS and I meet Palo and Slyvia who stopped to ask where they were, well I had my GPS so I was able to show them their exact location. They thanked me and went on their way. I ended up catching them and stuck up a conversation I told them of my friends problem and Palo offered his phone so we could call our host. There was a problem with the phone so Palo said that he would help me find Marco's home. He did not know Pavia but knew how Italian streets worked and of course spoke Italian, after asking a few directions he found Maro's place in short order.

I bid farewell to Palo and Sylvia afterward Marco informed me he heard from my friend and he was at the train station. I wondered how could that be? Marco jumped on his bike and we headed for the train station.

It turns out my friend walked into a bar along the path and asked about a cab. He was told that there was no cab but a man agreed to drive him and his bike to Pavia (not an easy feat with some of those small Italian cars).

We rode to Marco's place and there he made us some great pasta with his mother's sauce. Concerened that my friend would not be able to continue the trip, we made a plan to buy phones so that we could travel separately and still stay in touch. We asked Marco about phones and insisted that he take us to a store across town.

The next day Marco had a giant breakfast set out for us. We ate, cleaned up after ourselves and went to Marco's fruit stand to thank him and say goodbye.

We rode around Pavia for a bit and it turns out my friend's problem was with his bike and not him. His brake pad was rubbing the whole way down from Somma Lombardo! His brain was probably still fuzzy from the long flight and didn't recognize the problem with his bike. I fixed his brakes and later wish I didn't. It's hard to stick with him.

nancy sv

That is the best description of Road Angels ever!!

Ken in NJ

Twenty-five years ago this spring I was on a solo tour of eastern North Carolina. On the last day of the tour I had only forty miles to cover from the campground to my home (at that time) in Raleigh. About ten miles into the ride, I had a blowout. I quickly replaced the tube with my only spare tube, without checking the tire sufficiently, and while pumping up the tube--it blew out. Only then did I notice that the sidewall of the tire had ripped open.

I was in a very small town when this happened. As I was sitting there, pondering what to do next, an elderly resident (he seemed ancient at the time, but he was probably in his sixties) came over, introduced himself as Mr. Collier, and asked if he could help in any way. I asked him where the nearest bike shop was. He knew where it was, but said that is wasn't within walking distance, so he offered to drive me in his pickup truck.

The shop had lawn mowers as well as bicycles, and they did not have the proper width tire and did not have Presta-valve tubes. I declined the offer to drill the hole in my wheel larger so that it would accept a Schrader valve.

Mr. Collier then offered to drive me to Fayetteville, where there was a larger bike shop, but needed to check in at home first. His brother and sister-in-law had come to visit. When his brother was introduced (another Mr. Collier, of course), he said something about the two of them being like the monkeys on the magazine cover. I was too young to get the joke, which had something to do with Collier magazine of years before.

So, the two Mr. Colliers and I went down to Fayetteville, more than a half-hour drive from the house, and gave me a guided tour of the city, including the slave market that had been restored (in appearance, not function) in the middle of an intersection. I got the tube and tire that I needed, and was taken back to the house to repair my bike. They invited me to stay for dinner with them, but I really wanted to get home that evening, so I declined. They asked me about my route back to Raleigh, and then recommended a particular highway that would get me there more directly. I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain why I preferred the slow route. I thanked them for all their help, repaired my bike, and went on my way.

About another five miles down the road, I saw that the tube in my front tire was bulging out!!! I just couldn't go back and ask for another ride to Fayetteville, so I lowered the pressure in the tube and slowly moved on to the next town with a bike shop, where I bought a tire made to accept about 70 psi and put it on my bike, and then managed to get home to Raleigh at about 6 pm.

On this trip I learned the danger of using one-and-a-quarter inch tires on a one-inch wheel. I used one-and-an-eighth inch tubes thereafter, and never had another problem like this.

nancy sv

Oh man - I hate tire troubles!! So glad Mr. Collier stopped to help you out - a true Road Angel indeed!!

CyKKlist

I have another North Carolina road angel story, from last spring. It's possible even on a "mini-tour" to experience these small human miracles.

Our spring break adventure on the Outer Banks was afflicted by a very unseasonable winter storm in early April. My son hadn't ridden more than 30 miles in one day, but he gamely faced the cold Atlantic wind for 2 days, doing personal bests each day, fully loaded.

I foolishly left the most mileage to be done in one big lump, a big day from Manteo to Swansquarter, where our car waited for us at the ferry landing. It was extremely cold and we had brutal headwinds on the bridge westbound over Pamlico Sound to the mainland.

After only 20 miles, the poor boy was getting pain in his knees and couldn't ride any more, even after an hour's rest at the side of the road. He was trying to keep going for my sake, but there's no way I was going to ruin his knees over this ride.

So we two city boys looked for a ride to our destination, which was 40 miles away. And I felt foolish again, for having chosen a too-quiet country highway (US 264) for this stretch. No chance of services for many miles.

The first pickup truck I hailed down was driven by Chris, a 20-something fisherman who grew up in the area. He asked how far we were going, checked his watch, allowed that he probably had enough time to get us there, and off we went. He didn't say much, but his actions spoke volumes, not only for getting us out of a real bind, but more because he showed my son that it's still possible to trust in the kindness of strangers. It was well worth the cost of 1/2 a tank of pickup truck gas to demonstrate that.

His mom freaked out when she found out how I resolved our situation. I should email her the link to this thread to show her that I'm not crazy at all -- I just know road angels when I see them.

Thanks to Nancy to starting this thread, which is a great reminder that the glass is indeed half-full, that the great majority of people in the world will do the right thing if given the opportunity.

nancy sv

I agree so much about how we just somehow "know" road angels. When we were on our trip, we hitched a lot, and I kind of felt guilty about setting that example for my boys - they thought hitching was perfectly safe. In fact, whenever we needed to hitch, I was the one to do it because it was so much easier for me, as a female, to get a ride than for John. And if I had the boys with me - it was a total cinch.

It all hit home on Halloween though. I took off with the kids to walk three miles into town to go trick or treating while John stayed in the tent out int he woods. The kids got tired after a little while, so I decided to hitch into town. Daryl looked at me and said, "Why do they have taxi's? I mean - it's so much cheaper to just hitch a ride. Who would ever pay for a taxi?"

I tried to explain that not all people are like the ones we had met, but in his experience, 100% of the people we had met were wonderful!

DukeArcher 

Earlier this year I was staying in a (shudder) campground in Avignon when a fellow bike traveller came over as I was pitching camp. He was obviously insane, but seemed harmless enough. At one point in the night he babbled that he liked my front pannniers (?) I chalked this up to his obvious insanity, and went to sleep. I woke up at about 3am to run to the toilet and noticed that the man was gone, along with my two front panniers which he had taken from the zipped vestibule in my tent!

The next day I was cycling north through a tiny Provencal village when one of the houses occupants opened his window shutter and invited me in for a beer! With my butchered french and his equally butchered english we had a good lunchtime converstion. As I was leaving, he pointed to my front rack and enquired where my panniers were. When I told him what happened he apologized profusely for his countryman and gave me a brand new set of panniers from his tool shed!!

His name was Jean-Noel, a real road angel!

-pic from outside his house-

RalphP

In New Zealand, I stopped at a point where there were two lakes and a hill from which I thought I could get a good view of both lakes at once. The hilltop looked just a short way up so I leaned my bike against a fence post and walked up. The hilltop kept receding with more and more hill coming into view. It seems that I forgot all about my bike and ended up having a terrific adventure on this outrageously beautiful, quite high hill and ending up coming down another way (of course!) quite far from my bike. Walking back along the road, a pick-up stopped with two guys in it and one said to me, "Is that your bike back there?" I said yes and he said an old couple had been waiting for hours by the bike. They thought maybe I'd drowned but anyway they were watching over my bike (and everything I owned). I was horror-stricken at the trouble I'd caused but the guys said, "No, you're all right." I arrived back and met the two angels who'd been taking care of my bicycle. Funny this thread should come up. I thought of them just yesterday and deeply wished I had "kow-tow'ed" to them right there in the road: knelt down and touched my head on the ground! And special credit to the guys who'd helped me to feel less self-disgust at what I'd done. Oh New Zealand!!

nancy sv

Wow!! Great stories!! You know - I really think stories like these need to get out. Why is it that all we hear about are the rapers and murderers and thieves.